Digital Music Disconnect

from the not-a-good-sign dept

There are plenty of reasons why the new music subscription services Pressplay and MusicNet aren't likely to be big hits with consumers who are doing just fine with their free Morpheus and Limewire. However, News.com points out another reason why it looks bad for the music industry: while companies like Apple are coming out with more advanced digital devices to play downloaded music, none of those devices can actually play music from the subscription services. Their priorities are just different. So, the music companies are basically asking consumers to pay money to get less selection, with fewer rights (many subscription songs "expire"), and with many fewer ways to use them, since they'll only play off of your computer. How many iPod users are going to go out and sign up for one of these services when they can't even play the songs they download on their shiny new $400 device? It seems like there's a bit of disconnect between the people working on these subscription services and what's going on in the world around them.

Leave a Comment..