Sony BMG Developing Online Music Service

[HardOCP News]

Sony BMG Music Entertainment is supposedly developing an online music subscription service that would give users unlimited access to the company’s entire music catalog for a monthly fee.

As for costs to subscribers, the newspaper quoted him as saying that the ''simplest option would be a flat rate'' fee per month of around 6 to 8 euros ($9 to $12) for unlimited access to Sony BMG's entire music catalog and that the downloads would be compatible with all players, including Apple's ubiquitous iPod.

 

[Eulogy]

Step one in the right direction, IMO. If this line keeps in the "final" version, I might just be sold:

He said that it was ''even possible that clients could keep some songs indefinitely, that they would own them even after the subscription expired.''

Emphasis on might, of course.

 

[Snowdog]

The only way they can run on all platforms if they don't use DRM.

I can't see this happening or lasting very long once they realize people will join for a month, download every tune they could conceivably want, then cancel their subscription.

I am betting a tech illiterate exec is confused about what the service will do.

 

[SamuraiInBlack]

So now their rootkits come with a subscription?

 

[Deviationer]

sorry no. I'm not doing a subscription for music. I'd rather pay per song and basically own it instead of renting my music.

 

[Azhar]

sorry no. I'm not doing a subscription for music. I'd rather pay per song and basically own it instead of renting my music.

Subs aren't all that bad the first couple months. I did that with Napster. Start a subscription and grab all the free songs you can, then cancel the subscription, THEN pay per music on the ones that charges you anyways.

 

[jasonstjohn]

So what's the quality they're offering? 128kbps mp3?

I hate to be a FLAC fanboy, but if its not FLAC, I won't bother with it.

 

[Modred189]

Ok, so i have been using a sony based music service for some time now. Called Sony Connect. It was nice. Yea, it used the sony proprietary ATRAC file, but they were decent sounding, small, and the DRM wasn't terrible. I mean, you had to use SOny players (cough Apple cough), but you could backup and migrate your library, and you could re-download a song if you accidentally deleted it without re-buying.
The only issue was the lack of updates to the music catalogue.

 

[InorganicMatter]

So what's the quality they're offering? 128kbps mp3?

I hate to be a FLAC fanboy, but if its not FLAC, I won't bother with it.

I agree, although I doubt it'll be FLAC since the world's most common players - iTunes and Windows Media - don't support FLAC natively, and no mainstream players do. FLAC's not that special anyway, just another lossless codec. Any lossless is fine with me as long as it's lossless and properly tagged (with album art!). It'll probably end up being MPEG4-AAC, as the industry is finally moving to that (and rightfully so!).

 

[Jester1550]

So now their rootkits come with a subscription?

QFT.

Rootkits will have the ability to phone home with a complete list of any 'acquired' mp3s and will give the information to RIAA complete with your credit card numbers to bill you and skip the hassle of litigation.