Allofmp3.com, the apparently-legal-under-Russian-law-yet-not-quite-legitimate-anywhere music download site, has moved a tiny step closer to becoming a full-featured competitor for iTMS with the development of its allTunes software. Although still in beta form, allTunes (the name of which, I'm sure, bears only a coincidental resemblance to iTunes) allows users to scan the Allofmp3.com database, download and purchase songs, and play them. Sound familiar?

For those who haven't heard much about it, Allofmp3.com is a Russian site offering music downloads for much lower prices and optionally higher quality than are available elsewhere. A song downloaded from Allofmp3.com might cost 9¢ for a bit rate of 192Kb/s, with a price of US$1.50 for the whole album. In comparison, iTMS would cost 99¢ at lower-quality 128Kb/s, and the whole album would be priced at US$9.99.

This is just another exaple of the illegal way not only being cheaper (of course stealing is going to be cheap), but also much better for a customer. You can choose between many codecs, and there is no DRM involved either, so you can play your music anywhere, with anything, at any time...