One of the real benefits of the rapidly expanding services now available via the Internet is the massive expansion in the provision of online music and related services.

Gone are the days of waiting until Saturday morning to get a bus into your local town to go to the record shop to buy the latest recording from your favourite artist.

Today there are many new and exciting services provided via the Internet to make this task a whole lot easier and much more immediate.

With a click of your mouse, your favourite music can be downloaded and in an instant loaded to your favourite iPod or whatever is your MP3 player of choice.

The ability to download music and material is a dream come true for most music lovers. The simple fact that you can now access and download your favourite tracks and music onto your MP3 singly as opposed to the old days of having to buy the entire album. The satisfaction of now being able to enjoy your music without having to endure the always ever present dodgy tracks usually reserved for midway through side two of any album or Cassette.

Happy days indeed.

There are practically hundreds of services that are now on offer and the choice of material available has never been wider. Because of the nature of the medium involved and the benefits of economies of scale, services are now available that would not have been commercially viable even as recently as a few years back.

If you were to ask most people about Music service online then probably the two most used phrases in any reply would contain the words iPod and Amazon but in reality these are only the tip of the iceberg.

There are hundreds of other stores where you can purchase and download music just as easily. There are now in place distribution services that are connected directly to the major record labels themselves.

An example of this is Connect, which is the in-house pay-per-track service for Sony Music. It also handles music from other record labels as well. One of the downsides recently with the whole business of purchasing and downloading music from online sources has been the restrictive software used up until recently by the major labels to prevent the unauthorised copying and distribution of material. In a word an attempt to avoid Piracy.

This short sided approach has now been changed with the landmark decision reached recently between EMI Music and iPod whereby you can now transfer music from one source to another.

However there are few things that you need to take into consideration when getting involved in all of this. Firstly the pricing, expensive prices does not necessarily relate to good quality. Secondly the quality of the music provided, it is not always as good all-round, you would be surprised so check first. Lastly what format do you require your music to be in to ensure compatibility with whatever music player you are using?

Sounded so easy at the start did it not? It still is, all that you have to do is check the basics first.