While Wal-Mart may have entered the digital music scene a little late and didn’t really come in with a bang, they’re proving that they can compete with the competition, namely iTunes. Their recent announcement that they will be selling DRM-free music at $0.94 per song is proof of this. The music will be from labels like Universal Music Group as well as EMI group and will be compatible with nearly every digital media player including the Zune and the iPod. Starting today, Wal-Mart’s catalogue includes these songs – thousands of them.
Music labels that have agreed to offer DRM-free songs are hoping that it will boost the sales of digital music. At the same time, some labels are concerned over whether or not the lack of DRM protection will hurt sales and increase/encourage piracy. While there are people who flat-out won’t pay for music, DRM-free or not because it’s available for free via torrents, there are others who regularly purchase music. The lack of DRM will certainly be an incentive for these people to purchase more music.
The price that Wal-Mart is offering these songs at is amazing to say the least, and I wonder if they’ll be able to keep this introductory price. You’ll probably recall back in May when Apple’s iTunes started selling sans-DRM music for $1.29 per song – $0.30 more than what songs with DRM sell for. This means that iTunes is selling songs with DRM for more than what Wal-Mart is offering DRM-free songs for. Hmm… does this mean a price-cut is in store over at iTunes soon?
Source: Reuters
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Tags: Web Sites, iPod, iTunes, Music, Piracy, Zune
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itunes will still win, the ease of use is what made the ipod and that’s what’ll keep it.
If I purchased music, I’d get it from WalMart DRM-free.
Yeah, if I was going to purchase music I would get it from Walmart as well. I like that it is a bit cheaper than iTunes, some of it is DRM-free, and it’s in a high-quality MP3 format.
The music download seems to work only for win 2000 or XP.
When I try it with am Mac (Safari or Firefox) I get the message “We’re sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT. Please visit again after you upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP.”
I understand “we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT”. But i see no reason why Mac-s are unsupported.
I just read at slashdot and thought everybody should know before they jump on the DRM free tunes from walmart.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07.....1256.shtml
Smiley Face writes “Wal-Mart has hopped on the DRM-free bandwagon with today’s announcement that it will be participating in Universal’s DRM-free sales pilot. The quality looks good: 256Kbps MP3 for 94 cents apiece, but customers are likely to be turned off by the retail chain’s continued censorship. ‘It’s a bit hard to believe that all the customers who shop at the world’s largest retailer want censored versions of music, though, but that’s what they get. Only edited versions of albums with parental advisories are available, just as they are in Wal-Mart’s offline stores. This isn’t a new policy; Wal-Mart’s online music store has carried only edited versions for years, but it’s worth pointing out to potential new users tempted by the lower prices and lack of DRM.’”
[+] music, business, internet (tagging beta)
taf
@Schmidetzki: Interesting that you were able to access the store but not download anything - Ars Technica is reporting that the browser-based store (as opposed to the one accessed through WMP) blocks access for Mac and Linux based browsers.
There’s more on the censorship at Ars Technica too. (http://tinyurl.com/2buk4j)
Let’s hope that iTunes will lower their prices soon. Well, probably not. It’s the biggest music store on the internet after all…
Long live Torrents.
Unfortunately, torrents tend not to live long. Old torrents get unhealthy and soon no-one wants to get involved with them. Without anyone caring for them, many torrents curl up and die
I wanna keep it legal, especially with these independent artist who wouldn’t be able to survive if I was to illegally download their music. However, I stand my point: down with the RIAA and (most of the) mainstream music!
I’m one of those tat likes to keep it legal as well. I only buy songs if I REALLY want them… and lately there are hardly any that I want enough to buy. I just listen to XM Radio and usually I’m sick of the songs after a few weeks anyways due to songs being over-played.
That’s true. They keep playing the same stuff for over three months. We have a commercial radio station around here called Q-Music and they’re as commercial as a radio station can get. They always spin the same music and I’m sure that they work with segments (e.g. 1 minute talk, 3 minutes music). I never listen to it but my mom does and she turns it on when she’s in the car. I was in the car once and I heard Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira. Guess what happened three months later? I heard that same darn song again!