Online Digital Music Download Services
dSounds.com is For Sale

Snocap adds EMI

Shawn Fanning, the originator of the first Napster, has recently signed EMI as a user for his new music tracking system known as Snocap.

Fanning has also gotten the support of Sony BMG and Universal Music Group for his tools that let songs be identified as they are swapped online.

Snocap is technically defined as an end-to-end solution for online music licensing and copyright management.

Fanning notes that, “By giving record labels and artists what they need to deliver their music over any digital platform, including peer-to-peer networks, we are finally realizing the full potential of the Internet as a source of music for fans everywhere."

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Snocap signs EMI

iTunes turns 2

It was two years ago today that Apple launched its iTunes Music Store to Mac users in the US.

Now the company offers the digital music store to PC and Mac users in a number of countries across the world with even more countries expected to be brought on board as soon as today.

The download services only offers songs to buy, one at a time or by the album, not like some of the other services that offer songs to “rent.” However, iTunes was recently reported to have sold over 300,000 tracks and is reported to command approximately 70 percent of the world’s only music market.

The service started out with 200,000 songs and now boasts over 1 million. Throughout the past two years the price has remained the same however.

Rhapsody To Go

Real Networks is announcing a mobile digital music service that will hopefully compete with Napster’s To Go services as well as Apple’s iTunes.

The Rhapsody music subscription service will allow users to transfer their music to portable digital music players. The new service uses technologies from Microsoft to be able to accomplish this feat, just like Napster’s To Go service. The revised subscription service will work with digital music players from Creative, iRiver and Samsung and will cost $15 per month.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Real to reveal Rhapsody portable service

iTunes Australia – any day now

It is expected that Apple will release their digital music store in Australia this week.

A number of musicians down under have admitted that Apple should open its doors to another iTunes Music Store by the end of April.

April 28 is the two-year anniversary for the industry leading digital music store and the 29th is the release of Apple’s newest operating system.

Actor Russell Crowe, who also claims his music will be available, also claims that the songs will coast $1.80 Australian per track.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - iTunes Music Store Australia set to launch

Million Real subscribers

Last night RealNetworks announced that it had hit the one million subscribers mark for its subscription services.

Real Networks subscriptions services include Rhapsody and Internet Radio services as well as a relationship with Comcast to distribute digital music.

CEO, Rob Glaser, believes that this is a critical mass milestone in digital music. Glaser also said, “We have the Number One digital music subscription business in America. Now, we're accelerating our growth by working with partners such as Comcast to make it really easy for consumers to get Rhapsody in entirely new ways."

RealNetworks is planning on making a claim to be a "revolutionary new initiative in digital music" during a Good Carlotte concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on April 26, 2005.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Real reveals a million subscribers

Napster’s TV Show

Napster has another bold approach for stealing market share from Apple/iTunes, this time with a possible TV tie in for the digital music provider.

The UK will see “Napster Live” broadcasted six times a day on channel 4. Each broadcast will consist of about 11 minutes from new and established bands. The bands will play two exclusive performances and there will be an interview and a biography as well. The shows will be seen on TV starting April 16 and will start featuring Garbage.

Napster VP Leanne Sharman says, “To extend the Napster experience to television is the logical next step in the UK roll out of the biggest brand in digital music.”

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Napster reveals UK TV show

Yahoo! music store ‘soon’

Reports, and rumors, are stating that the major internet player Yahoo! is finally launching a new digital music store and an iTunes like digital music jukebox.

Supposedly Yahoo! has been working with MusicNet, the digital-music wholesaler that was bought by Yahoo! last fall, for some time to develop the digital music service. When Yahoo! acquired MusicNet they got some jukebox software, a digital music download store, an internet radio service and a subscription service.

The new music service will be integrated into Yahoo!’s existing infrastructure and may use features from AIM, Yahoo!’s instant messaging system.

"Given Yahoo!'s traffic and their very active communities, the potential [for success] is there," stated GartnerG2 analyst Mike McGuire.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Yahoo! launching music store ‘soon’

iTunes sales soar

Apple announced today that the sales on its iTunes digital music store have surpassed the 300 million mark and the download rate is climbing.

At January 24, 2005 there had been 250 million songs have been sold at a rate of about 1.25 millions songs a day. This rate of digital music downloads left Apple with an annual run rate of almost half a billion songs per year.

