It seems that every week a music company partners up with a technology company to offer us the ability to buy more music online. This time it’s the turn of EMI and Snocap, a new venture that includes Shawn Fanning of Napster fame. [Slight irony in that one.] Here’s why I see it as a short-sighted move – people are buying less music, even from iTunes, because of the same old reason they bought fewer CDs in the past, the music isn’t that great. Unless that is, they search the web and find music that they had never heard and didn’t know existed, then I believe they make a purchase; and that’s where the Long Tail theory kicks in – many more artists are selling 1s and 2s of their CDs and the blockbusters are declining because of that. Offering me the ability to buy Korn or Yellowcard from music blogs is about as exciting as having my spleen removed without ansthesia.
Here’s the story from the New York Times: Music blogs and social networking sites like MySpace are playing an increasingly important part in record companies’ marketing plans. Now they will also be able to sell songs from a major label that will play on the iPod from Apple. EMI Music and Snocap are to announce today that Snocap will sell the label’s music in its MyStores, online shops that can be added to various sites on the Internet. Snocap’s MyStores would be placed on the Web sites of EMI artists like Korn, Suzanne Vega and Yellowcard, as well as on artists’ MySpace pages. Fans would also be able to place MyStores “widgets†on their own sites and MySpace pages, although Snocap would still control sales. Read the rest of the article.
Related Posts: DRM free MP3s from EMI, EMI, there goes another label, Original Moose blog post