New in France: DRM-free, unlimited music via ISP
As sales of recorded music continue to decrease, the concept of point-of-connection-based music subscription services appears more and more attractive to record labels. In Europe, this business model of customers paying an ISP for essentially unlimited downloading in exchange for a small fee has already been implemented through Omnifone.
Now, the internet service provider Virgin Media has partnered with Universal Music to create a similar model in France specifically. The deal will allow Virgin customers to download as much DRM-free music from the Universal catalog as they want. A fee will be associated with this service, though an exact figure has yet to be reported by either party.
In exchange for their catalog, Universal is asking Virgin to cooperate more in piracy-related matters. France itself is already taking measures to protect copyright, so this request isn’t too surprising.
When are we going to see unlimited, point-of-connection subscription services in the U.S.?
(Editor’s Note: Sorry for the gap between new posts; I’ve been busy finishing up my undergraduate degree program. I’m proud to say that I’m now officially a Bachelor of Science in Music Industry!)
Universal Music and Virgin Reach a Download Deal [NY Times]
Tags: Point-of-connection, subscription services
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under Industry news.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Napster Practically Gives Away DRM-Free Music
Since its rebirth through Roxio in 2003, Napster has been trying to recapture its original audience of young adults who want lots of convenient music for a low amount of cash. Though it has generally lagged behind iTunes, Amazon and Rhapsody, a new change to its pricing scheme may very well tip the balance and put Napster back in the spotlight.
For only $5 per month, users can gain access to unlimited streaming music for as long as they have a subscription, the lowest cost of any comparable service. However, what’s more notable is that this subscription tier also comes with five free song downloads a month. As Rick Broida pointed out at cnet, that’s basically getting unlimited, free streaming music with your five single song downloads.
As an independent artist myself, I’ve found that Napster is surprisingly lucrative, relatively speaking. iTunes is by far where I sell the most music through third-parties, eclipsing Napster, the third most popular service for my music, by a factor of at least 12. Still, Napster beats out Rhapsody and eMusic by a long shot and just about matches sales on Amazon.
(A fun little side note: after over a year of streamed plays on last.fm, my royalties from that company haven’t even amounted to 25 cents.)
Napster cuts music plan to $5 a month [Associated Press]
Tags: Digital Distribution, napster, subscription services
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Industry news.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
