BigPond Music slammed the report , claiming it compared "oranges and bananas" and did not fairly reflect BigPond Music's pricing because it only quoted non-member prices. Downloading problems experienced by the CHOICE reviewer were "a short term problem some months back associated with a site upgrade," according to BigPond spokesperson Craig Middleton.

BigPond Music was rightly criticised for its complex pricing, confusing digital rights management and "appalling customer service," says CHOICE spokesperson Ria Voorhaar.

"It's not CHOICE's fault BigPond doesn't offer consumers consistent pricing that makes it easy for them to shop around. Consumer feedback in relation to similar issues, such as phone and internet bundles, indicates that complex pricing models make it difficult for consumers to shop around and create confusion," Voorhaar says.

"In regards to pricing, the price listed in the article is for the 10 tracks we bought (or attempted to buy) from each of the sites. That is clearly disclosed in the article's table which says 'Price paid per track in April 2007'). We used 'typical' tracks from music charts. One of those was a Missy Higgins song. Pricing strategies obviously differ across music stores and this is the best way to get a snapshot of what's on offer in a way that is consistent across all stores. The prices reflect the price we paid for the same tracks. So we paid $1.69 for the song on iTunes, $1.89 on ninemsn for the same song, and $1.69 on BigPond. If we had paid 99c for the track, it would have been included in the table, but we didn't, and the price included in the story is reflective of that."
 
CHOICE is confident its test methodology is sound and the results are an accurate reflection of the consumer experience, Voorhaar says.

"CHOICE refused the offer of a refund because we needed the tracks to compare consistently for our tests. And the 'short term' problem lasted more than a month - we have the phone records to prove it. Not to mention the appalling customer service which 'lost' our email so that the problem was never escalated (to this day it hasn't been resolved). The customer service we did receive could not resolve our problem, even though our shadow shopper was technically minded."

"If CHOICE experienced problems with licences, then it follows that this would be indicative of the experience of many consumers too. Downloading songs should be easy and shouldn't require that users understand about licences and DRM."
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