Online music provider 7digital is bringing over-the-air music downloads to recent BlackBerry phones, such as the Storm, Bold, and Tour. The rumors have been circulating for several months now. On Tuesday the company is set to launch its application--developed by DevelopIQ--on the BlackBerry App World store, as well as on the 7digital Web site.
After installing the free app, BlackBerry users will be able to buy and download more than 6 million songs from all four major labels and all the big independents, all in unprotected MP3 format. The app adapts automatically to the speed of the user's connection--when connecting over a wireless data network, it will download a relatively low-quality version of the song. Then, when the user enters the range of a previously known Wi-Fi network, it will automatically--in the background--update the MP3 with a higher-quality version (320kbps in most cases).
7digital is based in the U.K. and is fairly well known in Europe--it powers the download store for free streaming service Spotify, among other partnerships--but has been relatively obscure in the United States. That's changing Tuesday as well: the company is launching its online music store in the U.S., bringing more competition to the likes of iTunes and Amazon. Standard pricing for songs and albums will be 77 cents and $7.77 respectively, which is a play on the company's name (although variable pricing means that some popular material will cost more). The company also offers a free digital locker service, which backs up all your downloads in case you lose them.
When Dada.net, a music site run by a joint venture between major label Sony BMG and Italian mobile-entertainment company Dada, first launched, $9.99 got you 15 "tokens" that could be redeemed for ringtones or MP3s.
Unfortunately, it offered only songs from Sony BMG, as other download services with a much larger selection--notably Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes--began to offer DRM-free downloads for a buck or less.
Despite some big holes, Dada.net does offer a complete selection by some artists, including Radiohead.
The service now has a free tier that offers unlimited streaming, and unlike other free streaming services such as Grooveshark or Spotify, you also get three free MP3 downloads per month. I tested it with a download of Beck's "Bolero", and everything seems legit--you do have to register with a valid e-mail address, but you aren't forced to give a credit card number to get your free service, as with eMusic.
The selection still has some gaping holes--no Led Zeppelin or Beatles, for example--but some non-Sony artists like Pink Floyd and Radiohead (the bulk of whose recordings are owned by EMI) are represented with a full complement of recordings, including obscure live albums and EPs. And, of course, Sony artists like Kings of Leon are fully represented. The free tier is definitely worth checking out, if you can't find a song you're looking for at one of the other free streaming services.
As far as the paid tier goes, I still think that it's a bad deal, at $9.99 a month, for 15 free MP3s (the first month, you get 25). You can get DRM-free downloads for about the same price, with no monthly subscription fee, from many other sources. Another possible deterrent: Dada has been accused of using questionable tactics to attract and retain subscribers. I haven't experienced any problems, and the most recent complaints date from 2006, but the reports are common enough that I have to suggest caution.
That didn't take long. Friday evening I blogged that the government of Antigua had issued a terse press release claiming that it had nothing to do with unlimited-download site Zookz. The Zookz legal team responded with an equally terse note saying that it didn't need the government's approval, and that its service was perfectly legal under its interpretation of a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling.
It looks like the authorities won this round. This afternoon, Zookz disappeared from the Web. According to a statement by the company's director of communications, the site is "temporarily not operating due to circumstances beyond [their] control" and the company is "returning all membership fees paid to date by our existing customers." The release and the Zookz Twitter feed both express hope that the site will be back up again soon. I wouldn't hold your breath--legal threats, followed by a takedown and an offer of refunds doesn't sound like a viable long-term business to me.
I'm curious to hear from any customers--how many songs did you download, and did Zookz refund your money as promised? Post in comments and let me know.
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Another reminder about music sites that sound too good to be true arrived in my in-box Friday.
Earlier this month, I blogged about Zookz, a new site currently in beta testing that allows users to download an unlimited number of MP3 audio files or MP4 video files for a single monthly fee ($9.95 for audio or video only; $17.95 for both). This seems to be an amazing deal compared with similar services--eMusic, for instance, offers a limited number of downloads for a monthly fee, and all-you-can-eat subscription services like the Zune Marketplace disable some portion of your downloads if you stop paying your subscription. Zookz has no such limitations.
The company claimed it could do this because it's based in Antigua, which isn't subject to the same restrictions as the U.S. But apparently, the Antiguan government doesn't want to have any official association with the service. According to a press release that I and some other bloggers got Friday, "The Zookz.com web site is not operating under the authority or with the knowledge of the Government of Antigua and Barbuda." It continues, "Zookz.com is not authorized by the Government of Antigua and Barbuda, or by the World Trade Organization, to offer entertainment downloads in contravention of international law."
