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AT&T snaps up eMusic to sell indie music on mobile |
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U.S. telecommunications corporation AT&T on Tuesday launched an over-the-air (OTA) music download service that allows customers to download songs directly to their mobile phones.
Launched in association with eMusic, the world's largest retailer of independent music, the new service is complimenting the AT&T’s existing Mobile Music platform.
The San Antonio, Texas-based telecom giant yesterday struck deal with eMusic, America’s second-largest online music seller after Apple Inc.'s iTunes, under which the latter company has added a catalog of nearly 2.7 million songs to AT&T’s Mobile Music service.
Headquartered in New York and owned by Dimensional Associates, LLC., eMusic offers music in the MP3 format and free from digital rights management software restrictions such as expiration dates, or copying or CD-burning limitations.
The eMusic over-the-air (OTA) service will enable AT&T's customers browse, preview and purchase songs via their wireless devices from the catalog, the nation's largest wireless music collection. A DRM-free copy of the song will be sent to user’s device and a duplicate copy will also be made available for download to a PC free of charge.
"eMusic Mobile is not your typical over-the-air service," said Mark Collins, vice president of Consumer Data Services for AT&T's wireless unit. "This service, which is as unique as the independent artists found in the eMusic catalog, differentiates itself from the competition through its ease of use, subscription pricing model and the ability to play these tracks in any MP3 player."
The service initially will be available on selected AT&T’s major music devices, including Samsung a717, a727, new versions of the SYNC music phones and the Nokia N75. Owners of these handsets will be able to access the eMusic wireless store by clicking on the music note key, choosing the Shop Music option and then selecting eMusic.
“eMusic Mobile will expand the audience for mobile music beyond the youth market by offering an alternative to the mainstream pop hits that have so far dominated over-the-air music,” said David Pakman, eMusic president and CEO.
AT&T would charge $7.49 per month for downloads of up to five audio tracks, which is almost five times eMusic's most expensive 33-cent rate for subscription to its desktop service. Over the Internet, some services offer as many as 30 tracks for $9.99 only.
Cellphone-based tracks become costlier than Internet-based music because it took extra expense to send them over a mobile network to make available at user's phone.
Although, AT&T is Apple’s exclusive U.S. carrier partner for iPhone, but it has not made the eMusic's over-the-air service available on that device. Despite having an iPod embedded in it, Apple’s revolutionary iPhone, an all-in-one cell phone/iPod/pocket computer, would not be compatible with the new service.
Submitted Date: Aug 02, 2007
Source: The Money Times
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