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Sony Connect Online Music Download Store Launches
securitas writes "USA Today's Jefferson Graham reports that today Sony launched its online music download store, Sony Connect, to compete with Apple's leading iTunes service. The tracks use the MagicGate DRM copy-protection scheme and will work only with Sony Memory Stick-compatible devices including VAIO computers, CLIE PDAs, MiniDisc, CD and Walkman products. Sony will also launch a new line of 1-gigabyte Hi-MD disc players that support the service. Sony Connect's catalog sports 500,000 tracks from independent and major labels and songs sell for 99 cents each or $10 per album. The service uses Sony's SonicStage software and works with Windows 98SE-XP PCs only. It is only available in the USA until the planned European launch in June. That's a whole lot of restrictions in an already-fragmented market. More at The Register and The Age."
Is this just a way to sell the devices?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
. . . even right down to the vendor lock-in part. Wonderful. Wake me when I can buy, rather than rent, music.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Who really cares about sony's mp3 store solution, especially with the files being crippled. And it only works on the actual system it was compiled on apparently...
i don't think steve jobs has anything to fear from sony considering you have an old, aging minidisc format, working on only win98-xp pcs, and really not offering up that much initial space, 1 gig? i'm not even an mp3 whore and i have more music than that.
The claim is mostly inaccurate because it presupposes that the friend would otherwise have bought a copy from the publisher. That is occasionally true, but more often false; and when it is false, the claimed loss does not occur.
The claim is partly misleading because the word "loss" suggests events of a very different nature--events in which something they have is taken away from them. For example, if the bookstore's stock of books were burned, or if the money in the register got torn up, that would really be a "loss." We generally agree it is wrong to do these things to other people. But when your friend avoids the need to buy a copy of a book, the bookstore and the publisher do not lose anything they had. A more fitting description would be that the bookstore and publisher get less income than they might have got. The same consequence can result if your friend decides to play bridge instead of reading a book. In a free market system, no business is entitled to cry "foul" just because a potential customer chooses not to deal with them.
The claim is begging the question because the idea of "loss" is based on the assumption that the publisher "should have" got paid. That is based on the assumption that copyright exists and prohibits individual copying. But that is just the issue at hand: what should copyright cover? If the public decides it can share copies, then the publisher is not entitled to expect to be paid for each copy, and so cannot claim there is a "loss" when it is not. In other words, the "loss" comes from the copyright system; it is not an inherent part of copying. Copying in itself hurts no one.
Sorry, but are you kidding? Time has proven over and over again that market penetration > brand recognition. Apple has a year's head start on Sony -- what makes you think Sony can catch up now?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
I believe that Sony might be able to clobber Apple, but that Apple's cachet and hipness might well carry the day for them.
Sony is a good, solid brand. I own and love a Sony digital camera and have had treasured Walkman units throughout the years, but Sony is not quite as hip of a brand as Apple.
But I might end up surprised. With enough artist support and advertising, Sony might do economically better with their store.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Sony still doesn't get it.
Betamax : Tried to push its own standard. Failed even though it was superior.
Minidisc : See above
Memory Stick : Again persists on going it alone even though other standards are more popular and widespread (CF and SD)
Sony connect : Lauches its own spin when other established players are already in the market.
Interoperability means nothing to these guys.
1. Sony's being one major label only gives other labels a disincentive to cooperate...and most artists fall into the "not on Sony" category. Sony has no majority of artists on its labels.
2. Yeah. Apple has no following in Japan at all. Give me a break! The Japanese can't keep their hands off sexy, stylish, hip little things. I predict it'll be even harder to get your hands on the iPod mini in Japan (upon its release there) as it has been in the US. Name a Sony product that's come out in the last three years that's got anywhere near the amount of buzz as the 3rd-gen. iPod and iPod mini.
I think the words of Seinfeld's Jackie Chiles will soon apply for Sony here: "This is the most public yet of my many humiliations."
Ask Nintendo or Sega how many years of head start they had over Sony, see what their answer is.
Note: this is not to say that Sony will conquer, but that the above reason is not proof against it.
::jafomatic
I'd mod the above as Flamebait. *Any* time competition enters the market it's good for the industry.
And you disagree with me here why? I didn't say it was bad for the industry!!
I'm criticizing SonyConnect because the Sony store and players are more restrictive than Apple. If you hate Apple, then fine. Don't buy an iPod or don't use iTMS. But do you think Sony is going to support OGG? Do you think they'll support AAC (DRM or no)? If you do you're dreaming. And if you hate Apple because of their "restrictions" you are going to hate Sony even more.
Sony makes Apple look like a bastion of free choice by comparison.
When will the music companies realise that $1 per track is far too expensive, and their profits would probably increase if they acutally decreased the prices. And they'd have much happier customers as a result.
If tracks were 10c each, I would quite happily buy whole albums without worrying if I might not like them after a couple of plays. I buy up whole genres of music - if it cost me $50 to buy up all the best punk tracks of the 70's (or whatever), I would do that, despite it being a genre I never normally listen to.
