Now it looks like Universal is gearing up for a frontal assault. Business Week reports the company is planning to launch its own digital music store, possibly with support from Sony BMG and Warner Music Group. Pretty much the whole goal is to bust up Apple's near-monopoly on the digital music distribution business. Right now, record label execs think that Steve Jobs and friends have too much power. Apple has pretty much set the price for music distributed online.
Now here's where it gets interesting. Universal's proposal wouldn't necessarily cost you more. Not if you're a major music downloader, anyway. The plan is to offer a $5 per month subscription service that would let you access a huge library of music. You wouldn't actually own the music and it would all disappear if you cancel your service. But $5 per month is about as cheap a subscription model as we've seen anyone propose. And Universal is hoping to partner with cellphone companies and hardware makers to cover the costs. Of course, that's not really how the world works, and rather than getting free music with your next handset, you'll probably see a new $5 to $10 fee on your phone bill.
[via Techmeme]
1. Subscription services DO NOT WORK. People want to own their music and use their music on their IPODS. Not some craptacular cell phone.
When will the world learn?
Posted at 5:39PM on Oct 12th 2007 by Chris