An
online music store is an
online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from
music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual
music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without actually owning the source file. However, music stores generally offer partial streaming previews, some even with full length.
History
The Internet's first free high fidelity online music archive of downloadable songs was the
Internet Underground Music Archive. IUMA was started by Rob Lord, Jeff Patterson and Jon Luini from the
University of California, Santa Cruz in 1993 The realization of the market for these services grew widespread around the time of
Napster, a music and
file sharing service created by
Shawn Fanning that made a major impact on the Internet scene during the year 2000. Some services have
tethered downloads, meaning that playing songs requires an active membership.
In 2000 Sony became the second company to make music from one of the major labels available for sale on the internet, with ''. However, it was not the first online music sharing company, because the first one was shut down in a lawsuit under the
DMCA. The big record companies were apprehensive to license their catalogs to outside companies and refused the late 90's requests of
MP3.com,
Cductive and
eMusic (then called Goodnoise) to sell digital song downloads. They eventually decided to start their own services, which they could control directly.
Sony's service did not do as well as was hoped. Many consumers felt the service was difficult to navigate and use. Sony's pricing of US$3.50 per song track also turned off many early adopters of the service. Furthermore, as
MP3 Newswire pointed out in its review of the service, users were actually only renting the tracks for that $3.50. After a certain point the files expired and could not be played again without repurchase. The service quickly failed.
Undaunted, the record industry tried again. Universal Music Group and Sony teamed up with a service called Duet, later renamed
pressplay. EMI, AOL/Time Warner and BMG teamed up with
MusicNet. Again, both services struggled, hampered by high prices and heavy limitations on how downloaded files could be used once paid for. In the end, consumers chose instead to download music using free file sharing programs, which many felt were more convenient and easier to use.
Non-major label services like
eMusic,
Cductive and
Listen.com (now
Rhapsody) sold the music of independent labels and artists to keep in the game, however
digital audio downloads began to gain popularity after the launch of the
iTunes Store (then called iTunes Music Store) and the creation of portable music and
digital audio players. This enabled music fans to take their music with them, wherever they went.
Current market
Recently, there has been a boom in "boutique" music stores that cater to specific audiences.
There are also an increasing amount of new services popping up that enable musicians to sell their music directly to fans without the need for a 3rd party. These type of services usually use
e-commerce enabled
web widgets that embed into many types of web pages. This turns each web page into the musician's own online music store.
A more recent development allows the instant downloading of radio-songs, as they are broadcasted, straight to a mobile phone in less than 60 seconds. This technical innovation from Sweden, called DROPme, represents a different channel and consumer behavior relative to the online services.
As of April 2008, the largest online music service is
iTunes Store with around 80% of the market. On
April 3,
2008 iTunes Store surpassed
Wal-Mart as the biggest music retailer in the US, a milestone in the music industry as it is the first time in history that an online music retailer exceeds those of physical music formats.
Compared to file swapping
Much controversy surrounds this issue, so many or perhaps all of these points are disputed.
Advantages
- More consistent and higher quality meta-data, because the entering of the meta-data is more centralized and done by groups with financial interests.
- Music download companies are more accountable to users than creators of file-sharing programs
- Centralized repository of music makes it easier to find the songs you want.
- Notably, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs claimed in his introduction of the iTunes Store that file swappers get paid less than minimum wage for the work required to download audio.
Disadvantages
- Many major online music stores only offer music in one audio format. Most labels will not allow their music to be sold in the common MP3 format that music players use. For the most part music that is sold in MP3 format is not sold at higher bit rate encoding.
- Most stores use Digital Rights Management, which limits use of music on certain devices. The restrictions vary between different services, and sometimes even between different songs from the same service.
- Geographical restrictions rule most of the stores at the request of record labels.
- Many online music stores sell music encoded in a lossy format, compared to an audio CD.
- Users do not have a "hard copy" of purchased music, such as a CD, for archiving (although music can usually be backed up to a CD or portable music player).
- Some stores do not provide artwork or liner notes.
- Stores have limited catalogs, because of copyright concerns.
- Often, illegal downloading methods (most notably torrents) download faster and often offer more complete versions of albums (Bonus tracks and the like).
See also
