Dealing In Sony’s Older Songs

A report from pcmag states that Sony Music has made a deal with the online independent music store, eMusic, This is eMusic’s first major distribution deal.

Sony Music has agreed to make available to eMusic it’s back catalogue, that is, anything older than two years. Of course, this will include Michael’s music.

eMusic currently has 400,000 subscribers. The tracks will remain in eMusic’s trademark DRM-free MP3 format, but eMusic will raise prices slightly and reduce the number of downloads per month for some of its plans as part of the deal. eMusic’s usual monthly plans, such as $11.99 for thirty tracks, mean that buyers get new songs for just forty cents each or even less. However, this latest move could serve to broaden eMusic’s subscriber base somewhat, depending on the price increases. But eMusic still needs to offer an ‘a la carte’ plan to compete with iTunes, Napster, Lala, and other cutting edge services, now that all of them have also removed DRM and improved MP3 sound quality to match or exceed what eMusic has offered for years and who also offer millions of major label tracks to boot.

Source: Pcmag & MJWN