Rolling Stones go digital with Real Networks' Rhapsody

August 18, 2003

EMI Music have announced that the Rolling Stones, a holdout against online music distribution, have agreed to sell their music online. The Internet appearance of the Stones, helps to signal the mainstreaming of digital music and is a welcome relief to online music companies.

The launch Monday exclusively on RealNetworks' Rhapsody subscription service, is part of a new promotion that will also see the Rhapsody service distributed and promoted heavily in Best Buy retail stores around the United States. Analysts said the extensive offline promotion was itself a critical sign of the digital medium's maturation.

"The collaborative effort between the physical channel, the digital channel and a large catalogue of content is the most interesting part of this," said Jupiter Research analyst Lee Black. "Best Buy is a powerful distributor, and that's the kind of (collaborative effort) that we haven't seen around marketing digital goods, at least in music."

The three-way promotion among the electronics retail store, the online company and the Rolling Stones' music label illustrates how several of the barriers that have held up widespread adoption of authorized online music services are falling.

Unlike some of the other well-publicized holdouts--most notably the Beatles--the Stones did not have serious objections to their music being put online. But having a catalogue that spanned nearly 40 years, most of it recorded before digital music rights were even a glimmer in a lawyer's eye, meant that there were complicated contractual issues to work out between the band and its various record labels.

Those rights have now been cleared, and fans will soon be able to buy and download the band's music on most of the major online music sites, a spokeswoman for EMI Music said. The Stones' earlier label, ABKCO Records, which holds rights to most of the group's 1960s work, will also allow online distribution of the music for the first time, but only in streaming format.

Also in the report, they state that it's the first time a retail store has put so much effort into promoting an online entertainment service. Best Buy even had 20,000 employees trained in how to use Rhapsody and has integrated the product into its checkout system. They are also using the promotion to sell Rolling Stones CDs, a plan that could help ease the concern traditional music stores still have about online services.

Source: news.com