Music companies and entrepreneurs around the world are quite excited about the growth potential of streaming music. Understand differences between Streaming vs. Downloading and top sites for streaming and downloading Digital Music.
Right now there are many who consume digital music by downloading it from stores like Apple’s iTunes store or Amazon MP3 Store, or by using streaming music services, such as Spotify and Pandora.
Here we take a look at the pros and cons of both – streaming music vs downloading music.
Difference Between Downloading and Streaming Music
Downloading music
Most users are familiar with this method. Downloading tracks involves purchasing (single tracks or albums) from Apple’s iTunes Store, Amazon MP3 Store or some similar online music store, or even purchasing tracks directly from an artist or label website.
There’s also another option of downloading music for free from file sharing and BitTorrent sites (illegal method, takes money from the mouths of starving musicians).
Here, we will assume the paid option, and its a common method to listen to your favorite music.
When you download music, the audio file is downloaded on to your computer’s hard drive (in either MP3, AAC, or WMA format), and you may use it as you wish- play on your computer, networked media player, portable music player, or smartphone.
After several downloads, you will have your own library of digital music files, residing with you.
But there’s another method, and that is to rent the music, and that is where the streaming music services comes into play.
Streaming music service
Using Streaming music services (Spotify, Pandora) is another way to access music online.
These services stock a huge library of music tracks that they essentially rent out to you on a month-to-month basis for a monthly fee (even free in certain cases).
You pay one flat monthly fee and then listen to as much music as you want, and anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection.
The streaming company owns the music; you don’t own any of it; its streamed to you online in real time.
When you cancel/stop your subscription, you can no longer listen to the music tracks.
When to opt for Downloading Music
Here are scenarios where downloading music makes sense.
- You wish to have your own personal music collection. Music collectors also like to have information about the music – track name, artist name, genre, composer, year recorded, and so forth that helps them organize their collection better.
- An artist or a label may pull their music from a given service. But when you purchase a track, however, you have the audio file. You can listen to it whenever, where ever, and as many times as you like. .
For such things, you have to purchase, download, and store that music on your own system.
Here are some of the downsides:
- Building a large music library by downloading costs money, though it may not pinch you initially because you build it gradually.
- Technical issues with downloading: Some files may not be playable on every device or software program you own. While formats like MP3, Apple’s AAC are near universal, other formats are not. It’s possible that a certain file won’t play on a certain (most annoying thing to happen).
When Streaming Music Makes Sense
Here are some of the advantages of opting for Streaming Music:
- Streaming music services turn out to be cheaper and there are no compatibility issues (that you have with music downloads.)
- For a low amount ($5 or $10 a month), you get access to millions of music tracks
- You can listen to this music on any device connected to the Internet.
- Streaming music is best for the casual listener.
- Listening to streaming music is as easy as tuning the dial on an FM radio.
- You may listen to the music on any device (connected to the Internet) – your computer, your tablet, your smart phone, etc.
Serious music collectors don’t like streaming music for several reasons.
- With streaming services it’s like listening to the radio; you don’t own anything; there’s nothing to collect.
- The audio quality is a notch lower compared to CDs/MP3s (not music to an audiophile’s golden ears)
- You may not experience a perfectly smooth listening experience (jittery music or freezing up altogether), depending on the available Internet connection speed, especially when using a public hotspot.
You cannot listen to music without an Internet connection (so no streaming music while driving in your car, flying on an airplane, and so on)
Some streaming music service may not have the music you want to listen to. Even tough, they offer very large libraries, the selection may not be to your liking.
What’s Best for You: Downloading or Streaming?
I hope you now understand that streaming is transitory, whereas downloading is permanent.
So will streaming music services replace music downloads?
Maybe not; even if they improve the audio quality and their collection, music streaming still has a dependency on the internet connection.
But then music streaming is much cheaper. There are many who use streaming audio to discover new music, rather than listen to their favorite music. Besides, you can always listen for free (more or less) and then decide if you want to download the track/album and add to your collection.
Top music streaming music sites
For many, the writing is clear on the wall – streaming is the future of music. Every year, album sales are on the decline, and while some singles do sell millions, it’s not enough for the existence of an entire industry.
There are a number of music streaming services in business, but the top ones are Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora.
- Amazon Music Unlimited & Prime Music: Prime Music is included with Amazon Prime so it’s best for Prime members. Please note that you can use Music Unlimited only on that single device.
- Apple Music is best for those who have large iTunes libraries and/or prefer using the Apple ecosystem.
- Spotify: Best for those who want plenty of music on a variety of devices.