Now the company is at 300 million songs downloaded total with a rate of about 1.35 million tracks a day.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - iTunes sales hit 1.35m per day

Digital music price rise

According to the major music labels it is time for a rise in prices.

Major music labels believe that the market for digital music is strong enough that that the industry can take a rise in the whole sale price of digital music tracks. Currently most digital music retailers sell songs for $.99 each and pay around $.65 each.

Although Universal and Sony BMG were not keen on the idea EMI and Time Warner refused to comment about the increase in digital music prices. Some observers say that the increase in prices would just bring back more demand for Peer-to-peer network sharing.

The record labels are suggesting a variable pricing so that more popular tracks can be sold for more.

The music industry also seems to be unhappy with Apple’s domination (65% market share) and with the introduction of new lower cost digital music players it seems likely that the company will maintain its position. Although Apple also refused to comment it is believed that Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, is deeply unhappy with the attempted price hike.

For the full story:
The Register - Music download prices to rise

Yahoo readies Japanese music service

Yahoo Japan, with the help of a Sony affiliate known as Label Gate, will soon launch a digital music download service.

Yahoo Japan has about 39 million visitors each month and is consistently ranked as Japan’s number one web destination which will be a major plus for the digital music site to compete with the grow market.

Label Gate currently has a download services, known as Mora, and offers 73,000 tracks from 39 domestic record companies. The digital music download service will offer its tracks in Sony’s proprietary ATRAC3 format which will restrict their playback to some models of cellular telephones, NetMD type MiniDisc players, ATRAC CD players and the recently offered PlayStation Portable. Tracks will cost between ¥158 and ¥368.

Label Gate started in 2000 with only a few record companies backing however, has steadily grown. The Mora digital music service was launched in April 2004. In October Label Gate started a second service called Music Drop that worked with the Windows Media format.

Macworld UK - Yahoo preps Japanese music download service

Slow growth for Subscription Music

Analysts are predicting that subscription music services will make minimum impact on the whole digital music market this year.

Even with all of its recent marketing, the new Napster To Go music service, which uses the Janus DRM technology to allow people with subscription based digital music the ability to now go places, is expected to grow only sluggishly.

A report last week, “Digital Music: Analysis and Forecasts,” stated that just 8 percent of MP3 owners are interested in such services as Napster's. This is compared to approximately 40 percent of people who like to buy songs one at a time says analysts.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Subscription Music services face 'sluggish' growth

NAPS – profit

Napster has ended its fiscal quarter with some money in its pocket, not from digital music related business but from selling off Roxio consumer software division.

Last year, over the same time period, the company had a net loss of $25.6 million.

This last quarter saw the company posting a loss of $16.4 million with revenue of $12.1 million which was up almost four times since the quarter before $3.6 million.

The company claimed it had a 50% growth in subscribers to its digital music service.

Napster set a fourth quarter revenue target above analyst’s expectations which may have helped he stock price climb 76 cents in after hours trading.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Napster sees profit – from sold-off Roxio

MP3tunes.com

The new service, due out Thursday, is all about non rights-protected digital music downloads.

Digital rights management will not be incorporated into the digital music tracks the company plans on selling for $.88 each. Michael Robertson, the original creator of MP3.com, and now MP3tunes.com believes that DRM free tracks truly offer the consumer freedom.

“Because the tracks will be offered in MP3 format, buyers can use the music they purchase on virtually any digital music player or computer, as well as make unlimited copies of their songs and burn their music onto CD,” stated Robertson.

At launch the new digital music download site will offer a few hundred thousand tracks from a number of independent labels. MP3tunes.com has yet to approach any of the major record labels yet. Although Record Labels are very concerned about piracy and a non-DRM protected track is closer to being exchanged freely Robertson sees his company as pushing the envelope.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - DRM-free music service launches next week

Sony’s next music plan

Sony, in its second attempt to challenge Apple and the iPod, is going to use its PlayStation Portable to hopefully start taking over market share.

A new service, which is scheduled to be launched in March, would be specifically for the PSP. The service would allow users to download game levels and software updates and by summer the system will be expanded to include music. It is also speculated that the service could offer video downloads.

Sony Connect, their first attempt at taking market share from Apple, has been available in the US since May of 2004 however has fallen under much criticism for falling short of the other digital music download services such as Napster and iTunes Music Store. Sony has not said much at all in the past months since Connects release.

The Register - Sony preps PlayStation 'music download service'

iTunes/Pepsi Superbowl promo

Reports claim that Apple and Pepsi are announcing a new promotion at the SuperBowl this year.

