First, I acknowledge that they have a weird-ish name for no apparent reason. I think we're all used to oddly-named web sites. But what is Soundike? Soundike sells downloadable music mp3's. Their base price is 15 cents per track, with discounts for full album purchases. You have to create and fund an account before you can make a purchase. Then, your purchases draw against your balance until you deplete it. I believe the minimum funding amount is $15. If you fund your account with a bigger amount, Soundike will credit you with additional dollars. I elected to fund my account at the $50 level and I received a $35 bonus for doing so. (Today when I checked, $50 will now get you a $25 bonus.)
Who is Soundike and how long have they been in business? I'm not sure how long they have been in business, but I've seen reviews of them from 5 years ago, so presumably they've been in business at least that long. The "who" is an interesting question. I remember the website saying they do business from Cyprus. Online, I've seen claims that they are Russian or Ukrainian. Ass_Hat thought they were Russian. My credit card statement listed "Soundike Nicosia" as the merchant for my funding purchase. So I'm going with Cyprus as their locale. Maybe it's run by a Russian national who lives there. I have no idea, and I'm not sure it's that important.
Soundike claims their music is being sold legally according to (Russian? Cypriot?) law. They claim their price structure is as it is due to the pricing norms that exist in their country, and they claim that it is legal for people in other countries to purchase from them. I will say that I am familiar with situations where product pricing varies greatly from country to country (e.g., CDs, movies, software, to name three) according to the local economic situation, so it doesn't seem that odd to me that music priced at 99 cents or $1.29 at Amazon in the US might be priced at 15 cents in a third world country. I'm also aware that the Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal to purchase an item overseas at the local price and then import it here for use or for resale, regardless of what the US-based pricing for that item might be.
My experience with Soundike so far has been mostly problem-free. I've purchased and downloaded groups of tracks without a hitch on five different occasions over the past 6 weeks. My balance which started at $85.30 is now down to $57.96, and I've received 264 tracks. By the way, when you first create your account, Soundike spots you with a 30 cent credit, so you can buy and download 2 tracks on their dime(s) before committing any of your own money.
So far, the glitches have been few. Occasionally, a song title might have a typographical error, requiring a post-download fix. Some of the content is encoded at the low bit rate of 128 kbps. Also, some of their music comes from vinyl rips. They always identify when vinyl is the source and they provide the bit rate for each album, so you'll want to take that into account before making a purchase. You can preview (in lo-fi) any track you want to buy to get an idea of what it sounds like before you commit. Going in, I'm aware that (some? many?) Soundike tracks might be of lower audio quality than those I might purchas from Amazon or iTunes. I think that's an acceptable trade-off for the price. Most of the tracks I bought have no apparent quality issues.
If you purchase a full album, it comes to you in a ZIP archive and includes one file of front cover album art. Each album you buy has to be downloaded separately. There is no folder structure within their ZIPs, so be aware of that when you unpack the archive. If you purchase individual tracks, you will download individual MP3 files one at a time and no artwork is included. There is no download manager. The download process itself is very straightforward: go to your download area, click the download icon next to the track or full album you purchased, and the download is initiated. Downloads are quick enough -- a few seconds per track.
Soundike's MP3 tags are present but basic. They don't offer other file formats, so if you're looking for m4a, wma, ogg, flac, or any other kind of music file, you'll have to look elsewhere. Your downloads are all free of DRM restrictions.
The only other drawback, if you can call it that, is that their inventory is not comprehensive. For instance, I was interested in adding to my Kingston Trio collection. I found that Soundike did not have EVERY Kingston Trio album, although they did have quite a few. I was able to find 80-plus KT tracks that I didn't already have, approximately doubling my KT stash. I suspect their newer catalog is more complete.
They have some lesser features that are nice. You can see your complete purchase history at any time. You can "archive" your tracks after you download them, which simply means that the tracks are no longer in your download queue. You can re-download any of your previously-purchased tracks simply by moving them from your archive back to your download area. You can play your purchased tracks online using Soundike's "beta" music player (I haven't tried this). You can customize your downloads by using Soundike's template choices of artist name, album name, track title, and track number from the album, plus punctuation, so that your tracks from Soundike will be named according to your preference.
Am I at risk? Well, if Soundike goes dark tomorrow, I'm out $58, including the $35 I got from them as a bonus. Plus I wouldn't be able to re-download my tracks if I wanted to do that (which I don't). I don't believe they retain the credit card info after the account is funded. The site says that they "have the highest level of data exchange encryption and never store any your [sic] credit card info" and "all transactions are processed via SSL connections by Thawte". They're only accepting Visa right now. I keep a close eye on my credit card statements, so I don't feel like I'm at any greater risk of having my cc account misused by Soundike than I would be by many other online merchants. In other words, I think the risk is low.
I've since discovered that there are a few other sites like Soundike, some of which may offer even lower pricing. After I use up my balance at Soundike, maybe I'll check into some of those other sites before I fund Soundike again. But really, the site is performing pretty well for me, and I'm not itching to make a change.
So, is Soundike a scam? Is it a rip-off? Based on my experience as a consumer, the answer is "no" and "no". Are they taking unfair advantage of legal loopholes in their own country? I have no way of knowing that, and frankly, it's not my problem. I'll let the various governments fight that issue out. Unless something changes, I'll continue to use Soundike with a clear conscience and with relative confidence.
(Disclaimer and legal stuff: I wrote this review myself on October 16-17, 2013, based solely upon my own experience as a Soundike customer. I received no consideration from Soundike or from any other entity for writing or publishing this review. If I elect to license this article for republishing later, I might receive compensation for that, as one might reasonably expect. This review is copyrighted by the author. All rights are reserved. Reproduction without the express consent of the author is prohibited.)