Pandora: Best for those who like hands-off listening experience, just sit back and listen to what the service picks for you.
Music Streaming: Features
- Most streaming services offer customers the option of streaming music on various platforms i.e. the web, IOS and Android.
- Most offer 2 tiers to customers, free version with ads and the paid version without ads.
- Paid version don’t show ads and users usually get access to unlimited songs in their collection as well as access to exclusive content.
Streaming vs Downloads
So what’s the future for ‘Music Downloads’?
Many think that ‘downloads’ is on its way out. Most users do download a track once in a while, but many feel there’s really no need for it.
The experience you get from streaming services, in terms of how you consume your music, such as – listening on the go, backing up your tracks to listen to them later, listening at home, or whatever you want to do, the experience is really, really good with streaming services.
“A lot of artists I know are making a lot more money on streaming than they are from downloads. The money they make per-download is clearly a lot higher than what they’re making per stream, but they’re still making more overall on streaming. That’s already happening, and it’s very normal these days.” – ONErpm founder and CEO Emmanuel Zunz.
Streaming is the Future Of Music, Although it Looks Shaky Currently
While the business models for streaming aren’t working out very well, with the bigger players (Spotify, Pandora, and the likes) incurring losses, things are likely to change in the future.
Despite revenues not in sync with the growth seen in streaming among consumers, experts feel that things will change when people start getting really comfortable with streaming (another 2-3 years). And that’s when the money will start coming in.
Apple Music Poised for Domination of Music Industry
Apple has been a game changer in many fields and now it looks like they are sweeping over the business of music too. Apple Music is an on-demand streaming service which has become a raging success. After some technical glitches, Apple Music has overcome Spotify in terms of subscription.
But what has really got the industry buzzing is Apple’s radio station that broadcasts live music 24/7 called Beats 1. Beats 1 primarily focuses on new music. Although, Beats 1 was planned as a promotional tool for Apple Music’s on-demand streaming service, it has managed to come out of the shadow and become a separate individual concept that is gaining popularity by the minute. Beats 1 has created enough buzz with new music which is heard by people all across the world at the same time. It seems Beat doesn’t go by popularity of the song, it just plays what they think is cool. The playlist includes a mix of pop, indie-rock, hip-hop, EDM and some of U.K’s grime artists.
Another interesting feature of the Beat is that artists are given their own home page where they can release content directly to their fans and audience. This is called as the Connect Network, and Apple is already signed up renowned artists, the likes of Dre and Keith Richards to use Connect for their debut music. They have already helped artists like Pharell Williams, Drake, Eminem to make music videos. Apple is clearly expanding aggressively. They are already leaders in music retail business and with their streaming, promotion strategies, they are growing stronger. This will probably infuse some much needed novelty into the staggering business.
Streaming-Music Listeners Really Don’t Care About Sound Quality: Survey
This may come as a surprise to some but a recent survey suggests that most streaming-music listeners don’t mind if the sound quality is CD-like or not, and they will not pay to get CD-like sound quality on streaming music sites.
A survey by MusicWatch, found that very few music fans (just 6 percent) were ready to pay more to listen to music with better audio quality.
This is where companies like Spotify & Apple Music seem to have got it right, as they offer MP3-quality sound, but still have millions of paying users (their services are inexpensive).
The survey also revealed that users are ready to pay provided they get complete control over what to listen and when to listen, such as the ability to select any artist, album, or song they want, whenever they want.
Suresh has a background in computer science, in addition to being a keyboard/piano player. He has a keen interest in music, audio & video gear, and also manages the business part of KeytarHQ. Read more here.
keytarhq says
Remember Napster? The wildly popular peer-to-peer music file sharing service (launched in 1999) that turned the music industry upside down? Napster is back, and this time with a legitimate offering.
Seattle based Rhapsody, an online music store subscription service, is now becoming Napster worldwide.
The re-branded entity will offer the same music, same service and same price, with no changes to user’s playlists, favorites, albums and artists.
Rhapsody’s Chief Executive said, “The difficult actions (layoffs) we are taking now will create operational efficiency and position Rhapsody/Napster for growth while further expanding our global partnerships.”
I guess, Rhapsody is gearing itself for competition from Amazon, which will soon be launching its own subscription music service.
US courts found Napster guilty of facilitating music piracy and ordered its shut down, ultimately leading to the company’s bankruptcy. The ‘Napster’ brand however lived on, and was acquired by US retailer Best Buy in 2008 for US$121 million.
Digital music group Rhapsody later bought the ‘Napster’ brand in 2011 (for an undisclosed price).