I was perusing MySpace last week for new music, when I stumbled across a catchy electropop group called Ultraviolet Sound. After deciding I wanted to buy their album, I was surprised to discover it wasn’t on iTunes or Amazon, nor was it available on CD. Instead, the band had a widget on their MySpace page powered by a company called TrueAnthem that allowed me to download their entire album for free. But like all things free, there is a catch. Or several.

TrueAnthem is a relatively new company that believes music should be free to download, artists should still get paid for it, and that advertising is the way to allow both of these things to happen. While I tend to agree with most of that in theory, the way it worked in practice left me wishing I could just pay my $9.99 to get the album on iTunes.

In order to download the Ultraviolet Sound album, I first had to register for an account, which is annoying all by itself. (Take a lesson from Radiohead: Because it’s free doesn’t mean people will come running.) Once I did this and logged into their somewhat-buggy MySpace widget, I attempted to download the album. It was hardly seamless. You are forced to download every single track separately, and it asks you for the download destination each and every time. It took several minutes to actually acquire the entire album.

They also weren’t kidding about bringing in advertisers.

Each MP3 on the album begins with an advertisement for Adidas Originals, with the exception of one track on the album, which isn’t a song at all, but a giant ad in MP3 form. Annoying? Yes.

Furthermore, the MP3’s themselves are encoded in low-quality 128kbit, and also lack album art or complete metadata. I don’t get that part. It’s super easy to encode music in a higher-quality format. If TrueAnthem really wants to compete with paid music by providing a similar experience at less cost, they need to at least give us decent-quality music.

Perhaps the worst part about working with TrueAnthem is that you need to sign an exclusive contract with them. For a period of about a year, you cannot sell or distribute your music in any other fashion than through TrueAnthem. No CD’s, no Amazon, no iTunes. Regardless of how forward-thinking TrueAnthem thinks they are being by providing music totally free of charge, exclusivity undermines the spirit of music distribution on the internet, which is about choice. Consumers of music have the option right now to buy music on CD in stores, or from whatever online music store they prefer.

In fact, the whole reason why the music business is in the mess that they are is because of exclusivity. Rather than giving consumers the power to choose how they wanted their music, the business forced it upon them until the consumers revolted. It’s 2008, and this does not fly.

While I have to applaud TrueAnthem for finding a way to get paid while giving music away for free, listening to an album of low-quality MP3’s with an ad at the beginning of each one is annoying, and I would much rather have paid $10 for the same album with no ads and higher quality.

Would most people? Perhaps not the majority, but many people would — which is why you shouldn’t be forcing the artists into exclusive contracts.

TrueAnthem is attempting to infuse traditional label business practices into a new distribution method, rather than recognizing that this is a whole new ball game. The rules have changed — not just the players. They also are providing a record label experience without providing their bands with much marketing assistance, which is the one thing that traditional labels still excel at. In addition, there are various technical hurdles with their MySpace widget and the resulting files that make it even harder to use their distribution system. They are a record label in sheep’s clothing, and while I admire their intentions, I hope to see them change their ways.

If not, then I await the day their contract with Ultraviolet Sound expires so I can pick up their album elsewhere.