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."

Comments

This sounds like a joke, but it's not April 1.

[danielsfca2]

...will work only with Sony Memory Stick-compatible devices... ...1-gigabyte Hi-MD disc players...
From the sonyconnect site: "What devices are compatible with Connect?
Any ATRAC-compatible device from Sony works with Connect."

Great! This will be a huge hit with the people who thought Apple's music store doesn't support enough players.

I wonder how many iPods there are out there in the public's hands for every Sony Memory-Stick and "Hi-MD" device. I'm guessing at least 4, and that's being generous to Sony.

And 1GB. Wow. That's sooo much music. Has anyone at Sony ever even heard of hard drives? C'mon, I was expecting some sort of competition here, but this is more like a joke.

Anyone know what restrictions the DRM imposes? They conveniently make no mention of it on their 5-page website (overview, features, download, customer support, independent label signup). I'd say that's pretty relevant information to put out front if you want to convince people to download your software.

-Daniel Pritchard