Lowdown on downloads: Load up on pros, cons of music services.

Byline: Malcolm X Abram

The music industry is changing. Reluctantly.

After spending the last several years confused and confounded by the proliferation of music online, both legal and otherwise, the Recording Industry Association of America and the labels have accepted that downloading is the future of music, and the future is now.

It seems that every new month brings a new online music service, using a variety of business models. Microsoft is in the beta testing stage of its new store, and Virgin Digital, a subsidiary of the company that brought us Virgin Megastores, recently opened an online storefront.

Apple's iPods are being handed out to incoming students at some colleges. Other services are partnering with retail stores such as Best Buy and offering free trials, to ensure maximum exposure in what is becoming an increasingly crowded and very competitive market.

There's peer-to-peer file sharing, streaming content over high-speed connections and simple pay-per-song downloading. So far, song selection is the great equalizer, and the size of an online music service's catalog definitely matters. Pricing is also obviously important, but 99 cents per song looks to be the standard, with prices for full albums being a competitive variant.

There is no standard, but as always when new ways of generating googobs of money are discovered, a few companies have figured out how to do it right and have risen to the top of the food chain. We've test-driven four of the biggest and best-established services available, and tell you about them here with a minimum of technospeak.