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eMusic - My Only Online Music Store
As I struggle to figure out how to properly de-authorize my old thinkpad and auhtorize my new MacBook Pro (argh), I came across an article in USA Today about the only online music store I have used in the past year, eMusic.
eMusic doesn't have a lot of the music I want to buy so I still purchase a lot of CDs, but when they've got it, I always buy it from them.
eMusic is now the second most popular online music store with 11% of the market. Now considering that iTunes has 70% of that market, that may not be a big deal. But as the article points out, there are only two online music stores that sell music that can be played on an iPod, iTunes and eMusic. So that means that 81% of the online music market is controlled by iPod compatible services - not surprising.
But the great thing about eMusic is that their music is sold in mp3 format and is DRM free so you can play it on any device you own, not just the iPod. I bet we'll see eMusic secure more and more music over the next year as the other DRM formats fail to penetrate the Apple stranglehold and I forsee a day when the labels cave in all together and sell music online in mp3 format the way the do offline today.
Comments (13) | Posted August 1, 2006 in My Music , Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
let me tell you why i've stopped using iTunes. for father's day i got this neat little wireless device called a Squeezebox. you've probably heard of it. it lets me play my digitial library through my home stereo. finally, my digital music was liberated from my iPod and PowerBook! i love my Squeezebox. it's changed my life. but guess what? it cannot play iTunes DRM files. i'm not file-sharing, i'm not copying, i'm not burning -- i am just trying to play the music i paid for through my own stereo. but apple and the stupid major labels won't allow that. so, to hell with iTunes. eMusic all the way for me now. (i've stopped buying CDs too; if it's not on eMusic, i can live without it.)
Posted by: jim | Aug 1, 2006 8:15:27 AM
@Jim - I'm with Fred here - there's still a lot of music I want to hear that eMusic doesn't have, so I still buy CDs too. But having a fairly catholic taste in music, I've found PLENTY on eMusic I enjoy, and a lot of it isn't mainstream but quirky, interesting and DIFFERENT - which I like.
The Squeezebox is definitiely my next gadget ...
Posted by: Ric | Aug 1, 2006 9:41:21 AM
eMusic is the one and only.
Posted by: james governor | Aug 1, 2006 10:12:57 AM
"emusic is the one and only"...
only for a little while... media is "free", and very shortly we will be able to remove the "" from that statement.
Posted by: anonymous | Aug 1, 2006 11:16:38 AM
It was my hedge funds biggest winner in 1999 as I owned it in the private placement. Those were the days boy.
Oy.
I read the article too and it just shows how being smartly run and like the little fish that swim under the big sharks to eat their food - is always a viable strategy
Posted by: howard lindzon | Aug 1, 2006 11:21:15 AM
"I bet we'll see eMusic secure more and more music over the next year as the other DRM formats"
I bet we see another large music service, either Napster or Yahoo music, move to a non-DRM MP3 format. (My bet is on YMS since they've launched a personalized, DRM-free version of a Jessica Simpson song.)
Posted by: Scott | Aug 1, 2006 11:32:20 AM
You should also give Bleep a shot. No DRM, high bitrate, and lots of good alternative and electronic artists and labels.
Posted by: Paul Brown | Aug 1, 2006 11:44:39 AM
The only two services I use are iTunes and eMusic's monthly subscription. I use iTunes because its the primary source of music for our iPods other than CDs, and eMusic because the songs are playable on the iPod without jumping through hoops and the DRM-free status of its offerings. I find that latter point to be very attractive.
Yesterday, my family and I were in the car listening to the radio rather than my iPod and the discussion turned to how radio stations operate and have done so since I was a kid - repeat the same few songs every hour. Later that evening, along a similar vein, I was in a discussion about where to hear new music. eMusic has some new music, but its strength to me is in the availability of music I've missed, but still have a chance to hear if I'm willing to invest the time to snoop around. And in all honesty, Fred has turned me on to some tunes I would not have heard were it not for my curiosity and his willingness to overload his valuable non-VC VC blog with all this... stuff. ;)
Posted by: David Hambric | Aug 1, 2006 12:36:24 PM
11% ? Wow. That's *really* good to hear.
Hopefully the market pressure is great enough that you're right, and other services will start to sell music in MP3 or another open, un-DRM'd format.
Posted by: John Zeratsky | Aug 1, 2006 1:59:02 PM
IMHO, this says more about Apple than the industry, piracy, etc. It's as if Apple has zero confidence in their own product, or worse yet, their own user base.
I would understand offering specials to users with authorized devices -- "membership has its rewards" and all that -- but to place an up-front stranglehold on user experience is just a loony business decision.
Good fences don't always make for good neighbors...especially if there's razor wire involved.
Posted by: Michael | Aug 1, 2006 4:19:32 PM
eMusic rocks. I really like the concept of owning music vs. simply "renting" music which is really what you're doing with iTunes and other DRM services. The music is yours of course but only until your computer crashes or you get a new MP3-enabled phone that won't play any of your iTunes stuff. The 8 track of the digital age...that's what Ian Rogers calls iTunes music and I think he's dead on.
By the way, I run LearnOutLoud.com and we're trying to do the same thing for audiobooks that eMusic has done for music. Currently we have over 500 DRM-free titles on our site. It's been a tough road (most publishers won't give us content) but we're making a lot of progress lately as people see this DRM-free thing becoming viable.
Posted by: Jon Bischke | Aug 1, 2006 4:59:00 PM
If you like eMusic, you should also check out Audiolunchbox - www.audiolunchbox.com. Like eMusic, they focus primarily on independent music AND they provide non-DRM'd tracks.
As the founder of a company dedicated to music discovery at all levels, I have developed a good relationship with both eMusic and ALB and believe they both great services. Oh, ALB has both an a la carte and subscription model.
Cheers-
paul
Posted by: Paul Wright | Aug 2, 2006 9:55:56 AM
...Oh, and everyone be sure to check out Magnatune.com. Too much to analyze here, but it's worth looking into (especially the history / business plan section).
Posted by: Michael | Aug 2, 2006 12:38:02 PM
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