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Home Stereo Equipment With Online Music Purchasing
nebulous bee writes "Yahoo is reporting on a new piece of home stereo equipment going on sale in Japan that has an ethernet port that can be linked directly to an online music store. You can purchase new music using the unit's built-in LCD display and hear it 'instantly'. No PC required. There are no plans to sell it yet outside of the land of the rising sun."
someone might make a copy of the music they purchased for themselves
From the article:
Users will be able to browse, download, store and play song files, record them on a mini-disc or transfer them to other digital music devices, said Any Music CEO Fujio Noguchi.
There are some interesting differences in Japan's music industry that should be considered.
1) cd prices are fixed, at least for a certain time period after the release. when i lived there it was 3000 yen (US$27) for an album and 1000yen (US$9)for a single.
2) they have a much stronger emphasis on singles over albums. mini-cd singles are sold in huge numbers, for 1000 yen.
3) they have CD rental shops much the way many countries have video/dvd rental shops. I think albums rent for like 400 yen and singles 200 yen? Can't remember.
Therefore, this is a country whose music industry is not as concerned with home copying of the music (otherwise they wouldn't rent them), has people convinced a single is worth 1000 yen and so selling them as downloads for 210 yen can be successful even though this is like twice what apple charges, and has a music buying public that is used to buying songs one at a time instead of buying albums.
Three Letter Acronyms. Argh. LCD Display = Liquid Crystal Display Display