MP|3 used our newssubmit to tell us about an article on Newsbytes with more information on the legal version of Napster called MusicNet. This is a service by the major record labels where you can download a certain amount of songs when you have paid a monthly fee.
The service is like renting a video, when you are not subscribed anymore you are no longer able to play the songs. Well let's see if this is going to work...
Consumers pay $12 to $15 a month (final price isn't set) for access to a certain number of songs. If the user decides to cancel the service later, the songs, although still on the hard drive, will no longer be playable. |
"If you're a consumer and you rent a video, when you return it, you don't have it anymore," says Rob Glaser, the CEO of RealNetworks and interim CEO of MusicNet, a consortium of Real, America Online and record labels EMI, Bertelsmann and Warner Music.
"MusicNet starts as a rental service and then can evolve into different things," Glaser says. "You can say, 'I really like that song, I want to buy it,' and we'll give you a permanent digital copy. We might also give the consumer credit for already renting it."
Real's demo of MusicNet shows a Napster-like interface with a search function that leads to a library of clickable songs. At the top of the page is a note of "remaining tokens," showing how many songs they have left to download or stream (listen to instantly). In one demo, the allotment was 70 downloads and 178 streams.
Source: Newsbytes.com
