Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Buy.com introduces digital music downloads
Perhaps the brain-deadedness of the music industry is coming to an end. The first sign was the emergence of Apple's ITunes and its huge success among users. Itunes's problem though, clearly, is that Apple doesn't ever seem to understand that 95% of the world's computers use Windows and if you leave them out, you are denying yourself a very lucrative market. Apple responded to this criticism by announcing that the Windows version would be out fairly soon. In the meanwhile, Buy.com and Scott Blum have stolen Apple's thunder by starting up a Windows based digital music download service called BuyMusic. The downloads are cheaper than ITunes at $0.79 and up for songs and $7.95 and up for albums. I haven't used the service yet, though I hope to do so later today. There are some reports in the media that BuyMusic has a lot more restrictions than ITunes does.
Despite its large music catalog, lack of monthly subscription fees and option to preview music through 30-second samples, BuyMusic.com limits what downloaders can do with the tracks and albums they purchase through the site. Users are limited in terms of the number of times they can copy a song and where they can copy it. They must register each device they plan to use for downloading, according to the site's terms.
Either way, this is a good sign that the music industry is coming to its senses and has realized that this is perhaps the only way it can beat back the P2P networks, not by filing lawsuits against users, ISP's etc. Then again, perhaps I am giving the industry too much credit and giving Steve Jobs and Scott Blum too little.
Despite its large music catalog, lack of monthly subscription fees and option to preview music through 30-second samples, BuyMusic.com limits what downloaders can do with the tracks and albums they purchase through the site. Users are limited in terms of the number of times they can copy a song and where they can copy it. They must register each device they plan to use for downloading, according to the site's terms.
Either way, this is a good sign that the music industry is coming to its senses and has realized that this is perhaps the only way it can beat back the P2P networks, not by filing lawsuits against users, ISP's etc. Then again, perhaps I am giving the industry too much credit and giving Steve Jobs and Scott Blum too little.
