Wednesday, February 25, 2009

iTunes Pass, and why it WON'T work

EMI announced a new service with iTunes called the iTunes Pass. Essentially, it gives you temporary access to an artist's library. While I think Apple should be investigating it's options in terms of subscription based services on top of pay-per-song, I think this is a horrible start.

The pilot program is a pass for Depeche Mode. The terms aren't exactly clear, but it seems to involve a 15 week pass to Depeche Mode's upcoming content for $18.99. No old content. Just the upcoming album, plus a few singles and videos. For twice the cost of the album itself.

You get to keep the content, but let's not kid ourselves; this is the "deluxe version" of an album presented as subscription access to trick people into thinking they're getting more bang for their buck. While die hard DM fans will probably bite, I don't see any success coming out of this gimmick.

iTunes marketing seems to be losing its touch.

1 comment:

  1. Blogger's eating my posts again. I think the Genie's out of the bottle and, although I've always thought that people who said it where foolish and immature, information 'wants' to be free. The amount of effort it takes to keep files from being distributed freely is obscene and its only going to become more so the case. And where will that leave us?

    At http://www.publicdomainwhalesongs.org/ That's where.

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