There have been quite a few roadblocks for digital music fans to complain about over the past five years or so. Important developers have been sued for their innovations, consumers have lost rights they took for granted in the analog age, and the best ways to get digital tunes have been almost exclusively illegal. Even worse, there's little hope that other countries will have new approaches since (as Congressman Boucher told me) RIAA lobbyists have swayed foreign governments in their direction before our elected officials even get to discuss our digital music laws with them--especially the much-reviled DMCA, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And as if that weren't enough, the Windows version of Apple iTunes (and, with it, iTunes Music Store) won't be available until later this year.

That said, we've come a long way in that time, and there are a few bright spots in the digital music picture that even the pessimist in me can't ignore. Here they are, in no particular order.

Satellite radio
As I write this, I'm listening to a $70 PC-based XM satellite radio receiver that's connected to my computer via USB, bypassing the bandwidth and copyright issues posed by the Internet and streaming the music straight from a satellite to my desk instead. The FCC's ongoing deregulation of our airwaves has enabled Clear Channel and other large corporate beneficiaries to flood local radio stations with the same nationwide content, from coast to coast. Since AM and FM stations are no longer truly local, satellite radio could not have arrived at a better time. It offers far more listening options, better sound quality, and a greatly reduced ad rotation for a few dollars a month, all in your car, your home, or both--a fair deal, in my estimation.

MP3 everywhere
At the outset of the digital audio revolution, the Eiger Labs F10 was the only device aside from a computer that could play MP3s. These days, everything from PDAs to DVD players can play your digital music collection.

Apple jump-starts digital music sales
I've argued that consumers would be willing to forgo file-sharing services such as Kazaa in favor of a paid digital music service that didn't treat them like criminals. Steve Jobs finally proved me right, by selling about 500,000 songs per week through iTunes Music Store--and that's just to the approximately 5 percent of the market that uses a Mac. The rest of the industry has been forced to respond, meaning that we should see some better offerings for PC users, even before Windows iTunes arrives later this year. For instance, Microsoft just announced a plan to convert the entire MusicNet catalog into WMA files that can be played on about 50 portable devices. As for Apple, it will undoubtedly expand its offering, perhaps even by buying Roxio/Pressplay/Napster. But no matter who's the provider, music fans can look forward to a larger selection of reasonable online services.

Thanks to a recent agreement between colleges and record execs, school stations are returning to the Web in droves.

Sanity returns to Webcasting laws
Of all the potential uses for streaming audio, sending an online version of a university's radio programming to its students has to be the biggest no-brainer of them all. After all, the bandwidth is internal, the content's tailored for the audience, and the listening demographic is wired for sound. But many schools were forced to shut down their music Webcasts rather than pay the approximate 1-cent-per-listener-per-hour fee asked by the music industry. Thanks to a recent agreement between colleges and record execs, school stations are returning to the Web in droves.

	Ellula inflatable speakers (Click to enlarge.)

The freaky fringe
As the digital music category matured, manufacturers competed by taking risks on new functions and designs. Thanks to them, early adopters and fans of quirky stuff can track down a wider variety of strange products, including the following: the Pogo Products Radio YourWay AM/FM Recorder (a portable TiVo for radio); the Audi-Oh (mature users only); Ellula inflatable speakers; Dr. Bott's iPod purse (with speakers); PhatNoise's fully integrated MP3 jukeboxes for cars (although with all their recent partnering successes, they might be considered mainstream); and the first digital audio receiver to use 802.11b, from Cd3o.

I could go on and on, but hopefully, you already get the point: The digital music revolution has matured past its infancy, and an optimist would declare that things can only get better from here. I'm not willing to go that far, but perhaps I'll have less to complain about during this new stage of the game.