Why AnywhereCD Failed 184
An anonymous reader writes "In an obituary for AnywhereCD, which closes in one week, founder (and MP3.com founder) Michael Robertson chronicles how at least one record label wanted him to embed credit card numbers of buyers into songs. A fascinating story about how at least some of the labels still don't get it and why AnywhereCD is about to be buried."
FTA (Score:2, Interesting)
"I believe that if you give people real value (music or anything else) they are happy to pay."
All about control (Score:4, Interesting)
Another shining example of failure to adapt (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't there a theory about failing to adapt and thus failing to survive? Sounds familiar for some reason. (Though, in this unfortunate case, failing to adapt to lack of adaptation lead to demise. Sounds soooo bass akwards!)
Seemed like a good idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
In any event, it sounds like AnywhereCD had a pretty decent business idea, except maybe that it should be the CD as the "addon" instead of the downloads.
I wonder if Apple or any of the other major retailers will ever offer an option like "buy this digital album for $x and for $y more get a CD copy". I don't see why not. CD's are so cheap you could sell them as add ons for say $5 dollars more than the download and make a nice profit. Plus the buyer will have the permanency of the CD.
Not even /. covered it (Score:5, Interesting)
I did a search for anything here on the
Re:All about control (Score:5, Interesting)
I would not be surprised to see this develop to their logical conclusion where there are distribution sites that offer a range of services to artists to distribute their work but do not "own" the distribution or copyrights to those works. This can only help artists in the long run, although the conversion to that environment will mostly likely have some short-term hiccups as marketing etc is worked out.
Embedding credit card numbers???? (Score:5, Interesting)
That guy should see if the job of CEO at Sony is available...
Re:Another shining example of failure to adapt (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the Labels want to make sure that they get paid every time you listen. If they can't do that, they'll try to ensure you only get to play it if you have the original CD (or if they can install a rootkit on your machine, or what have you).
See, you only have to adapt to survive when you can't have the environment around you modified. When you can get laws passed like the DMCA which allow you to make it a crime to do things that used to be covered under fair use (or, indeed, try to legally remove the concept of fair use altogether), you don't need to adapt.
In their current business model, they can change the reality around them. I'm with you, hopefully "adapt or die" will have to apply to them. But, I'm not holding out any belief that they're willing to accept any scenario in which I buy music, digitize it, and then listen to it on any device I want to when I want to without further requirements imposed by them. To them, they want complete control of how I use it once it's in my hands.
Cheers
The Whole Enchilada (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not even /. covered it (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks for all the feedback (Score:5, Interesting)
- Until 9/30 most all of the CDs are $7 which includes a physical CD and 192K MP3 files loaded nicely and permanently into your locker.
- One poster complained you can't download the MP3 file without installing an application. That's inaccurate. You can download all the tracks individually directly from the locker - no application install required. Just click on the triangle in the flash UI and select "download".
- We do provide several different applications for your convenience all of which work on Linux as well as the other PC OSes. There's an Album Downloader which will with one click download any new purchases and load into iTunes or your fave media player. There's also Locker Sync 3.0 which will sync your entire music library from locker to PC. So lots of different options.
- Slashdotters might be interested in our API (see: http://mp3tunes.com/api [mp3tunes.com]). My vision is all your music goes into your personal locker and then with a click can be streamed or synced to ANY device in the world. It's a very open view of the world and of your media. We have 100,000 lockers and a great list of devices coming by this holiday season all of which talk directly to a locker. We're even having a contest to spur developers for $10,000 to come up with new music devices/interfaces: See http://mp3tunes.com/contest [mp3tunes.com]
-- MR