Click to download: Jukebox jury

It was revealed this week that Oxford University has added Spotify to its prohibited websites list because students were consuming so much of the university's bandwidth using the free music service. What many of Spotify's 2 million UK users may not realise is that the service is based on a peer-to-peer network, which means Spotify supports its own central servers by leaning on the bandwidth of its users. In other words, while you're listening, your computer will be sending and receiving data to and from the computers of other Spotify users. In fact, on Spotify's support pages, some disgruntled users talk of having as many as 48 consecutive connections ( bit.ly/spotifyp2p ). There has been no suggestion that the encrypted connections are insecure, but it does explain why listening to Spotify might use rather more bandwidth than you thought. That said, providing your ISP doesn't cap your internet usage, Spotify remains a brilliant service. And it's actually just got even better thanks to the terrific www. spotiseek.com . The site uses data from both Spotify and Last.fm to help provide listening inspiration. Just type in the name of an artist you like and it quickly puts together a 16-track compilation of similar music, which you can then play in Spotify. It's a little unnerving how accurately Last.fm's data can pinpoint both your existing tastes and music you'll like, however obscure the artist you choose to enter. Even typing in Family Gotown, whose Inspiral Carpets support set I vaguely recall enjoying in 1992, produced an extremely listenable mix of undiscovered sounds and long-forgotten favourites. Last year, the UK paid to download 16m albums and 149m singles, with both of those numbers showing a big rise on 2008 figures. The iTunes store still dominates the UK legal download market, despite the fact that whichever digital store you buy from, the music will play on the all-conquering iPod. But there are often better deals to be found, as demonstrated by TuneChecker.com , an MP3 price comparison site launched in November by the penny pinchers behind MoneySavingExpert.com. The intuitive new site claims to have attracted 400,000 users in its first month. Certainly it is startling to see the difference in prices being charged for MP3s. For instance, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance single currently ranges from 29p to 99p, while Paulo Nutini's Sunny Side Up album is on offer at everything from £3 to £9.99. Clearly it does pay to shop around. iTunes will, however, be worth a look tomorrow when you'll be able to download one-off performances from tonight's Hope for Haiti Now telethon, featuring acts including Bruce Springsteen, Wyclef Jean, Coldplay, Jay-Z, U2 and Stevie Wonder . The two-hour telethon will also be broadcast globally on YouTube, as it happens. Send your links to: [email protected]