eMusic, the 2nd most successful music download service after iTunes and the world's largest retailer of independent music has just launched to the European market, making music available from around 8,500 independent music labels. The music service has a fairly strong competitive advantage over DRM based music services in that its music is delivered free of restrictive DRM, thus allowing playback on virtually every MP3 player on the market, including Apple's iPod series.
The service is available in a choice of three subscriptions; offering up to 40, 65 or 90 downloads per month. Any further music can be purchased for 25p per song or just under 1/3 that of an iTunes single. Unlike the subscription services offered by other music services such as Napster, music downloaded as part of the eMusic subscription will not expire and may be written to CD or transferred to any equipment capable of playing MP3s.
While the European president of eMusic, Steve McCauley is not against DRM, they are actually against technology that restricts what customers can do with their music. Thanks to GristyMcFisty for letting us know about this news:
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The subscription-based site will offer MP3 recordings that work on all digital music players, including Apple's iPod. But eMusic has not struck deals with major record labels, who say their music must carry digital restrictions. eMusic plans to sell music across Europe, and has employed music journalists to help confused customers navigate their way through its varied collection. |
Unfortunately, while eMusic is taking the right approach by not treating its customers as criminals, it is a pity no major record labels are willing to strike a deal with eMusic despite already having 8,500 independent labels and running successfully for over five years in the US.
Feel free to discuss about eMusic and other online music services on our forum.
Source: BBC News - Technology
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Small independant labels go for what sounds good, rather than what marketing say the target demographic wants.
Anyone who is not into what the major lables are releasing (or in other words, anyone over the age of 16
) should check it out, you never know what you'll find.
It would of been nice not to have a subscription as mandatory though.
