PressPlay + Roxio?

securitas writes "The NY Times and the LA Times (via SJ Mercury News) report that Roxio is close to a $30 million deal to buy Pressplay from Universal and Sony. The struggling joint-venture has less than 50,000 subscribers after three years. Roxio bought the Napster brand and assets at a bankruptcy auction last year and plans to resurrect Napster as a legal service."

Comments

Speaking of Napster

[First_In_Hell]

I saw the bankruptcy assets of Naptser last year. They had more data storage up for grabs than I had ever seen. We are talking hundreds of Terabytes!

Wasn't the whole legal arguement of Napster being that it was somewhat peer to peer? If Napster was not actually storing the data on their site, why did they need all of that storage?

Re:Who cares

[tmasman]

Not neccesrily!
I don't own a Mac & I don't plan to right now ($$$!) I would love to be able to leagally get the songs I want and I don't want to wait until the end of the year when Apple gets iTunes out for the PC. I would gladly welcome a viable iTunes-like PC solution!

But that's just me... Most people are just happy with Kazaa (regaurdless of the leagalities of it)

~ tmasman

Competition

[Phroggy]

PressPlay and Rhapsody were the two services Steve Jobs mentioned when he introduced Apple's iTunes Music Store, and he concluded that compared to iTMS, they both suck. They're both subscription services, and they place restrictions on what you can do with the songs you download. Apple also uses DRM, but Apple is MUCH more lenient about how you can use music you've purchased.

If Roxio is buying PressPlay, that can only mean increased competition among music providers, and competition is always a good thing.

By the way, although Apple hasn't had time to work out any deals with independant artists, many of them have been clamoring to get on board as quickly as possible, and Apple says they will definitely be working with them once they've had a chance to get more popular "Big 5" stuff added first. I haven't heard much interest in PressPlay distributing indy music. Probably doesn't hurt that so many musicians are Mac users.

Looking deeper...

[blinder]

You know, I guess I'm blessed (?) or just lucky that the wiring in my brain has enabled me to truly enjoy (for nearly 20 years now) independant music and at the same time that wiring has enabled me to loath and detest "commericial mainstream" music. So, when I want to downnload MP3's of music I enjoy... its never done "illegally" as 90% of the bands/artists I like generally thrive on the free exchange of their music.

Also, and here's the kicker, these bands generally make money off of me because after I download and burn 2 or 3 MP3's, I then buy the CD (and also get past CD's if applicable).

So, the whole point of "legal" vs. "illegal" burning/copying MP3's is quite irrelevant if one just opens up to independant/diy music.

I generally use places like diysearch, victory records (who always has a nice selection of their artists mp3's available).

The stuff is out there, in all genres, you just gotta find it, and be open to it.

Is it just me...

[gamgee5273]

...or is it that Roxio is setting itself up as a takeover target? I can't see Roxio itself ever really pulling this off. However, there have been rumors of both MS and Apple eyeing Roxio over the years. I think Roxio's just setting itself up to become a good takeover target.

Considering the Roxio line-up, Jam could easily go into Apple's current pro music offerings (like Logic) as well as being a standalone product. On the consumer side, imagine Toast being built-in to Mac OS X...that would be very nice. Then Apple could sell an iTunes "Pro" to Windows users with Easy CD Creator bundled/built-in, and it could sell off GoBack, VideoWave and PhotoSuite to some other company.

Never Seen that Before

[Hal The Computer]

Take a look at the end of the URL that the parent sends you too, very interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/19/technology/19T UN E.html?ex=1053921600&en=563cfca1e07d15b9&ei=5062&p artner=SLASHDOTSUCKS

Re:Perhaps the success of the Apple Music Store ..

[JudgeFurious]

I'm hoping Apple gets this Windows version out there asap. It would be nice to see them be the first to do something right and then actually get to capitalize on it's acceptance by those unwashed masses. Hopefully the record labels in their paranoid glory will be slow to try anyone else in this and Apple will get the time it needs to get the other 90 some odd percent of the world connected to their budding money machine

I'm still at a loss to explain why they didn't get that Windows version ready to go from day one though. That would have been amazing. If the Mac users pulled down a million songs in a week (and even then it was only the OSX users) and were able to get that much positive buzz about their numbers then can you picture what it would have been like if a Windows client had been available from the outset? What would people have been saying if they had cranked out ten million songs in the first week?

All they see is money

[SuperKendall]

All the companies involved see is that people are buying music from Apple. So, they figure that selling music the same way they've been trying to only with an established brand name (Napster) will sell even more music than Apple - after all, people must be buying now because it's from Apple, and will buy even more from a trusted name like Napster! It's just an attempt to leverage a brand into selling music. It's the same stuff underneath with a shiny coating, if you will... they don't seem to have learned to "think different" (or even examine how much the Napster brand is worth at this point).

That's how they think, anyway... and so the service will just be a repeat of Pressplay.

Unless the mimic Apple, they're dead

[esconsult1]

Look, I just bought a new Mac last week, for the main purpose of using Apple's music service. Until the other services wake up and at minimal *exactly* duplicate Apple's service, they are going to lose out very badly.

Because of Pressplay and other services absymal feature set, there is no way that I would have ever signed up. I was an E-Music subscriber for a number of years, but when my subscription ended, the genius marketing folks over there never bothered to auto-renew it! Because they were so stupid at marketing over there, I just never bothered to go through the trouble of signing up again.

As one of those souls who happen to *buy* all my music, Apple is the way to go. I hope Roxio has good luck, but I can't see how they are going to even use the Napster name or technologies in any way without giving the record companies the willies. Then again, perhaps they have something in mind that will blow our minds in a few months.

Re:Perhaps the success of the Apple Music Store ..

[Surak]

Microsoft?

Do you really expect Microsoft to sit idly by while Apple makes $$$$ hand over fist, winning over converts in the process?

Microsoft may not be the most ethical of companies, and they may not be the producer of the most stable or the most secure software in the world, but one thing they're not is stupid. If there's any money to be made in the software and Internet content businesses, you better believe Microsoft will be standing there making it. And the delivery system will be centered around the fully-DRM-enabled Windows Media Player and .Net technologies. Count on it.

Re:The reason people steal music

[los furtive]

I agree with you entirely and I find it interesting to read your comment since last evening myself and a few friends were discussing how the rock genre is in the process of dying and that an inevitable void that will occur when bands such as the Rolling Stones finally disapear for good.

We came to the agreement that a market would exist for bands to emulate the stones, led zepp and others and be quite successful at it since current 'original' bands just don't cut it and fail to properly carry the legacy. Already existing examples we could thing of included The Back Doors and Bjorn Again both of whom are able to draw a crowd of 2,000 at almost any given moment.

So, how long will it be until officially sanctioned cover bands step in to replace the Stones once they get too old to tour, but are still a profitable commodity?