MTV Getting into Music Download Business

Pranjal writes "According to this article at Economic Times, MTV is getting into the music download business. MTV chief Tom Freston announced on Monday, the service would debut within the first half of next year. Looks like the online music download business is heating up."

Comments

The article's *really* light on specifics

[mattbot 5000]

I learned two things:

- MTV's music download service will "compete with iTunes and everyone else"

AND

- "MTV will also be competing with a relaunched Napster and recently launched BuyMusic.com"

Wait, make that three things: there's no way to get back the five minutes I spent reading that article.

Please MTV please

[L-s-L69]

1. Have mp3s to download not wma rubbish
2. Be cheap
3. Let people in the UK use it please!
4. Have a mix
5. Dont just market it at helpless teeny boppers
6. Please, pretty please

Re:Pity the RIAA

[Golias]

Can anyone realy imagine a future 50 years down the road where anyone is interested in buying a piece of plastic with music on it?

Electronic transmission of text has been easilly available for several decades now, yet people still buy stacks of paper with words printed on them.

As long as owning an album one a removable storage media means actually owning that copy, people like me will pay for it when the music is good enough to be worth buying.

Re:Pity the RIAA

[TopShelf]

There's a major difference between music and text, however - people greatly prefer reading newspapers or books because of portability, legibility, etc. By comparison, there is little or no difference between listening to a music CD and music stored in some other medium like a HD or Flash card. Once they resolve the licensing issues this will become a no-brainer. It sounds like iTunes is making good progress on that front...

It will never fly...

[phillymjs]

Here's why: the iPod.

The iPod has serious street cred (and market share) amongst MTV-watching teens. For MTV to make their service acceptable to the record companies, it will have to have ham-handed, crippling DRM. For MTV to make their service successful, they'll have to make it work with the iPod, arguably the most popular/cool MP3 player amongst their viewers (I mean, OMG, 50 Cent had one in his video!!!)

Without both sides of that above equation in place, the service will be a failure right out of the gate. And with the iTMS now available for Windows, it's not in Apple's interest to assist a third-party music service by making the iPod work with it. People will have a more seamless experience with their iPods if they just stick with the iTMS, and Apple will make a few more bucks out of it that way.

So, the MTV online music service is analogous to a racehorse that drops dead while being walked to the starting gate.

~Philly

Re:Pity the RIAA

[timeOday]

Can anyone realy imagine a future 50 years down the road where anyone is interested in buying a piece of plastic with music on it?

Electronic transmission of text has been easilly available for several decades now, yet people still buy stacks of paper with words printed on them.

Is that a good example? 100 years ago newspaper WAS the media - the papers were to be feared. The movie "Citizen Kane" is about a newspaper baron. Today there is hardly such thing as a "newspaper baron," the business is hardly hip or profitable. This not where the music industry wants to go!

Anyways, just look how the napster craze hit music... not books, or music, or anything else. Even if we can't agree on an explanation for that, music is obviously in a uniquely vulnerable position.