Cnet reports that Listen.com has succeed in contracting the five biggest record labels to distribute their music online. Unfortunately this can only be considered to be a step into the right direction.
Listen.com does not allow users to download files or to burn them to CD. The service currently only offers streaming music, but has a selection of about 175,000 tracks.
According to Listen, the deal means that Rhapsody has become the first online music company to offer song catalogs from all of the Big Five labels: Vivendi, Warner Music Group, Bertelsmann's BMG, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Recorded Music. The labels themselves have launched their own attempts to sell digital music in the form of Pressplay and MusicNet, both of which offer downloads and streamed songs. |
Unlike other subscription and file-swapping services, Rhapsody streams songs onto subscribers' computers, instead of offering downloadable song files. Some subscription plans also allow for songs to be burned onto CDs.
Listen.com's service costs $9.95 a month and as said before is very limited. It is however the first online music service with a wide variety of music.
Now they will only need to find out that users want to download and burn the files, lower the prices a little, and we're finally there ! If people still want to spend their money on it
Source: Cnet.com
