MSN Music Store No Original
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Microsoft insists its music store differs from iTunes, but the two services sure have a lot in common. The company will sell songs for $1 like Apple, and plans to match the volume of songs Apple makes available to users.
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Microsoft Corp.&#39;s MSN Music online download service fired another salvo this week at Apple rival iTunes Music Store by announcing its expansion into new European countries.
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The latest version of Hymn can already remove DRM protection from songs purchased from the iTunes 7 store to enable playback on non-iPod players.  In Listening Post.
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Wal-Mart Enters the Online Music Store Mix  Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched an online music store that works with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Player. Wal-Mart, which began offering music downloads in March, said that its new store will offer downloads at 88 cents per song and is somewhat of an affiliate of ...
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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- In an attempt to unseat Apple Computer from its spot on top of the online music market, Microsoft officially launched its MSN Music service Tuesday.
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Late and under priced. The Apple iTunes Music Store has now opened for our Canadian Commonwealth friends. However it seems that the news isnât great if you live in America.
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Microsoft has announced an expansion of its MSN Music Store, adding eight new countries to bring the total number covered to 17. The enlargement, says Microsoft, is a significant challenge to Apple, who recently
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Virgin Music Download Service Aims to Bite Apple, MSN, Yahoo  On Monday Virgin launched a digital music download service which is expected to challenge Napster, iTunes, MSN Music Store, and Yahoo as the first digital music download service with two big brother backing it up, the Virgin Music Store Chain and ...
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Microsoft have made a beta version of their new music store available to the public. The store is entirely browser-based and does not require a separate client like iTunes.
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NEW YORK (Billboard) - Apple's iTunes Music Store is  introducing a new original programming feature designed to  promote foreign-language music in its stores around the world,  Billboard has learned.
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The software giant's new pay-per-download service offers an easy-to-use interface and above-average sound quality. But some critics wonder if the MSN Music service will foster a widening rift in digital music security standards. By Xeni Jardin.
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(InfoWorld) - Best Buy,Â in cooperation with SanDisk and RealNetworks, is the latest company to join the growing list of competitors to Apple Computer's iTunes music service. Best Buy unveiled on Thursday a online music service, called Best Buy Digital Music Store, that allows customers to find, manage and purchase music online. It is powered by RealNetworks' Rhapsody 4.0 music service and lets users purchase and permanently download songs and albums, as well as subscribe monthly to listen to an unlimited number of songs, the company said. As part of the offering, Best Buy also will carry and promote SanDisk Sana e200R Rhapsody MP3 players, which have been optimized to work with its new music service. Both the players and the service will be available starting Oct. 15, the company said. Jennifer Schaidler, vice president of music for Best Buy, said the company is differentiating its service from Rhapsody by offering exclusive artist content and tailoring that to what Best Buy customers are purchasing. "Look at it as Rhapsody 4.0 plus," she said. "You get all the stuff that's there [on Rhapsody], plus more exclusive content." Selling CDs and MP3 players in its stores and online is already a successful part of Best Buy's business, so offering a music service was a logical next step for the company, Schaidler said. "Customers expect Best Buy to provide them with quality entertainment in an easy way," she said. Songs on the Best Buy Digital Music Store will cost $0.99, with monthly subscriptions that allow users to play an unlimited number of songs for $14.99 a month The news comes on the heels of the formal unveiling last week ofÂ the availability and pricing for Microsoft's forthcoming Zune Player and Zune Marketplace service. Microsoft will make the digital media players and service available in the U.S. on Nov. 14. Like Best Buy's new service, songs on the Zune Marketplace will cost about $0.99 each, though the charges will be according to a points system (i.e., 79 points a song) that will allow users to purchase items on other Microsoft properties, such as Xbox Live. Zune Marketplace's unlimited monthly subscription also costs $14.99 a month. Songs on Apple's iTunes service cost $0.99, but there is no monthly subscription available. Pricing for the SanDisk music player that works with the new Best Buy service is higher than that of comparable iPod or Zune devices, however. The Zune digital media player, which has 30G bytes of storage, will cost $249.99, the same as 30G-byte video iPods already available from Apple. SanDisk Sana e200r MP3 players come in two models -- a 2G byte model for $139.99 and an 8G byte model for $249.99. However, while the Zune player and the SanDisk Sana players include an FM radio tuner in addition to the ability to play digital music, videos and photos, the iPod has only the latter features. To promote its new service, Best Buy will launch with an exclusive track from recording artist Diddy from his new CD, "Press Play." The CD will be on sale Oct. 17.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 200 million songs from the iTunes Music Store. The 200 millionth song, part of &#147;The Complete U2,&#148; was purchased by Ryan Alekman from Belchertown, MA. iTunes has made it easy to give the gift of music this holiday season with $15 and $25 iTunes prepaid cards available from retailers including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Kroger, RadioShack, 7-Eleven, Target, as well as the Apple online store and Apple retail stores. [Dec 16]
