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To: Done, gone. who wrote (44613)	5/11/2005 11:32:24 AM
From: William F. Wager, Jr.	Respond to of 213177

Internet Music Cos Dn After Yahoo Announces New Music Svc... DOW JONES NEWSWIRES May 11, 2005 10:27 a.m. By Ellen Sheng Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW YORK -- Shares of companies offering online music services fell Wednesday after Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) announced plans for a new low-priced service that will let users rent from a selection of more than one million songs. The service, to be called Yahoo Music Unlimited, will charge its users $6.99 a month and give unlimited access to a database that includes Bruce Springsteen and 50 Cent. Those who don't want to pay on a monthly basis can pay an annual subscription fee of $60. Songs become unplayable once customers let their subscriptions expire. Yahoo's new service, which is about half the price of other popular services out there, put pressure on other companies Wednesday. Shares of RealNetworks Inc. (RNWK), which charges $179 a year for a similar service, fell 22.1% to $5.69 in recent trading. Napster Inc. (NAPS), which was best known for its free, often pirated, content before it came clean and started charging a monthly fee, saw its shares tumble 30.7% to $4.42. Napster charges its users $9.95 or $14.95 a month, depending on whether or not the users wants to transfer the music files onto a portable device. Even Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL), which offers the most popular online music service, iTunes, saw its shares slide 5.1% to $34.55. Apple has a database of about 1.5 million songs and charges users 99 cents per song. "There can be little doubt that Yahoo's announcement will put significant pricing pressure on the other online incumbents," said Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. Leigh said he was surprised by Yahoo's low pricing since Napter and RealNetworks have implied that the profit margins have not been very high unless there were special circumstances. Still, other companies will likely be forced to lower prices unless Yahoo's service proves unreliable, he said. Yahoo shares recently traded at $34.20, up 0.4%. -By Ellen Sheng, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5863; ellen.sheng@dowjones.com