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I go back and forth on file trading. I try to live an honest life, and file trading is inherently furtive and shady. But for music lovers, the file-trading networks are like free drugs. On the other hand, the downloading process can be inconvenient and unreliable. On the other hand, file trading has been invaluable in helping me assemble material for musical projects and lectures.

But it's wrong! I know it's wrong. So I'm going to stop. Just as soon as I finish downloading this MP3 of the DeFranco Family's 1973 bubblegum classic "Heartbeat, It's A Love Beat."

Just kidding. I downloaded that last spring. But my new interest in Top 40 radio (which has faded a bit since I blogged about it a few weeks ago) finally spurred me to investigate music-industry-sanctioned downloading. And the results have been, well, OK.

I first tried MusicMatch, which began selling songs for 99 cents each last September. For ease of use, MusicMatch has it all over the trading networks. When you download a track, you can be pretty certain that the transfer will complete successfully and that the track will be what it purports to be--the record labels have been known to seed the peer-to-peer networks with dummy files of especially popular tracks. MusicMatch's sound quality is good enough for these ears, and the track I bought from the service, Kelly Clarkson's "Low," even came with a picture of the adorable chanteuse.

The rub came when I tried to play the song on my portable music device. I transferred the track, but when I tried to listen to it my player's tiny screen flashed the letters "DRM," which stand for digital rights management. My Kelly Clarkson track is not in the ubiquitous MP3 format but in Microsoft's newer WMA format, which has features that, among other things, limit my music purchases to certain players.

This is infuriating. It is as though I bought a CD that I am allowed to listen to in the living room but not the car. What's worse, MusicMatch's selection is surprisingly limited: I was not able to buy Sarai's delightfully sleazy single "Ladies." If the record companies want to discourage informal file trading, they need to do better than this. I downloaded another track or two from MusicMatch, then gave up.

The last few days brought a new development. I'm writing a preview of a concert by the Von Bondies, the Detroit rockers best known for bar brawls with the White Stripes. The Von Bondies' new record is due out March 9, but my deadline is this week, so for writing purposes I hoped to content myself with their one studio release, 2001's Lack of Communication. No record store in town has the disc, though, so in some desperation I turned to Apple's music service, iTunes, a Windows version of which has been available since October. I didn't find Lack of Communication, but to my delight the service already carries the Von Bondies' new, unreleased disc, Pawn Shoppe Heart, so I eagerly bought it for $9.99. (When it comes to new technology, I'm always happy to spend someone else's money.) The presentation is barebones: no art, no lyrics, just music. But the download was perfect for my needs.

I poked around a bit in iTunes, and the selection impressed me; I was particularly intrigued by the audio books. Unfortunately, iTunes files can only be played on Apple's iPod portable player, and my player is not an iPod, so on that front I am again out of luck. As it happens, I burned a CD of Pawn Shoppe Heart for the truck, and for fun I ripped it back to my computer and found I could indeed listen to those files on my portable player. But this obviously is not a good solution in the long run.

In sum, my first experiences buying music online were a little like my earliest sexual encounters. There was the promise of much excitement. But the process itself was mostly awkward.