I asked the company for their response, and they basically told me that they don't have to have the permission of the Antiguan government or the WTO. According to a statement from William Pepper, legal counsel for Zookz: "In December of 2007, the Appellate Body of the WTO confirmed the award of $21,000,000 annually to Antigua. This award imposes sanctions that allow the nullification of the TRIPS obligations for Antigua." If that lost you, he continues, "Zookz is the property of Carib Media Ltd. a company registered and conducting business in the State of Antigua and Barbuda, West Indies. Therefore there is nothing that requires Zookz to seek authorization from the WTO or the Government of Antigua to transact its business."
I'm not versed in international law, but in my experience, when lawyers start firing press releases back and forth, it doesn't bode well for the long-term survival of the businesses involved. As I blogged last week, if you want to check out Zookz, do it now.
Hear that popping sound? It's the sound of executives in the music and movie industries taking an extra dose of heart medicine. Wednesday, a new site called Zookz began public beta-testing a service that will let users download an unlimited number of MP3 music files for a single monthly fee of $9.95. Users can also download an unlimited number of MP4 movies for the same price, or both music and movies for $17.95 per month. Those are unprotected, DRM-free downloads that can be transferred to any device or shared an unlimited number of times.
Of course there are a few catches. Currently, the site only has about 50,000 tracks--a paltry selection compared with iTunes, Amazon MP3, and other services, although the company promises to add 5,000 tracks per week. In its current early beta state, there's no browsing among titles--you have to search, which requires you to know exactly what you want, and then hope it's in the (currently tiny) Zookz database. (I didn't test it for movies, as the focus of this blog--and my main personal interest--is music, but the selection's even smaller there: only 1,500 titles.)
How can Zookz possibly get away with this when the only other subscription music-download service I know of, eMusic, charges more for a limited number of monthly downloads? Simple. According to its FAQ, Zookz is based in the Caribbean nation of Antigua, and isn't subject to U.S. jurisdiction, including copyright law. The company claims it's operating in line with a 2007 World Trade Organization agreement between Antigua and the U.S., a claim I have absolutely no qualifications to evaluate one way or the other.
If you're willing to trust Zookz with your credit card information, you can fill your hard drive and all your portable music players with music for a very, very low price. Get it while it lasts....
Yes, it's that simple. (For the record, I already own this album on vinyl, but have been too lazy to rip it.)
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Today, U.K. Internet service provider Virgin Media announced plans to begin offering unlimited song downloads for a monthly subscription fee. The songs will be DRM-free MP3 files, which means they will never expire, even if the user switches ISPs. Universal, the largest record label in the world, is so far the only label to sign on, but the other majors will probably follow.
The deal was announced along with a threat to crack down on illegal downloaders (perhaps through some sort of BitTorrent monitoring, although Virgin claims it won't be doing the monitoring itself), but the companies left the most important question unanswered: how much will it cost?
The labels won't want to settle for less than they're getting through iTunes and other download stores, so Virgin will have to guess how many songs will be downloaded per month, then divide that number by the number of subscribers. After some initial heavy usage, I can imagine users downloading about two albums per month. So I could imagine a rate of about $40 per month. That seems fair compared with subscription-based streaming services like Rhapsody, which starts at $12.99 a month.
But what's fair to the industry may not seem fair to users, who have been downloading free music for almost a decade now. People have proven willing to pay for downloads when they get some other tangible benefit--in the case of iTunes, it's the ease of transferring purchased songs to their iPod or iPhone. When the only extra benefit is a clear conscience and less chance of being sued, I think a lot of users will take the risk and stick with free.
Would you pay a monthly fee for unlimited downloads? If so, how much?
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I'm not a huge Phish fan. I've only seen them once, at the Warfield, a 3,000-set venue in San Francisco, back in 1994. I skipped their subsequent arena shows because I figured they couldn't top the intimacy of that experience. But I know from that one show that they're a great live band, and now they're back together and touring for the summer after a six-year hiatus. They haven't announced a Pacific Northwest date yet, but if they do, I'd be tempted to go.
Here's the thing, though: six years is a long time. What if they don't have it anymore? Even some hardcore fans I talked to said their last few tours weren't as great as their heyday at the end of the 1990s. (There's this story, probably apocryphal, that guitarist Trey Anastasio knew it was time to take a break from the band when a certain trio of fans he used to see at every show stopped coming.)
Doubt no more. Now you can find out for yourself whether they've still got it because Phish has made a full recording of every show on the 2009 tour (three, so far) available, in its entirety, for free. Start here, click on the "DOWNLOAD FREE MP3s" link at the bottom of each page, and you're in. If you're a big fan, you can pay for higher quality FLAC files or ar triple CD of the show. You have to register with an e-mail address (you could enter a fake if you're paranoid) and password, and you might want to install a small Java applet to download entire shows at once (downloading individual songs requires the old right-click save-file-as kludge).
