The latest album from pop singer Jesse McCartney could make David Goldberg a star.
Goldberg is general manager of online music sales for Internet giant Yahoo Inc.,
and his Yahoo Music Service is selling McCartney’s “Right Where You
Want Me" without restrictive antipiracy software. If Yahoo can sell
more copies of the album than the dominant iTunes Store, run by
archrival Apple Computer Inc., it could be the beginning of a transformation in the online music market.
Both
companies are selling the album for $9.99. But Yahoo Music won’t try to
prevent buyers from passing out copies to friends, or posting the songs
on the Internet where friends can download them. Versions of the album
sold by Apple and other online retailers will contain the usual
“digital rights management" or DRM software, to prevent illegal
copying. But Yahoo will issue McCartney’s album in MP3, a generic music
format that lets the owner make unlimited copies.
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Hey!
You’re forgetting that Apple owns about 75% of the digital audio player market, and songs purchased from iTunes ONLY work on those players. It will take more than good music sales to sway the entire market in Yahoo’s favor. I think they would have to be putting out digital devices too. Plus, if Apple releases the rumored iPhone, the slope for Yahoo to climb may be too steep.
I’m not forgetting anything. Don’t miss the fact that an MP3 file sold by Yahoo CAN play on an iPod. This is not an issue of Apple vs Yahoo, but one of freedom for music buyers and their ability to play the files they pay for anywhere they want to. You cannot do that with iTunes.
Dave is correct. I belong to emusic and always check there first before buying anything from iTunes. It’s very simple using their software to upload the mp3′s to iTunes and from there to my iPod.
emusic is much less expensive than iTunes and does not do the DRM software.
Well, I’m am and always have been a died-in-the-wool Apple fan, so please forgive my fanatacism.
I use Emusic as well, and prefer it on Itunes.
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