Microsoft, OD2 Start European Music Service

useosx writes "Reuters is reporting that 'Microsoft Corp. announced on Thursday a pact with Europe's biggest digital music outfit, OD2, to form the continent's first major a la carte online download service. ... The move marks the first time European consumers can purchase song downloads off the Internet for under one euro ($1.13), and without requiring a monthly subscription, bringing the fee in line with the popular Apple Computer iTunes service, which is not yet available in Europe.'" Other stories: the Guardian, BBC.

Comments

No word on...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what kind of onerous usage restrictions will be imposed on purchased tracks.

Then again, since it uses Windows Media Player 9, I guess they figure we'll all just assume they'll be ridiculously limiting and intrusive, the way BuyMusic's are.

Next question, who will be their Tommy Lee-esque badboy-rocker pitchman? I vote for Bertrand Cantat, who just beat his actress girlfriend to death a few weeks ago.

Re:I hate to say it..

[Alkarismi]

I think the customer service will even poorer over here than it appears to be in the states (from what I've read).
The consolation is that it will finally start bringing home to *normal* users what a piece of cr*p the brave new DRM world is. When it starts *really* inconveniencing home users they're going to be PISSED OFF!

Three point singles pricing

[burgburgburg]

From the BBC article:Many tunes are priced at 75p, with more popular songs at 99p and "gold" singles at 1.19.

Gold tracks are new singles, available as soon as they are sent to radio stations - up to six weeks before the CDs reach shops.

I guess the whole "one price for all singles, including pre-release and exclusives" was a bit too complicated for them to try and replicate.

Piracy in Europe

[TrippTDF]

I've got a question-

I'm under the impression that piracy of music/software is worse is Europe than in the US. Does Microsoft stand a chance on this front, given their terrible reputation in Europe as it is?

Any Europeans out there care to enlighten me?

Re:Piracy in Europe

[Alkarismi]

I'm British - does that count? - already had one poster cast doubts on my European Credentials :)

Truth is, as Andrew Orlowski points out on the Reg
"Europeans have learned that the law and its social instruments are best ignored"

When it's a 'bad' law of course ;)

You could also say that we're naturally anti-gov and anti-bigBiz.

I think the key, though, is that we simply haven't been hit by the DMCA/DRM/PIRACY/TERRORISTS hysteria yet - unfortunately it appears to be coming RSN :(
I don't look forward to getting caught up in the nightmare my USA brethren appear to have got themselves in - just wish enough of my fellow Europeans knew enough, or cared enough, to head it off *before* it arrives - chances of that fading fast...

Just my 0.02

They Dont Give Up

[Bruha]

So what next? MicroSoft cant stand to have a business model they dont incorporate into their OS. I suppose they might go ahead and make a music service built directly into Media Player 10 thus shutting out other music services.

Of course the RIAA could contend that with restrictions.

Re:No more albums only singles

[Anonymous Coward]

With this new emphasis on singles I wonder if artists will be motivated to put together whole albums.

The days of the epic, themed rock and roll album are pretty much over. All anyone's interested in these days is a CD of about a dozen tracks with maybe 3 or 4 of them being decent and radio-friendly so they'll get airplay and sucker people into buying them along with the other 9 shit songs on the disc.

I won't really miss the idea of the album, I'm hoping for singles that are consistently good-- I currently have over 300 CDs, and I can honestly say I love (or at least like) every single track on less than 20 of them. That's why I feel no guilt about downloading these days. I paid for *good* music, I got 280 CDs with mostly shitty filler tracks.

Catalog?

[Lord_Dweomer]

So, is this just going to be the RIAA's latest hits? Or is Microsoft going to do something innovative for a change and sign on indies? And I'll bet there's watermarking in the files to catch people who circumvent the DRM. Microsoft will have the advantage that they can bundle it with computers and they have huge marketshare, but something tells me Apple will destroy them when it comes out with its music service. Wonder which one will come out first.

Re:No more albums only singles

[Dark Paladin]

I've been using Apples ITMS for a bit - and I'm actually surprised that when I go to buy some music (like BB King or a classical CD or Live), I will often make sure it's in an album.

At first, it was just the opposite - I just wanted one song. But now that I've got those "one songs off the CD I really wanted" out of my system, more often than not I'll say "You know, I've never really listened to Bjork, though I remember liking that one song on MTV a kabillion years ago with the bear - maybe I'll just pay the $10 for the whole CD - because if I pay $1 and pick the wrong song, then I'll wind up paying over $10 to get the others".

I'm not sure if it makes much sense, but I'm finding I'm buying the album to save money (especially if said album, like the BB King album I picked up has 18 tracks to it - at $9.99, that turned out to be a bargain).

2 remarks

[selderrr]

1. the press release is a .Doc file... wtf ! Since when is Word the de facto standard for distributing press releases ? If Word is as good as it claims, do a simple save-as-html goddamit !

2. No screenshots, no release date, no nuthin... After reading half of ad2.com, I still have no idea whatshowever how this service is going to look like. Sounds like vapourware to me.