Universal backs free download site

Is this the iTunes killer? It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally on its way. Universal, the world’s largest record label, is the first of the major labels to make its vast collection of music available for download for free, starting this December. A deal has been struck with startup company SpiralFrog, who plan to support the service by revenue from advertising.

The move represents a departure from previous online music models such as Itunes and Beatport, which charge per download, or subscription-based music services such as eMusic. Download charges at iTunes average £0.79 or $0.99 per track.

Whether Spiralfrog's free model will prompt a rethink at pay sites remains to be seen. Currently Itunes has a whopping 70% share of the download market, and approximately 30% of dance music downloads.

As well as Universal's catalogue, which includes artists such as Stevie Wonder, The Orb, Johnny Cash and Kanye West, SpiralFrog also plan to offer music on independent labels and video content for download.

The service will initially be available only in the United States and Canada, and downloaded tracks will be encrypted with digital rights management, which limits the number of times a song can be copied or the number of devices it can play on.

Ovum analyst Michele Mackenzie said: "There is no mention of which audio codec or DRM solution will be used, although it is very likely that the record labels will insist on some DRM being in place.”

"Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling," said Robin Kent, SpiralFrog’s chief executive. "SpiralFrog will offer those consumers a better experience and environment than they can get from any pirate site."

The market for legal digital downloads reached £575 million pounds ($1.1 billion US dollars) last year, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

Despite the growth in the legit market, it is still dwarfed by the illegal download trade. According to the IFPI, for every song bought legally on the internet, 40 are downloaded illegally.

you know as soon as this comes out someone will find a way to block all the ads and stuff

hahaha, right! it'll be a firefox extension . and another one to strip the drm from the tunes.

this should be killer if they have decent bit rates. pay sites will die.

That's the big "if" and I bet they won't - they know what they're messing with here.

i'm sure they'll be similar to what you get when you dl tunes off of iTunes at least.

I bet the bitrate will be arse, and who knows what format it will take. They arent doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, (or the ad money)-

why would it be any worse than iTunes or any of the other pay sites? that doesn't make sense.

There will probably be audio promos at the beginning of the downloaded tracks, and it probably won't be mp3, so it will be hard to edit/ cut out.

haha, you guys are funny.

this is gonna put Timis right out of business!

Dudes, someone will just come out with some software to up the bitrate.

It makes plenty sense. If they're charging $.99 less per track than iTunes, then they have plenty of room to work with to find the lowest bitrate people will tolerate in exchange for free music. Why would you trust Universal, of all entities, to do this in the way most beneficial to the consumer? There is no way that ad revenues will equal the CD revenues they'll be trying to replace, so they'll be looking for some way to make up the slack, whether that's subsequent sales of higher-bitrate (or whatever other "value-add") versions of the music, or an extra fee to play it on your iPod, or whatever... it will be there. Try not to be such a sucker.

Lego--I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you're joking.

Nah, he specializes in advances.

Yeah, you can already do that, but a 64kbps song will still sound shitty even if yuo up the rate to 256, you just made a bigger file with the same shitty data.

There WILL be a way to keep these files from being used to make CD's/copies, etc, such as the aforementioned commercial intros, shitty bit rates (itunes encodes at the shitty bit rate 128kbps, these will be smaller) and whatever else. But, if it gets itunes and other services to lower their prices, good on 'em.

What I dont understand is how itunes can get away with charging 10 bucks for a awful rip of a CD with no packaging, shelf space, etc. Realistically, those tracks should be 30 cents with CD's for 3.99, especially when the bitrate (and therefore, overall data size) is a tenth of what a CD would be

Truly an awesome stat. But you know what, without the advances made by "illegal" downloading, the online music (which is way more profitable than hard copy) would never have taken offl ike this. Apple and Sony and Real should hug file sharers and Shawn Fanning every day, because they have given them an avenue with which to take their stale marketing production and packaging ideas and continue to make a profit.

the son I never had, and the post I never posted..thanks

Can't burn them to a CD, can't play them on an iPod.

"Universal Lines Microsoft's Pockets, Dalen Bends Over and Smiles"

And when this fails, it'll obviously be the consumers' fault.

have some faith in geeks you dork.

I'm quite confident Universal will find some way to make this endeavor fail miserably.

It took them 7 years to crack WMA's DRM. So in 7 years I'll join you in the celebration.

Nah, its logarithmic. It will take about 14 minutes to break this.