Winning over music industry, Apple launches online song service
SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 28, 2003 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- Apple Computer
Inc., which angered music labels two years ago with its "rip, mix, burn" ad
campaign, has won over the recording industry with its launch of an online music
service.
The technology company's Music Store draws from all five major record labels in
offering more than 200,000 songs at 99 cents US a download. It aims to be more
consumer-friendly than industry-sponsored models by letting customers keep songs
indefinitely, share them on as many as three Macintosh computers and transfer
them to any number of portable IPods. No subscriptions are necessary and buyers
can burn unlimited copies of the songs onto CDs.
"It's not free, but it's 99 cents a song, pretty doggone close," Apple CEO Steve
Jobs said. "There's no legal alternative that's worth beans."
A new version of the IPod - thinner and lighter - was also announced Monday. It
comes with 30 gigabytes, the largest storage capacity yet for the Apple device,
enough to hold 7,500 songs.
Jobs has intensely courted music industry executives, who have been leery of
digital music downloads and have aggressively used lawsuits and lobbying to stem
the illegal copying and distribution of copyright works. That wariness has
hamstrung other online music distribution models, keeping most of the best new
music offline.
In contrast, Music Store includes many more songs, Jobs said, with more to be
added each day. They include music by U2, Eminem and 18 other artists who have
previously not supported any music downloads.
Initially, the service is expected to work only with Macintosh computers, but if
Apple eventually releases a version for the nearly ubiquitous Microsoft Windows
platform - as it did for its portable IPod music player - then the service could
have mass appeal.
Even if the service remains limited to Macs, which comprise less than three per
cent of the desktop computing market, the segment is big enough for record
labels to test a new business model for supplying music online, said Phil Leigh,
a digital music analyst at research firm Raymond James & Associates.
"I think it'll change the world a little bit," Leigh said. "It'll be the first
legitimate online music service that will have major brand recognition, and it's
focused on portability and ease of use."
Until now, most music found online lacked the blessing of the major labels.
Millions of users are downloading free copies of songs through file-sharing
services such as Kazaa - services that the recording industry have sued in an
effort to stem what they deem as revenue-robbing piracy.
The Recording Industry Association of America has sued four college students who
allegedly offered more than one million recordings over the Internet, demanding
damages of $150,000 US per song. Music companies are also lobbying corporations,
urging them to crack down on the downloading of songs using company computers.
But their efforts suffered a major blow Friday when a federal judge in Los
Angeles ruled that Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., the companies
that distribute Grokster and Morpheus, aren't to blame for any illegal copying
that their customers do using their file-sharing software. They've vowed to
appeal.
Apple enters a market that has yet to establish much traction. Other providers
of online music to paid subscribers have drawn only about 650,000 users,
analysts estimate.
Pressplay, a joint venture of Sony and Universal, charges a flat fee of $9.95 US
a month to listen to an unlimited number of songs from the major labels.
Consumers who want to buy songs to store on their hard drive or burn them onto a
CD pay an extra fee of 98 cents per song.
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KEYWORD: SAN FRANCISCO
SUBJECT CODE: technology
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