Inspirational Technology

BuyMusic.com steps up to the plate, swings and ... nothing but air.

Buy.com launched their competitor to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) today. I'm really quite perplexed by this service. I don't at all see how it is any better then any of the other music download services that have come before. The files are in Windows Media format and are heavily restricted with DRM. What's even worse though, the DRM varies widely across different files. Talk about a headache. I'm unhappy about the level of DRM in the iTMS, but at least it's the same for every file. With BuyMusic.com you have different restrictions for downloads, burns and transfers to portable devices and each file is completely different. Who wants to keep track of that kind of thing.

There's also a distinction between whether a computer has a primary license or a secondary license. The computer you buy the music on has the primary license and it looks like you can't directly transfer files to another computer without re-downloading them again so that you can get a secondary license. A secondary license just allows you to listen to the music on that computer, you can't transfer it to any other device or burn it to CD. Also, not all songs are licensed to allow you to access them from more then one computer. For instance, 50 Cent Get Rich or Die Trying. Even though it allows unlimited burns and transfers to portable devices, only allows one download. That is something that really doesn't make much sense and is massively limiting. Here's another, Norah Jones Come Away With Me, only 3 burns or transfers and one download. This is horrible value when you're paying $.99 for a song.

The existing services like Rhapsody and Pressplay are way better value then this. Sure you don't "own" the music, but read the terms of use on the BuyMusic.com service and you'll see you don't "own" the music there either, it's "licensed" to you. I'd much rather pay $9.95 per month for unlimited access to the entire collection on Rhapsody, then pay $9.95 or more for one albums worth of songs from BuyMusic.com. So what if it's tethered to the computer, at least that way if there's something that you find out you really, really want to own then you can buy it online and get the actual CD. You still get instant gratification to listen to the music and you can be sure you're really going to like it. The CD will probably be cheaper too, as on BuyMusic.com full album prices vary wildly. For instance that Norah Jones CD, if you want to buy the whole thing will set you back $13.59, which is actually $.10 more then the real CD on Amazon. With all the restrictions this is not good value, not at all.

There's also the interesting quirks, like having one of their top downloaded albums not even available for download as a full album. And you can't even actually buy the whole album through the service since one of the tracks isn't even available.

So as far as I can see this service has all the problems of iTMS (partial albums, too expensive, DRM), but with none of the benefits (easy to use, tight integration with iTunes). Just for good measure they also throw in extra headache inducing DRM, that's far worse then that in iTMS and don't even support the most popular portable music player. Music selection isn't any better and is certainly far worse then Rhapsody. So I guess the one redeeming quality is that it works on Windows, well so does Pressplay and Rhapsody and who knows how many other mediocre services.

People seem to forget that this model has been tried and tried and it just doesn't work. A friend of mine worked on a site for Virgin, I think four years ago, that sold music just like this. It failed horribly. What makes the iTMS work, isn't the fact that it's selling individual song downloads, it's the entire package that matters. The iTMS is only successful because it's extremely easy to use, convenient, and isn't horribly draconian on the DRM front. Take away any one of those and iTMS would flop just like all the others that have come before. BuyMusic.com has none of those things going for it, I think you can see what the conclusion is.