The Ongoing Fragmentation Of The Downloadable Music Store World

from the not-good-at-all dept

We've discussed many times the fact that there are simply too many downloadable music stores with too many formats out there. It's not that we don't think competition is good, but all these different formats, with all these different restrictions, and different rules about which devices they can play on is making a huge mess of the industry. It's leading to increasing confusion and resentment from music fans who are pissed off that the music they can supposedly buy from one store won't work on the music player they own, or can't be mixed into a playlist they bought at another store. It's as if ever retail music store in the world had their own format for selling music. If you go into Tower Records they'll give you a CD which can only play on a Tower Records CD player, while in Virgin they give you a special cassette that will only play on special Virgin cassette players. Any marketing person with half a brain would realize that the market would be much, much bigger if they settled on a common format with fewer restrictions. First, the industry couldn't figure out how to embrace file sharing, and now they're doing their best to muck up download stores. It's amazing the recording industry functions at all. It seems to function in spite of itself.
Hide this

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


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2004 @ 8:35am

    Look at the cancelled summer concert season

    I hope the industry is imploding. Perhaps we'll get back to the performers embracing small (less than 100) venues.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    todd, 6 Jul 2004 @ 8:59am

    are you serious?

    Are you serious, Mike: cassettes that only play on store-specific players? Same with CDs?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    todd, 6 Jul 2004 @ 9:00am

    not awake yet...

    Oh, I see: it is "as if"...

    On west coast, in need of coffee. Nevermind... (slinks away)

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.