The site itself has short samples of each song. Want to see whether that performance of "Rock and Roll" on March 7 was the Led Zeppelin song or the Velvet Underground song? Find out here. Can't imagine their first-ever performance of George Jones' "She Thinks I Still Care" from last night? Right here.
See, most bands are scared to give recordings away. Why would anybody come to the show if they can already hear it online? But Phish is so confident in its live abilities, it knows that posting live recordings for free will serve as an incentive to draw fans to its show. So when will other big-name live acts start doing the same thing?
One more detail about the latest Zune update: the Zune Pass, which costs $14.99 a month, is now going to allow users up to 10 permanent downloads per month. That's in addition to the unlimited downloads that expire if you stop paying your subscription. Think of it like an insurance policy for Zune Pass: if your Zune breaks and you decide to switch to another brand of MP3 player, you'll still get to keep some of the songs you downloaded.
Soon, you'll be able to get 10 permanent downloads a month with a Zune Pass, in addition to unlimited music as long as you keep paying $14.99 a month.
(Credit: Microsoft)I believe that Microsoft is the first company to offer free permanent downloads alongside unlimited temporary downloads. Subscription service eMusic does sell permanent downloads, but limits you to a certain number per month. Nokia's Comes With Music might offer more bang for your downloading buck, as it allows you to keep all of the songs you've downloaded during a one-year period. But those songs are DRM-protected, limited to your phone and one PC, and can't be burned to CD. In contrast, Zune's music catalog is about 85 percent MP3s. (Microsoft also announced that it's added songs from Universal Music and Sony BMG to its MP3 catalog, along with Warner, EMI, and a lot of indies.) This means a lot of the Zune permanent downloads will be completely unrestricted.
Is all this going to be enough to wrest some market share from the iPod, or even help Microsoft overtake number-two SanDisk in the MP3 player space? Probably not this year. But given that the Zune devices are just the first shot in a long-term plan to become a major digital audio and video distributor, I'm not betting against Microsoft. Look how long the company was willing to spend money on the Xbox business before it became a real player in console gaming.
Correction: AC/DC's 1981 album For Those About to Rock We Salute You peaked at #1 on the U.S. charts, which means Wal-Mart's press release is wrong.
American retail giant Wal-Mart relaunched its online MP3 store Tuesday, and it's a worthy competitor to Amazon in the DRM-free MP3 sweepstakes. (To remind you: unlike many songs from Apple's iTunes, or Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, or Nokia's music store, every song sold on Amazon and Wal-Mart can be played an unlimited number of times on just about any portable device and in any software application out there.)
The new Wal-Mart store includes top hits at only 74 a cents per song, with standard pricing at 94 cents (a nickel cheaper than most), plus a free download of the week (hopefully it won't always be kids' music), plus one free MP3 download for every full physical album that you buy either in the store or on the Web site starting in November.
Highlights of Wal-Mart's relaunched MP3 store include exclusives, a free song of the week, and selected downloads for only $0.74
(Credit: Screenshot)But no AC/DC. If you're of a certain age and musical predeliction, you probably already know that AC/DC's new album, Black Ice, is available only at Wal-Mart--but not as a download. You might have checked out the new single, "Rock and Roll Train," for its first minute or two. But you probably would never have guessed that Black Ice has just become AC/DC's second album to top the U.S. charts, showing that big old rock bands don't need none of that digital computer stuff anyhow. At least they have a sense of humor about it.
Last week, the British Music Rights organization published a study about the musical habits and desires of younger listeners. The survey (available here in PDF form) included more than 1,000 recipients, age 14 and up, enrolled in universities or "feeder schools," and the results contain some positive nuggets for the ailing recorded music industry.
According to this survey, students value their music collections more than their other physical possessions.
(Credit: British Music Rights)Most notably, given all the warnings about video games and other forms of entertainment taking music's place, music is still important to kids: 73% of those surveyed said they'd want to take their music collection with them to a desert island. Music came in ahead of all other possessions, including their mobile phones, books and magazines, and musical instruments. Moreover, while illegal downloading is popular (63% do it) and the most frequently cited reason for it is "to save money," CDs are far from dead: 97% of survey respondents had a CD collection, and only 14% of those CDs were ripped from friends.
But here's the part that really caught my attention--74% of kids say they'd pay for a legal file-trading service that contained every song ever recorded and let them keep the songs indefinitely. But even with this infinite online database, 63% would continue to buy CDs because they want a physical artifact.
These numbers are probably exaggerated: survey respondents might say they're willing to pay for something, then change their minds when the actual product goes on sale. Even so, the demise of physical music is not imminent--people want the artwork, the physical connection with the artist, and an item to place on their shelves to show an aspect of their personality to friends.