However, I spend very little on music. I just don't like to get ripped off and I don't think $1 a track is justifiable when they have virtually zero distribution costs. And don't give me all that crap about how expensive it is to promote a record, or how the cost has to be high to pay for the flops. That's just all bullshit, especially with the near zero distribution and manufacture costs that the internet allows.
I'm amazed at the tone of comments here. Everybody's saying since Apple's done it already then forget it. Aren't you folks for choice? Do you really want a monopoly by Apple, no matter how good it is? It's not "fragmentation" it's "more choice is good for the consumer."
OK, this one has DRM and vendor lock-in etc. But it's still a competition for Apple. And unless Sony and Apple get into a cartel, that's a good thing. Because at the very least, Sony can generate an environment where prices may even drop. Remember, you wouldn't see any sale prices on your favorite food if there was only one supermarket chain in existence.
Are you people really such sad, ignorant elitists?
But IBM did, just because they succeeded in selling their existing business customers on the concept of IBM being the "Standard For Business" in the PC market too. Once a few businesses signed on, it was all over for Apple in the business sector because you wanted to go with the standard. And that was the end of the PC wars.
So where's Sony's parallel advantage here? I think that analogy is a good thing to keep in mind in general, but very fallacious because Sony doesn't have a big captive audience that they can convince on a new standard.
For the record, MP3 is the Standard For Music, with all its faults (poor quality and no DRM from the label's POV) is the standard and will remain so for a while because of its ubiquity and freedom of use. The iPod has become the de-facto "Standard For MP3-Players" and it's not a personal thing--I'm just going by marketshare here.
Perhaps moderators should check sources as well.
http://www.wagnerconsultingllc.com/ goes nowhere. Hidden backdoors in BSD? One Eyed Jack? His journal claims that he's charging Rusty six figures for work on kuro5hin.org's back-end code, and his other entries are almost as amusing.
Sir, your fiction borders on the believable, in a Clancy-esque way. I congratulate you.
Hamster
It cannot be denied that SONY was once one of the greatest companies on earth. Take a look if you have not already seen this gallery of Walkmen. They got it right lots of times, in many areas.
In this one area, digital music, they have got it completely wrong. This is unusual for SONY. Their portable digital music players have completely flopped, their proprietary encoder is a failure, and they are being left out in the cold in an area where they should be numnber one.
They were in a position to set the rules. They own Columbia and its huge back catalogue. They have the technical expertise to build the most seductive portables. They have software developers. What they were/are missing is the foresight.
They should have:
They would have owned the portable music player space, created the number one destination for music online, demonstrated that MP3s are the new radio, short circuted all the RIAA lawsuits, and....acted more like SONY.
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>>They were in a position to set the rules. They own Columbia and its huge back catalogue. They have the technical expertise to build the most seductive portables. They have software developers. What they were/are missing is the foresight.
Correct, but what Sony also has is accountants, and they exert undue influence in Sony's strategic decisions. Allow me to digress for a moment, and I'll explain why this matters.
Sony is a two-pronged company -- they sell 1)content (music, movies, etc) and 2) components (televisions, vcrs, robots, etc.)
These two divisions are opposed to one another. The component side wants to make the open, flexible "killer" hardware we want, but the content side of the company wants those devices locked down (to the point that they're not useful) so as to prevent "theft" of intellectual property, copying movies/music, etc. So these two halves are continuously fighting against one another and the CEO must decide what the right balance is.
In step the Accountants. They're there to help the CEO make this decision, but Sony's beanmen only understand a static balance sheet -- as if Sony must choose between sales of Hardware or Content. They conclude that if a sony device can be used to copy music, they will lose sales from the content side of Sony, therefore the device must 1) be locked down, 2) be expensive enough to offset potential losses from the content side, 3)contain DRM to protect Sony's IP.
Fortunately, Sony's not the only player in the market, so their sales remain poor and they end up squandering an opportunity to compete.
This scenario is good!; the way I see it every company that fails at marketing a DRM device is a win for the consumer. Perhaps after years of disappointing sales, the boardroom will tire of seeing their money wasted and demand a decision, one way or the other (content vs. component) be made. Thus, the stalemate is broken and the company can move forward.
In short, Sony's current "have it all" strategy is doomed in a free market*: Given the choice, people don't want DRM. Let's just hope Sony's (or any other company following this model) spectacular economic flame-out doesn't encourage them to pressure government officials to mandate DRM in order to prop up their failing business model.
I could understand Sony Connect if it existed in a music vacuum, but since it has competition, they would have to answer the single question: What is the compelling advantage to the consumer to buy their product?.
While I have a number of Sony devices which include memory sticks, I haven't considered tasking any of them to be music players because of other limitations inherent to the devices. For example. minimal available memory in a Clie, or the availability of more convenient modes of usage (CDs) in a VAIO notebook.
To repeat, I can't find a single compelling reason to consider purchasing from their online store over its competition. Can you?
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD