Wal-Mart to Launch Online Music Store

Dteyn writes "I heard on the radio today that Wal-Mart will soon be opening up an online music store to compete with the likes of Apple's iTunes and Napster. According to the radio newsguy, it's expected to be officially announced as early as next week. Looks like this 'digital music' thing is starting to catch on with the bigwigs. Finally."

Comments

Censored.

[Evanrude]

I wonder if all the songs will be censored like the CDs in the stores?

Re:Censored.

[Shakrai]

I wonder if all the songs will be censored like the CDs in the stores?

They don't censor stuff, they just refuse to carry it. Works fine for me, because I can get it cheaper at my local used music store, without dealing with the parking situation at Wally-World, and to boot, I'm supporting a local business.

I'll never forget the time they attempted to card me for buying a PG-13 movie. I've bought liquor at Wally-World without getting carded before! Guess we have our priorities for what we gotta protect the kiddies from :)

Will it run on thier Lindows PCs?

[RumpRoast]

Online music for Linux, maybe?

The RIAA will never survive it.

[blair1q]

Wal-Mart has a corporate policy of beating suppliers until they relent on pricing.

Since digital music costs fractions of a penny to duplicate, the marginal cost is less than one cent, which is where the RIAA's revenue will go once they've been strong-armed by the Wal-Mart business process.

The only way Wal-Mart will not do this is if they buy the RIAA outright and use their ownership to make up "cost" numbers.

Note that this will be "passed on to the consumer" in the form of a 1% reduction in retail prices.

Related to this...

[amanpatelhotmail.com]

Yet another music service in the works?...

Just in my inbox:

--------------------
Subject: Important MP3.com Announcement

CNET Networks, Inc announced today that it has acquired certain assets of MP3.com, Inc.

Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form.

CNET Networks, Inc. plans to introduce a new MP3 music service in the near future. If you would like to receive email updates on this service, including an invitation to a special members-only preview, please sign up here.

MP3.com is not transferring your personal information to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party.

On behalf of all of us at MP3.com we thank you for your patronage and continued support. It has been a privilege to host one of the largest and most diverse collections of music in the world. MP3.com wishes to express its sincere thanks to each of you for making us your premier destination for music online.

Sincerely,
MP3.com
--------------------

Irony

[Ogerman]

Looks like this 'digital music' thing is starting to catch on with the bigwigs. Finally.

One problem: 'digital music' doesn't need bigwigs.

Nor do we want them. For they bring us DRM, low quality audio, inflated prices, and they still screw our favorite artists.

At least the next logical step is in place, however: Artists ditch their labels and sell directly online. Followed by: Artists forget about selling music itself because it's such cheap advertisement thanks to rapid online distribution that *everyone* now uses.

Walmart will make money BECAUSE:

[takochan]

they are very very good at putting pressure on suppliers to cut prices, because they are such a big volume seller.

They know now, that without all the distribution costs of physical media, that the 90cents / track that Apple currently pays to the RIAA, can be cut down to 50 cents or less because they know this is all just pure profit for the RIAA right now. This is all fat, Walmart knows it and they have the buyer market power to make this price cut happen.

Then they will sell those tracks to us for 60 cents, undercutting Apple, and Walmart still will make money.

This is how Walmart always does it with whatever they sell. No reason it will be any different this time.

censored music

[austad]

With all the talk of censored music at Walmart, it might help to understand a bit about the company. They are based in Bentonville, GA. A hellhole of a place, quite a ways from a major city. Everyone in the town works for Walmart. As far as I know, everything there is owned by walmart. Gas stations, food, and even (surpise) walmart itself. Bentonville is in a dry county. That means that it's illegal to serve, sell, or buy booze in the county. People there apparently have a real problem with alcohol, think it's the devil. A friend of a friend took a consulting job there about a year ago. She was in another county at a bar and someone that worked with her saw her drinking a beer. She was fired the following monday.

At my previous job, I had to deal with walmart as a client. They are a bunch of Nazis. They are huge, and many companies depend on them to survive, and walmart knows it. That's why they can get away with doing almost anything they want. 70% of all companies that do business with walmart either go bankrupt or get purchased by walmart.