Correction: Due to a reporting error, Erica Shnayder’s connection to illegal downloading was incorrectly stated. She received a warning about illegal downloading. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Erica Shnayder doesn’t spend much time on the Internet.

However, last week the Syracuse University sophomore political science major opened her e-mail and found the university was warning students about the dangers of illegal downloading.

‘Figures they would catch me for downloading a song I didn’t even like,’ Shnayder said of Fergie’s ‘Fergalicious.’

But whether she likes it or not, illegal downloading is no longer an option for her on the campus network, so she is looking for alternatives.

Believe it or not, there are more music download Web sites than iTunes. eMusic.com, the largest pay-downloading service behind Apple’s music service, may sound similar to its counterpart, but is actually quite different.

iTunes charges its users 99 cents to download a song, with no limit on the number of downloads. eMusic charges a monthly subscription fee with a certain amount of downloads. The starting package costs $9.99 per month for 30 downloads, which averages out to be about 33 cents per song.

However, iTunes carries 3.5 million songs to eMusic’s 2 million, all of which are from independent labels.

While it may not be possible to download the newest Beyonce song at eMusic, the site still carries a wide variety of music from hip-hop to country to jazz. eMusic CEO and President David Pakman said in an e-mail that not having mainstream, MTV music on their site is one of their draws.

‘We focus on a specific customer, the serious music fan, the person who is interested in music outside of mainstream pop and hip-hop,’ Pakman said. ‘eMusic provides that music fan with deep editorial to help find hidden musical gems on the site, and a passionate music community where they can discuss and learn about new music. Also, our subscription plans offer low pricing that encourages music lovers to experiment and try new artists.’

One major advantage eMusic has over iTunes and other music downloading services is the ability to turn the songs downloaded into MP3s so they can be added to any MP3 device, including iPods, or burned to a CD.

Pakman said the ability to add music to an iPod has definitely helped their business.

‘The iPod is by far the most popular digital music device; there are 90 million iPods in the hands of consumers, and we want to be able to sell music to those customers,’ he said.

eMusic, which was founded in 1998, had its 100,000,000th song downloaded in December. The site started its subscription process three years earlier when it was bought by Dimensional Associates. In January, the company announced it had 250,000 subscribers.

‘It’s been a great year,’ Pakman said.

Shnayder said, for her, the site is definitely a possibility for her future music needs.

‘I would definitely consider using eMusic if I could get three songs for the price of one,’ she said.

As far as using iTunes because of the reputable Apple name, Shnayder said if there are better options out there, it doesn’t make a difference.

‘I think people are going to stop caring about the name Apple if they can find more affordable music,’ she said. ‘Especially when the school is cracking down on illegal downloading.’

Rachel Barnes, a junior biology major, said the type of music available would be her deciding factor.

‘I think I would definitely use it. It would depend on how many smaller bands I knew,’ Barnes said. ‘I would probably still use iTunes because I do listen to mainstream music from bigger labels.’

While eMusic is trying to get its name out in the digital music world, iTunes just released its iTunes 7, which not only offers their 3.5 million-song library, but also now gives customers the option of downloading games, movies and audio books.

While the new and improved iTunes might seem intimidating to the eMusic Corporation, Pakman said their company isn’t exactly in it to compete with iTunes because it focuses on a different type of music listener.

‘We aim for a different customer segment than iTunes, and we think this is a very large market with potentially 10 million customers,’ Pakman said. ‘Our goal is to be the best specialty entertainment retailer that caters to customers interested in non-mainstream content.’

Published on February 20, 2007 at 12:00 pm