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Beating the major record labels to the punch, rock star Peter Gabriel's Real World Records label, in collaboration with Womad music festivals and digital music service On Demand Distribution (OD2), launched an online digital subscription music service Tuesday.
The service, dubbed the Womad Digital Channel, will be free until October, after which users will have to pay a monthly fee of five British pounds (approximately US$7.23) to access 40 songs per month from the Real World catalog.
"This will allow a lot of people more access to new music," Gabriel said. "The Internet is allowing small, independent and minority interest music makers to be on a level playing field with the big guys. I am always happy to see David come home ahead of Goliath."
Womad, which stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance, organizes music festivals around the world.
Freedom of Choice
Subscribers to the Womad Digital Channel can either select 40 tracks a month from the Real World catalog or receive 40 tracks chosen by Womad.
At the end of the month the tracks will be deleted and replaced by a new selection of 40 songs. Womad said consumers would have the option of paying to receive permanent copies of individual tracks.
The first 40 Womad-selected tracks include Afro Celt Sound System, Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Zairean rhumba- rocker Papa Wemba, Ayub Ogada, Joseph Arthur and Orquestra Reve.
No Transfer
In order to protect artist copyrights, the tracks will only be playable on the subscriber's computer, including portable devices, and will not be transferable to other machines.
"We very much see music subscription models as the way of the future and we have been working on the technology to provide a secure, quick and consumer-friendly subscription service for many months," OD2 chief executive officer Charles Grimsdale said.
"Through this venture with the Womad Digital Channel, we are not only pioneering the first music rental subscription service in Europe, but are also opening up world music to a whole new audience," Grimsdale added.
Pay and Play
A Jupiter Media Metrix survey released in July found that consumers are willing to pay for digital music services, following the end of the free file-swapping service provided by Napster.
Guaranteed sound quality, virus-free music files and high-speed transfer connection were cited as the top three incentives to subscribe to online music services, according to Jupiter.
Jupiter also predicted the market for online music will reach $6.2 billion by 2006, up from $1 billion this year.
Two rival online music services are being developed by the
major labels. Sony and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music
Group (UMG) are partnering on PressPlay and a consortium of
companies including RealNetworks, AOL Time Warner,
Bertelsmann and EMI are backing MusicNet.
