CES dispatch: Models for delivering digital music
Today I attended part of Billboard’s pre-CES Digital Music Track.
An interesting panel discussion gave some insights into the complexities of digital media. On the panel were players in the digital music industry, including Sony Executive VP Peter Brodsky, ex-head of Yahoo Music David Goldberg, Lala.com founder Bill Nguyen, and reps from the National Music Publishers Association and the Digital Music Association.
Obviously the delivery, distribution, and sale of digital content is changing rapidly, and the panel gave perspectives on the complexities of licensing and royalties, and the weird content ownership questions that exist among artists, record labels, and publishers.
Lala has a completely cloud-based model, where you buy a track for (typically) ten cents. There are no downloads - you play your music 100% from the cloud. (Obviously, you can only play it from a web-connected device.) Nice simple model - no downloads, and no pinning your music collection to a particular PC. And, you can upload your own music collection to the cloud so that you can play it from anywhere.
I asked Lala founder Bill Nguyen about whether he was concerned about the lack of portable devices that are web-connected. He told me to watch for an announcement - this week - about that. Hmmm. A new device? Or maybe an app to allow more devices to use Lala, like the Lala iPhone app released in October. We’ll know soon.
I also asked Bill about his opinions about Zune’s subscription model. His take is that downloads and the associated DRM are cumbersome. He’s not big on iTunes either. Lala relies on no downloads, and no downloaded software - it’s strictly an HTML website, no plug-ins or client-side software required.
Pretty interesting model, and I plan to check Lala out more. Even with Lala’s ten cents per track, though, I still like the flat monthly-rate model of Zune Marketplace. For frequent downloaders of music, it’s a cost-efficient way to get a rich music collection, without having to pay for each individual track.
And, I need to take my music to be portable. I carry two devices that can connect to the web - my iPhone and my Blackberry. I don’t use either for music, though. I much prefer the music experience from my Zune 120 and my flash Zune, for music on the go.
