HMV, Woolworths, 7digital, Digitalstores, Tescodigital, Tunetribe, and Play.com have all agreed to promote a new “MP3 compatible” logo that they hope will raise the profile of the open MP3 music format and inform users on what they can do with their DRM-free downloads.
The logo should also help consumers identify legal music stores from P2P.
The Entertainment Retailers Association created the logo and says it will emphasize that MP3s can be played in all media players.
7digital’s Ben Drury added that digital sales “have been booming because users love the freedom of MP3″.
“The beauty of an MP3 file is that once you have bought it, you don’t need to be a computer genius or a lawyer to make it work and you are not locked in to a relationship with a single retailer or hardware manufacturer,” he said.
The BPI is also standing behind the new proposal.
“This logo will not only help give consumers confidence that the music files they are buying will play on a wide range of devices, but will also help them know that they are legal and that artists are getting paid,” noted Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive.
Result for: music store
According to a study by MultiMedia Intelligence, 50 percent of all phones shipped worldwide will be music-capable by 2011. The report also estimates that the Cell phone market itself will remain flat in terms of growth with about 950 million phones being sold in 2011, same like estimates for 2008.
The mobile music business was $6 billion USD for 2008 and MMI chief researcher Frank Dickson says that music is one of the key drivers “behind future success for cellular carriers.”
The study comes at a point when carrier independent music stores are becoming more and more commonplace. Apple offers its iTunes store through the iPhone’s wireless and Nokia is introducing its Nokia Music Store worldwide.
Result for: music store
Nokia is set to launch Australia’s first subscription music service tomorrow in an effort to use its huge music industry clout to knock Apples’ iTunes platform from the top.
The service however, should see issues as it has been revealed that songs bought from the store will be incompatible with the dominant market leader for portable media players, the Apple iPod.
Price could be another problem if you do not use the subscription plan, as each track will cost $1.70 and albums will sell for $17. However, for $10 a month, Nokia will “allow customers to stream an unlimited number of full-length tracks directly from a player built into its music store website.”
The songs can be downloaded via compatible Nokia phones or on the PC and then synced over. Nokia says the 5310, 5610, 5700, N78, N81, N82, N91, N95, N96 and N76 handsets are all compatible, and other phones will work as long as they support Windows Media Player.
All 2.5 million songs in the catalog will have WMA DRM which will restrict the use and distribution of the songs, going against the current trend of removing DRM from music offerings. The iPod does not support DRM infested WMA files and therefore will not play anything purchased from the store.
Karen Farrugia, Nokia Australia’s music services manager, noted that locking out iPod owners would limit potential target market but the company still hopes to topple iTunes.
“At this time we are launching Windows Media DRM-protected files and we will look in the future to introduce an MP3 service … we’re in discussions with labels to really work on that,” she said.
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