MusicMatch, company which is a developer of a well-known media player software of same name, has plans to launch an online music subscription service in December that would rival Pressplay, Rhapsody and MusicNet.
MusicMatch announced today that it has signed licensing deals with four (out of five) major record labels in order to use their material in its upcoming subscription service, dubbed as Artist On Demand. Company signed deals with BMG, TimeWarner, EMI and Vivendi Universal and is now only missing a deal with Sony.
The service will work -- at least in its initial phase -- only as a streaming service, with no option for downloads. The cost of the service will be $6.95 a month or $59.40 annually.
Source: News.com
Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 13 Nov 2002 13:01
MusicMatch plans to launch a subscription service
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Ghostdog
Requirements of a good online music-service:
* "Full" range of music
- Music from "all" artists from all record-labels. Pressplay and Rhapsody have more or less achieved this.
* No limitations
- When you buy a track/album, itīs yourīs.
You can burn it to a CD, give it to friend, whatever you wanīt (within limitations of laws). Also, the tracks should work with all players and software, not a specific music-player for each service.
* Competetive prices
- An album should cost (much) less when downloading it than if you were buying it in a store.
* Quality
- The quality of the final product (in this case music) needs to be equivalent, or at least very near, to CD quality. Wave-format might be too big (not all of us have broadband) but the music canīt sound bad even when played in a large facility and with several big speakers (this happens with low-quality mp3s burnt to a CD-R).
* Functionality and support
- A broadband user shouldnīt be forced to download at slow speeds because of bad servers and connections related to the service-provider. Servers need to stand even heavy loads. Technical support should be included in the price of the product.
These are the requirements I think need to be filled to make a good service, and if the service is good then more people might be interested.
If you have anyhthing you would like to see on this list, please contribute, it would be great to hear your oppinions as well.
15.11.2002 12:19 #1