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(InfoWorld) - Yahoo put another music track without DRM (digital rights management) on sale through its Yahoo Music service Tuesday. The Norah Jones single "Thinking About You" sells for $0.99, in MP3 format on Yahoo's music store, and in DRM-encumbered AAC format on Apple Computer's iTunes Store. Both formats will play on PCs, Macs, and the market-leading iPod portable music player, but only the MP3 version will play on other portable music players. DRM technology is used to set limits on how, when, how many times, and on what devices a file may be played. While DRM can be applied to music in AAC, ATRAC, or WMA format, it cannot be introduced into MP3 files. Yahoo first experimented withÂ selling MP3 files without DRMÂ in July, when it offered Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" as an MP3 file for $1.99. While that track was not tied to a particular PC or music player with DRM, the audio track was personalized to contain a first name of the purchaser's choice, picked from a list of hundreds of prerecorded names, limiting its interest to other listeners. Since then, Yahoo has sold an entire album by the artist Jesse McCartney in both MP3 and the DRM-encumbered WMA (Windows Media Audio) format, but has not published sales figures for the two formats. Some see the release of tracks in MP3 format, without DRM, as a big gamble for record labels, as nothing prevents buyers from uploading them to file-sharing networks. In reality, DRM does little to stop such behavior, but makes life harder for legitimate music users, said analyst Mark Mulligan, a vice president at Jupiter Research in the U.K. "Most of the DRM in place is not going to stop piracy. You've got limits on CD-burning, but all of that is cracked immediately if you burn it onto CD and rip it back in again. Anyone with an ounce of tech-savvy is going to know how to get around that," he said. But the fact that there's nothing to stop listeners copying and sharing MP3 files could work to record labels' advantage, said Mulligan. "It's going to be implemented more as marketing than anything else," he said. Blue Note Records, the record label promoting the Jones track, is only releasing the single, not an entire album, in MP3 format for now. If Mulligan is right, it could be just a marketing gimmick to build awareness of the album, which will go on sale in January. Major record labels are starting toÂ look more seriously at MP3 distributionÂ because of the success of eMusic.com, which Mulligan says is the second-largest online music download store in the U.S., after that of Apple. EMusic sells music from independent record labels in MP3 format.
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'NO copy protection - respect the music' stamped on !K7 discs
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Revisiting the best online music store for indie fans.
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Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada.The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card&#39;s covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears&#39; &quot;Blackout&quot; and Barry Manilow&#39;s &quot;The Greatest Songs of the Seventies.&quot;In contrast, online retailer&#160;Amazon.com offers 2.9 million DRM-free tracks&#160;in MP3 format from the catalogs of EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and a host of independent record labels. Apple&#39;s&#160;iTunes Store has around 2 million DRM-free tracks&#160;in the AAC format supported by its iPod and many mobile phones. No store visit is necessary to download those tracks, and an album typically sells for $9.99 or less.About 4,500 retail outlets in the U.S. will sell the Platinum MusicPass cards by the end of the month, including Best Buy, Target, Trans World, Fred&#39;s, and Winn-Dixie, according to Sony-BMG. In Canada, the cards will sell through Best Buy, CD Plus, and Wal-Mart, and later through record store HMV.Online sales will &quot;ultimately be part of the game plan&quot; for at least one of those retail outlets, said a source familiar with the offering.With Valentine&#39;s Day approaching, Sony-BMG is counting on demand for gift cards to boost sales of the downloads, as well as the collectible nature of the cards themselves, which feature images of the artists and information about the albums.Sony-BMG will offer &quot;expanded&quot; versions of two of the initial offerings -- Celine Dion&#39;s &quot;Taking Chances&quot; and Kenny Chesney&#39;s &quot;Just Who I Am: Poets &amp; Pirates.&quot; These will retail for around $19.99 and in addition to the Platinum version will also include an additional album from the artist&#39;s back catalog.When they first considered online music sales, major record labels initially insisted that download services such as Apple&#39;s iTunes Store encrypt their tracks with DRM technology to prevent copying.Smaller labels sold unprotected MP3 files through sites like eMusic.com, gambling that the increased sales and notoriety that would come with easier access to their music would outweigh sales lost through unauthorized copying.That argument eventually won favor with Apple, which last May began offering tracks from EMI without DRM for a small premium, later bringing the price down to the same $0.99 it charges for other tracks with DRM.Amazon followed suit in September, selling unprotected MP3 files from EMI and Universal. Warner joined them on Dec. 28.The record companies all say they hope the move will lead to greater online music sales.Sony-BMG said it hopes its combined model, selling a download pass through a physical store, will lead to greater sales of physical and digital music.Albums need a boost, as the number sold in the U.S. dropped again last year, even as the number of music purchases rose, market watcher Nielsen SoundScan reported last week.U.S. music buyers made 1.4 billion music purchases in 2007, up from 1.2 billion a year earlier, Nielsen said.Nielsen counts a purchase as an album, single, CD or online download. Within that figure, digital track sales rose from 582 million to 844 million as buyers cherry-picked the tracks they liked from albums available online, while physical album sales (whether sold in-store or over the Internet, but excluding downloads) fell to 451 million in 2007, from 556 million in 2006, it said.But if U.S. consumers are making more music purchases, they may be spending less: Nielsen also counts something it calls track-equivalent album sales, in which it counts 10 track downloads as the equivalent of an album. By that measure, track-equivalent album sales fell 9.5 percent to 585 million in 2007, from 646 million in 2007.&#160;