snapshot 4/30/08

Nokia confident free music downloads will profit
Offering unlimited music downloads to phone buyers will make money for Nokia as well as record labels, the handset maker said, dismissing talk the move would come at the expense of profits. The new music offering from Nokia, the first cellphone maker to push heavily into content, would differ from any other package on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded during the 12 months.


eMusic Launches In Canada
eMusic launches its subscription music and audio book service in Canada today. The company's catalog of 3.5 million tracks includes such Canadian indie labels as Nettwerk, Arts & Crafts, Justin Time, Secret City, Mint and Paper Bag. Canadian pricing is a bit higher than in the US. After 50 free downloads and 2 free audio book at sign-up:


Watchdog demands MSN Music mea culpa
This morning, the San Francisco-based tech watchdog floated an open letter (PDF) to the hulking Microsoft CEO, criticizing the company's recent decision to unplug its MSN Music DRM servers. Without these servers - due to die at the end of August - users can't migrate their MSN tunes to new OSes or new machines unless they start burning CDs.

"Microsoft’s only suggestion for its customers — that they export the music to a CD and then copy it onto their new computers — is woefully insufficient to redress the problem," EFF executive director Shari Steele writes to Ballmer. "Microsoft is asking its customers to invest more time, labor and money in order to continue to enjoy the music for which they have already paid. In fact, Microsoft’s best customers will be the most heavily burdened — the more music they bought, the more work they’ll have to do."


Cheaper Songs, More Expensive Albums
As of Monday, the iTunes store is five years old. The CPI numbers aren't out yet for April, but for the five-year period ending in February 2008, the annualized inflation rate was 2.91%, with total cummulative inflation of 15.44%. That translates into a current single-song iTunes price of 86 cents in April 2003 dollars. And, if inflation rates over the next five years are similar, iTunes customers in 2013 will be paying an inflation-adjusted equivalent of just 74 cents a track, assuming the 99-cent price remains: