Um concorrente para o iTunes

«Universal chief Doug Morris is enlisting other big music players for a service to challenge the Jobs juggernaut. Relationships in the entertainment world can be famously fraught. And few are more so these days than the one between Steve Jobs and Universal Music chief Doug Morris. You may recall that Morris recently refused to re-up a multi-year contract to put his company's music on Apple's iTunes Music Store. That's because Jobs wouldn't ease his stringent terms, which limit how record companies can market their music.

Now, Morris is going on the offensive. The world's most powerful music executive aims to join forces with other record companies to launch an industry-owned subscription service. BusinessWeek has learned that Morris has already enlisted Sony BMG Music Entertainment as a potential partner and is talking to Warner Music Group. Together the three would control about 75% of the music sold in the U.S. Besides competing head-on with Apple Inc.'s (AAPL ) music store, Morris and his allies hope to move digital music beyond the iPod-iTunes universe by nurturing the likes of Microsoft's Zune media player and Sony's PlayStation and by working with the wireless carriers. The service, which is one of several initiatives the music majors are considering to help reverse sliding sales, will be called Total Music. (Morris was unavailable for comment.)» fonte: «Universal Music Takes on iTunes», Business Week, 22/10/07).

Como Ramsey diz: «So what do you call a wide selection of music, wirelessly delivered and mobile, that offers all your favorite songs as well as the chance to discover new ones - and it's all free? You call it "radio." Except in this case, it's radio with no commercials. What's the difference between streaming and downloading if all the music is free? Isn't it likely that this service, if it materializes, will offer "streaming stations" as well as individually downloadable songs (just as Yahoo's Music service does)?