Online retailer lauches music downloading service

[Jo]

Online retailer Buy.com lauches music downloading service, BuyMusic.com

online retailer Buy.com, which sells computers, CDs and DVDs, has added downloads to its mix as it has lauched a new online music downloading service, BuyMusic.com:

Online retailer Buy.com, which sells computers, books, gadgets, CDs and DVDs, adds downloads to its mix today. BuyMusic.com will stock 350,000 songs for as little as 79 cents each, though most sell for 99 cents or $ 1.19. All can be transferred to portables or burned to CDs.

Apple's iTunes Music Store, which has been open since April, proved there's money to be made in online music, even in competition with free, proliferating pirate swap services. About 6.5 million songs have been sold, but only to the Macintosh world, which represents about 3% of total computer users.

Others giants, including AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon and Wal-Mart, have eyed Apple's success and promised similar services for Windows users this year. BuyMusic.com is first out of the gate.

Before Apple, industry-backed music services charged monthly fees. Though the services don't release figures, analysts say they've drawn fewer than 300,000 subscribers because of fees and restrictive rules — some songs are unplayable if you don't renew your subscription, and you pay extra to burn tunes to CD or move them to portables.

BuyMusic's songs are fully portable, but there's a catch: None can be moved to Apple's iPod, which has 50% of the digital music player market, though they do work with players from Creative Labs, Rio, Lyra and others.


Buy.com founder Scott Blum expects to sell 200 million to 300 million music downloads in the first year. Buy.com kicks off with a $ 40 million ad campaign and the introduction of the world's largest billboard in Times Square.

[mysticgohan17]

the mp3s are probably filled with all sorts of spyware. i wouldn't be surprised.