Total Music may bundle subscription and players

Stephen Withers
Monday, 15 October 2007 04:46

Your IT - Home IT

Three of the big four music labels may be planning a joint download service.

Universal Music, Sony BMG and possibly Warner Music may join forces to offer hardware vendors an all-you-can-eat download service to be bundled with their players and mobile phones, according to reports in BusinessWeek and the Daily Telegraph.

Univeral is reportedly the instigator of the scheme, known as Total Music. The idea is that vendors would pay an upfront fee, which would then be added to the price of the player or phone. $US90 has been suggested, corresponding to $US5 per month over the average 18-month device life.

While that might work for relatively high-end devices, it is hard to see how it could be applied to models that already sell for less than the projected cost, although one approach might be for vendors to sell the service itself and invite punters to "get this player at no extra charge."

The motivation appears to be an attempt to reduce Apple's dominance of the downloadable music market. Universal's songs are already available through Wal-Mart at lower prices than Apple's iTunes Store charges. Universal makes DRM-free tracks available through Wal-Mart but not through the iTunes Store.

Apple's insistence on single pricing ($US0.99 for each DRM-ptotected track) is said to be another thorn in the side of the music industry, who are used to charging top whack for the latest releases by major artists and discounting selected items from the back catalogue. But subscription services are the most extreme form of single pricing.

And do people want music subscription services anyway? The jury's still out, but the subscription model hasn't taken the world by storm so far.