Now imagine this scenario: what if you paid a yearly or monthly fee to an online store and in return you could download an unlimited number of songs. Not only that but these songs would be DRM-free so you only need to download a song once and you can play it anywhere you want and burn it to a CD multiple times.

A service like this is in the works from a site called Datz Music Lounge. Datz claims to offer unlimited music downloads in mp3 format for just 100 Pounds a year. That works out to around $160, based on the current exchange rate. As far as offers go, this sounds pretty good.

It’s not all hunky dory though. For starters, you need to be a United Kingdom resident to use the service. Other caveats are that you’ll have to have a special USB drive with the Datz software on it plus the software will work only on Windows for now. In addition, the site is currently only offering music from the Warner Music Group and EMI catalogues.

While on the surface of things it appears as if this is a win-win situation, I wonder how many people would be willing to pony up such a big amount as an advance payment. Also, with the plethora of free music sources available, does someone really need to buy music?

What do you think of the Datz Music Lounge concept? Are you in favor or against these kinds of services? How much money do you normally spend on purchasing music? Let me know in the comments.
Via Mediamemo

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Last week, Martin posted about how Yahoo was planning to shut down its Yahoo! Music store on 30^th September, 2008. The store would take its DRM servers offline on this date, in effect stranding all those people who had paid money for DRM-labeled music.

Apparently, Yahoo have realized the foolishness of their decision and the impact it will have on present and future customers of their services. They are now offering refunds to the people who bought music from the store. Another option being considered is to replace customers’ music with DRM-free MP3 versions of those same songs.

In addition, Yahoo! will transfer customers to the RealNetwork’s-owned Rhapsody service. This is for those people who have a subscription to the service. All these are far better than Yahoo!’s original suggestion that consumers burn the tracks to a CD and then rip that CD to get DRM-free versions of their tracks.

Yet again, problems have cropped up because of DRM. If the music from the store was DRM-free, shutting down the servers wouldn’t have affected anyone. Thanks to DRM, not only is Yahoo! going to lose a lot of its revenue but also lots of people are going to be inconvenienced.

I for one am waiting to see just how much Yahoo! will have to refund its customers. And whether Microsoft is going to follow its example. The real winner in all this is probably Rhapsody, who’s subscriber base will increase just like that. Let’s see what’s next on the DRM agenda, which seems to be falling apart. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

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Everyone who’s ever experienced music with DRM knows just how frustrating things can get. You buy a great new song and then realize you are bound by really dumb restrictions. That too on something you paid good money for. Still, the DRM wall is collapsing slowly but surely thanks to music stores willing to offer DRM-free music.

Back to Napster. The store has two main listening options. You can either opt for a monthly listening subscription which works out cheaper or download individual songs for 99 cents. Oh yeah, you can also download a full album for $9.95. Apart from being DRM-free, the songs are encoded at a reasonably high quality bitrate of 256 kbps and come with album art.

Why is Napster doing this? SImple. They’re looking to compete with iTunes. Apple has pretty much been the music retailer to beat for anyone looking to dominate the online music market. They seem to have started on a good note. Napster claims to have 6 million songs in their store songs from both major record labels and indie artists.

I’m going to wait and watch how Napster does before I pass any final judgments on their service. What do you think of Napster’s strategy? Would you be willing to purchase songs from their store? How do you think they’ll do against iTunes and the rest? Let me know in the comments.

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