Kazaa, one of the most notorious P2P software of yesteryear is set to make a comeback in 2009, this time as a legal subscription music service.
Sources speaking to Cnet say the rebirth could happen as soon as August and will turn the once infamous unauthorized downloading hub into a new subscription service with catalogs from the Big 4 labels.
Unlimited downloads will cost $20 USD a month and the store is expected to open with over a million tracks available.
Napster, the original file sharing site to feel the wrath of the record label, reopened as a legal music store in 2003.
Result for: catalogs
Amazon today has expanded their popular Amazon MP3 store to the UK, marking the first time the store had been available outside the US.
The store will be almost identical to its American counterpart and will sell DRM-free MP3 tracks and albums that can be played in any media player.
The launch of the site is missing many artists’ catalogs but Amazon says they will be adding music regularly.
Another interesting note is the pricing. Apple’s iTunes charges a fixed price of £0.79 per song but Amazon will charge between £0.59p and £0.80p “depending on the currency and popularity of the content.”
Full albums are steeply discounted and can sell for as low as £3 for major groups.
The large e-tailer expects to expand the store into other countries in the next year including Canada, France and Japan.
Result for: catalogs
It appears that Sony BMG and Warner are close to signing a deal for the upcoming MySpace Music online store that would make their entire music catalogs available to the service.
The service is expected to offer individual pay-for MP3 downloads as well “as ad-subsidized free streams of music and videos.” MySpace Music online is also expected to have downloadable ringtones through Jamba.
The deal has a strange compensation format however. All labels that are part of the service will be paid “a share in the venture dictated by their existing marketshare outside of MySpace.” It is not clear whether sales success from the service will change the format of compensation however. Universal is expected to not make a deal for the time being because it has an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the social networking site.
Sony, Warner and MySpace declined comment but the service is believed to be an attempt to dethrone the online market leader iTunes.
