Why AnywhereCD Failed

An anonymous reader writes "In an obituary for AnywhereCD, which closes in one week, founder (and MP3.com founder) Michael Robertson chronicles how at least one record label wanted him to embed credit card numbers of buyers into songs. A fascinating story about how at least some of the labels still don't get it and why AnywhereCD is about to be buried."

Comments

Give me 320kbps VBR Downloads

[fishyfool]

for a good price, and I'll buy. Keep the CD, I'll burn my own. As much as Robertson tried, he still didn't get it.

Re:All about control

[king-manic]

Risking being modded flamebait, but Apple is quite good at creating hypes too... So why shouldn't they succeed if they try to cut the studios and signing up artists directly? I could well see them create some kind of "Apple download chart show" on a few networks that only consist of songs downloaded from ITMS.

Possibly. At this point they aren't trying because the highly sought after content is under label control and doing this would create an instant hostile response. If all the labels opt out of iTune, then Apple has no reason not to proceed.. except for that injunction by Apple corp. Due to a previous legal settlement they can't become a music label as the label Apple corp already exists. There was a lawsuit before and it was settled with an agreement for Apple computers to not enter a mostly music content venture to respect apple corps trademark. Apple computers won the case with iTunes as it's content isn't Apple computers but instead the major labels. But going in as a indie label may be venturing too far into Apple corps space.

Although as time passes the relevance of Apple corps (who managed the Beatles catalog) Trademark may diminish. As almost everyone knows apple computers but not that many are aware of apple corp. I do imagine this is exactly what Apple corp had feared.