In the past week, I went into the world of paying for a download - song downloads, that is. (I blame my Westpac Debit MasterCard for this.) I've downloaded four songs - two from the Australian iTunes Store - one free (iTunes does gapless playback brilliantly; and that extends to audio CDs! But I won't be buying an iPod, thanks.[/praise for Apple audio products]) and two from Beatport, an American online music store that specialises in dance and electronic music. Because I'm a serial procrastinator (I'm putting off lunch), I thought I'd do a comparison of the two online music stores . . .

iTunes Store
+ Being Australian, it has new Australian music that Beatport doesn't have.
+ iTunes plus means that I can get (most importantly) non-DRM 256 kbps music (albeit in a different format) for $1.69 a song. The entire Röyksopp back catalogue is iTunes plus, which will be handy one day.
+ Free songs every Tuesday (downloaded Bluejuice's Vitriol in the nick of time).
- On the other hand, some of the songs are DRM 128 kbps, which means I have to burn the song to a CD-RW, then rip it to Atrac3plus, instead of converting it.
- No Diefenbach songs (unless you're a Danish citizen and can buy songs from the Danish iTunes Store)
- Ridiculous prices for albums that you can get for ten bucks at JB Hi-Fi.
- Songs longer than whatever minutes can only be obtained if you buy the entire album.
- Songs can only be downloaded in one format.
- Takes ages to send e-mail receipts; it took them two days.
- They slugged $3.38 from my bank account for the Debit Card Authorisation. I hope they're giving half of it back. *glare*

Beatport
+ Non-DRM, high quality music in a variety of formats (320 kbps MP3 being one of them). Woo! This is why I bought The Presets' My People on Beatport instead of on iTunes - it was high quality and it was non-DRM. Sure, it was more expensive (as it was a new release), but I'd rather pay more for quality audio.
+ They have Diefenbach songs! YES! And I can buy and download them; no territorial restrictions (now; they were in place a few months ago, but that could have been 'cause my payment method was by PayPal)! DOUBLE YES!
+ E-mail receipts are instant. You suck, Apple.
+ Reasonable Debit Card Authorisation amounts. By reasonable, they're roughly the same amount as the price of the song, and not TWICE THE PRICE OF THE SONG LIKE FREAKIN' ITUNES!
+ When the price is converted, older songs are about the same price as the songs in iTunes. Yes, it's pretty obvious where I'd be going to buy my music.
+ Longer preview samples (two minutes in 48 kbps; iTunes is only thirty seconds, but I don't know what the bit rate is)
- Artists that are signed to major labels aren't available. e.g. Air and Daft Punk (both on Virgin Records).
- Not as much Australian content as iTunes (but it's an American store, so this becomes a neutral).

End result: Beatport>iTunes.