Buymusic.com

So Buy.com decided to get in the downloadable music business with Buymusic.com. Kind of like AppleMusic.com (iTunes music store - ITMS)

But here is where the comparison ends.
- PC Only (ITMS is Mac only, a windows version will be out by the end of the year)
- While they say that songs start at 79 cents, I’m unable to find any. They are all 89 or 99 cents (versus 99 cents for all the songs at ITMS). In fact this 4 minute song is $1.79.
- Different songs have different licenses, so some songs allow you to burn them on CD, others don’t, etc.
- Limited number of burns and transfers (unlimited with ITMS)
- Songs are tied to a single computer (up to 3 Macs with ITMS and those 3 Macs can be changed at any time)
- Propietary Windows Media format (MPEG 4 at ITMS)
- Cannot transfer the files to the iPod which is the #1 music device with about 30% of the marketshare (Windows and Mac)

And if all of that was not bad enough, their commercials look just like Apple’s!

Do you like all of that? I bet you do. So run and buy one of their t-shirts for $16.99.

Posted by david at 3:03 pm | Permalink |

Filed under Observations