Record Stores Pitch Digital Downloads
from the it's-about-time dept
Knowing a few people who have worked with some big record stores on similar deals, I've heard that they were all itching to offer something like this, but the details never seemed to fall in place. Now, however, Best Buy, Tower Records, Virgin Records, Wherehouse and some other record stores are teaming up to offer a digital music download system called Echo. Of course, Wherehouse just announced that they were filing for bankruptcy and blamed music downloaders in the process. Reading the details of Echo, though, it sounds like they don't have much of a plan yet, other than "figure out something that keeps us in the game". My guess is that they'll make the same mistakes over again that all the other "legitimate" music services have made, because they're coming at it from a biased standpoint. They'll want to protect their old business model, and, in doing so, won't be willing to fully embrace the technology in a way that will open up the real opportunities to them.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
