Universal and Sony Plan "Free" Music Service

Damon Tog writes "Macworld reports that Universal Music Group has enlisted the help of Sony to join forces in a new music service. The price of the subscription is expected to be built-in to the cost of digital music players, leaving the music 'free' to the consumer. 'The plan is still in flux and faces several hurdles, BusinessWeek notes. Among them is finding a business model that allows the hardware makers to subsidize the cost of the music. In addition, the labels have tried to develop their own online music services before without success.'"

Comments

Re:One thing worth knowing

[Spasemunki]

... and the other question that immediately presents itself: when the partners involved in this deal lose interest after a couple years of lackluster sales, what will become of that nice device that you paid for- probably paid a lot for, given the "built in" subscription cost? Will you be able to load music onto it from other sources, or will it be bricked once the associated service is shut down?

IDDIIIIIOOOOOTS

[eiapoce]

My reply comes late and will be short. By reading the article you can get clear hints that iTunes is going to be the market leader for a very long time. I summarize them:

• "Sony said recently that it would abandon its proprietary ATRAC copy-protection technology, and add Microsoft's Windows Media ... close its Connect Music Store". Translation - Fucking customers who bought previous players and registered the service.

• "MTV Networks said it would abandon its own digital music service, called Urge, and pool its efforts with RealNetworks' Rhapsody" They fare even better, close the store screwing registered users and then as if this was not enought join forces with the most unsuccessful, worse DRMd and worse marketed player of all times

• "get hardware makers to absorb the cost of a $5 monthly subscription" Selling hardware that works only on a rent basis!!! This is funny, I don't know anyone willing to buy somethin like that.

• "CEO of Universal Music's [says] the share of revenue that Apple collects for each song sold on iTunes is "indecent,"" Labelling competition bad names instead of competing.

• "the labels would like to charge different prices for new and older music" Now in economics this has actually a name. It is called market segmentation and is the most known way of screwing costumers by raping their surplus.

• "nurture the adoption of other music players such as Microsoft's Zune": History teaches us that any business that made deals with microsoft has to face 2 quests. The first is to win the market. The second is avoiding MS to take over using anticompetitive practices and lawyers. By judging how they are dealing to the iTunes quest I guess those idiotic CEOs are deemed to fail both.

The real question is: who put them in charge? Their proposed exit strategy for media distribution sounds as "shoot us in the leg". If I had any stok or option on those companies I would consider selling them now before is too late.