THE Universal Music Group broke ranks with its record-label rivals last week by announcing plans to offer free downloads of its artists’ tracks for the first time through a website called Spiralfrog.

However, industry commentators warned that the service will not be as good as it may at first appear.

Spiralfrog will offer users access to about 300,000 tracks from artists such as Eminem, U2 and Abba. That’s far fewer than established sites such as itunes.co.uk and napster.co.uk, both of which have more than 2m tracks — although other record labels such as EMI are thought to be considering listing their catalogues on Spiralfrog.

But perhaps the main catch is that Spiralfrog tracks will not be compatible with Apple’s phenomenally popular iPod, chosen by seven out of ten people buying digital-music players.

This is because Apple, keen to hold on to its dominance of the MP3 player and music download market, has vetoed the site.

Spiralfrog is nevertheless expected to do well because it will be the first website to legally offer free music when it launches this year in America and Canada and next spring in Britain. At present, legal sites usually charge a fee per track or album, or a monthly subscription for unlimited downloads.

Alexander Ross of media-law firm Wiggin said: “This is quite a shocking move because it is the first time music publishers have issued a licence for tracks to be offered free of charge. It could be the start of a big change.”

The recording industry has long fought music piracy, which enables fans to download tracks for free or virtually no cost from illegal or overseas websites. Allofmp3.com, a popular Russian site, charges from only 2p a track, for example.

Spiralfrog’s take on offering free music is that it will make money through advertising; users will have to sit through 90 seconds of adverts before downloading each song. Worse still, the downloaded material will last for only six months.

Guy Kewney of newswireless.net, a technology website, is unimpressed. He said: “It seems to me that this is just a way for Universal to get more publicity for its music, while gaining a captive audience for its advertisements. I don’t really see how it’s any different to visiting an internet radio station request show and recording music free of charge that way — apart from that the tracks self-destruct after a relatively short time.”

Owners of iPods who want to use Spiralfrog can still listen to the free tracks — as long as they are happy to break the law.

It is possible to burn music from the internet on to a CD that can be played in any stereo. All you need is the right software — much of which is available free online — and some blank CDs. Once you have done this it can be transferred onto your iPod.

Online music downloads are becoming increasingly big business. An estimated 420m tracks were downloaded last year and the market is expected to expand by a further 35% over the next 12 months.

The importance of download listeners to a modern-day artist’s success was illustrated earlier this year when Crazy by Gnarls Barkley became the first single to hit the top of the charts on download sales alone.

I Don’t Feel Like Dancing by The Scissor Sisters is expected to reiterate this message by entering the charts in the top 10 this weekend on the basis of download sales.

The market-leading site by some way is Apple’s iTunes, which charges 79p a track and about £7.90 per album.

Others are desperate to cash in on the burgeoning popularity of downloads.

Tescodownloads.com, part of the supermarket chain, offers recent tracks for 79p and new albums from £7.99 compared with about £1.99 and about £9.99 from a supermarket. The service is compatible with most MP3 players but not iPods.

Virgindigital.co.uk also charges 79p for tracks but is cheaper for albums at £6.49. Again, it cannot be used to put music on iPods.

There is also a subscription service from £9.99 a month for unlimited downloads. If you download more than two albums a month, you are better off with a subscription service.

Napster.co.uk charges 79p for a track, £7.95 for an album and £9.95 for a monthly subscription. Again, iPod users cannot download Napster tunes.

There are also other drawbacks with the subscription services. For example, unless you pay an extra £5 you don’t actually own the songs you download from Napster.

This means you cannot burn — or copy — them onto a CD, and if you cancel your subscription, you will no longer be able to listen to them on your computer or MP3 player.

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