Mike McGuireI suppose that one of the benefits of the sour economy is that it will put the match to half-baked business ideas – like labels trying to run their own online music services.
I’m not saying that the Total Music store hatched by Universal Music and Sony BMG was a half-baked idea, I’m just sayin’ . . . It would appear from news accounts and discussion I’ve had with folks in the industry that the real stumbling block to Total Music and many label-backed initiatives is the continued belief that the music subscription service (controlled by encrypted DRM) appears to be the only model the labels are interested in pursuing. (Think Rhapsody or Nokia’s Comes With Music.)
I don’t think I blogged much about the joint effort by Universal Music and Sony BMG to create a label-owned and operated online music store. Probably because it never really got launched, I don’t think. My uncertainty over Total Music has a lot to do with how the labels discuss and position their new business plans, which is to say they don’t do it very often or very well. (The one personally verifiable exception to this rule is Douglas Merrill at EMI with whom I had a very pleasant and open discussion at CES this year.)
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