It is reported that the promo will be very similar to last year’s promotion where one in every three yellow bottle caps is winner of a free song from iTunes. The new twist this year is that there is also chances to win an iPod mini with the yellow bottle caps.

A quickly appearing then disappearing page on Apple’s web site mentioned that 200 million songs would be given away during this promotion. The promotion is expected to run between January 31 and April 11 and announced during the SuperBowl.

I am curious if it will be easy to cheat again this year by looking through the bottle to win the free songs.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Apple Pepsi SuperBowl iTunes promo reprise

Napster price drop

Napster’s catalogue of over 1 million songs is being reduced in price by 20%.

The drop in price is due to the records sales at Napster.co.uk over the Christmas holiday.

"With Napster clearly on its way to success we wanted to further fuel our growth with more attractive pricing and create an even broader appeal to music fans," stated Napster VP and UK general manager Leanne Sharman. "By dropping our store prices in preparation for the launch of Napster To Go we are able to offer UK music fans an unbeatable proposition – their choice of how they want to consume music online – via downloads, subscription, or portable subscription – all at low cost and integrated into the most feature-rich and community focused digital music environment in the world. Now is also the perfect time for everyone who received a new PC or MP3 player at Christmas to feed their gigabytes of storage with music from Napster's massive library."

For the full story:
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iTunes Australia

It is expected that Apple will launch an iTunes in Australia today to coincide with Steve Jobs keynote speech.

Australia is lined up to be the 16th nation across the world to be served by the digital music download store.

Apple of course would not comment but it is believed that senior executives from California have been flow to Sydney to make the announcement.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - MWSF: Apple Oz gets iTunes down under?

Ireland iTunes

Apple has successfully launched its iTunes Music Store in Ireland.

Apple missed its original date of October due to prolonged negotiations with the Irish Music Rights Organization (IMRO). However, now the IMRO is in100 percent support of the legal downloading services. The IMRO also stated, “"I'm sure our artists will welcome iTunes Music Store.”

For the full story:
Macworld UK - Irish ears smile to iTunes Eire debut

CD Sales are UP!

After four years in the US, sales of CDs have rebounded according to Nielsen Soundscan. This defies the prediction of big label execs but is right on according to all of us that follow this music battle regularly.

Overall music sales were up 1.6% over 2003. CD sales, which make 98% of all new music sold, saw a big 2.6% increase.

The new flurry of digital music stores has offered next to nothing to this bottom line. Only 0.033% or 1 in 3000 albums were sold through a digital music store on the internet. This is however a relatively new market and when we hear that 140.9 million tracks were sold through digital music stores like Apple’s iTunes or Napster it is very exciting to see the monumental growth experience in the last few years. A few more interesting statistics are that there were 666.7 million physical CDs sold and Universal and Sony BMG accounted for almost 60% of internet downloads between them.

So the big question now: is there a correlation between the new digital music services and a start of a trend of buying CDs? Well in the UK there is evidence that’s 92% of people who bought music from an online store actually preferred the hard physical medium of a CD.

For the full story:
The Register - Nappletizer users - getting physical?

Get your share of Napster

Napster has now completely taken on the business life of its own and is being traded on the Nasdaq as ‘NAPS’.

Parent company Roxio sold off its software operation on Dec. 17 2004 for $72.3m in cash and $13.6m worth of the Sonic Solutions, the company that purchased Roxio’s software. Roxio, on Tuesday, became Napster to reflect its complete devotion to digital music.

With all things considered however, Napster looks like it will report a loss despite double-figure revenue growth. Napster however is looking at a bank account of $130m so they still have some time to become profitable.

For the full story:
The Register - Napster trades on Nasdaq

“Napster is better”

Chris Gorog, CEO of Napster, believes that Napster’s subscription based model for digital music is better then iTunes pay-as-you-go method for a couple reasons.

First Gorog said was, “Filling a top-of-the-line iPod with 10,000 songs would cost $10,000 if you bought the songs from Apple.” He wanted to compare that against the idea that a Napster customer could get 10,000 songs for $180 per year and that Gorog believes is an awesome value.

The second thing that supports a subscription based model for digital music would that selling 99 cent songs makes very minimal money for the company where a subscription based business model is much more profitable.

Gorog predicts that there will be a migration of digital music users to Napster from iTunes because of those two reasons.

For the full story:
Macworld UK - 'Pricey' iTunes will suffer – Napster boss