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Music Media The Almighty Buck The Internet

Wal-Mart to Launch Online Music Store 348

Posted by CowboyNeal from the soon-to-be-overcrowded-marketplaces dept.
Dteyn writes "I heard on the radio today that Wal-Mart will soon be opening up an online music store to compete with the likes of Apple's iTunes and Napster. According to the radio newsguy, it's expected to be officially announced as early as next week. Looks like this 'digital music' thing is starting to catch on with the bigwigs. Finally."
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Wal-Mart to Launch Online Music Store More

Wal-Mart to Launch Online Music Store

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  • Censored. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Evanrude ( 21624 ) <david.fattyco@org> on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:39AM (#7471859) Homepage Journal
    I wonder if all the songs will be censored like the CDs in the stores?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:50AM (#7471930)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Were you underage at the time? That's a really amusing story.

      • Re:Censored. (Score:2, Informative)

        by Captain Splendid ( 673276 )
        They do carry censored versions, just have a look at any recent rap releases on AMG [allmusic.com], most will have a 'clean' version listed.

        Then again, maybe that's K-Mart. I always get the two confused.

      • You're just wrong.

        Any CD you buy at Walmart by a band that normally has explicit lyrics will be a special "censored" version that has the bad words XX-d out in the lyric sheet, the CD packaging, and hissed out of the song.
      • They don't censor stuff, they just refuse to carry it.

        While you're technically correct in that Wal-Mart itself does not rework albums to add bleeps and adjust album art and such, the refusal to carry such albums combined with Wal-Mart's market leverage has the same impact as if they did.

        Like someone said above, Wal-Mart does 14% of the music sales across the country. That's a hell of a lot of selling power. The upshot of this is that the labels created censored versions of the works specifically so Wal-
      • Nah, I have yet to find a local record store, except those dealing with used records, who are lower priced than Wal-Mart.

        As for censoring, it might not be Wal-Mart that does it directly, but they do not sell the same versions of the CDs that other retailers do.

        Their version of Liz Phair's newest CD is labeled as "edited". I guess it would be interesting to see just what kind of editing that was done.

        I would suspect the F-word was taken out of her current playing single, but that is also editted out on l

    • More details from the Rejected Post Machine (Score:5, Informative)

      by securitas ( 411694 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @01:40AM (#7472138) Homepage Journal

      Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Comcast to Offer Online Music

      2003-11-11 13:10:14 Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Comcast to Offer Online Music (articles,music) (rejected)

      Wal-Mart will launch its own digital music download service [nypost.com] through its Web site later this month. Not to be outdone, Best Buy will also launch an iTunes-type online music [bayarea.com] store [bestbuy.com] - with the ability to buy through in-store kiosks - based on the MusicNow service (formerly FullAudio [internetnews.com]). And today Comcast announced music downloads via Real Rhapsody [com.com] for its 5 million broadband Internet subscribers. The Washington Post's Cynthia L. Webb writes about the online music frenzy and the resultant advertising [washingtonpost.com] onslaught due to the sheer number of entrants into the music download market, while Bloomberg's Holly M. Sanders offers an analysis of Walmart's imminent entry into online music [detnews.com], which is significant since Wal-Mart already controls 14 percent of global CD music sales [chron.com]. More at the New York Times [nytimes.com] (via SeattlePI [nwsource.com]).

    • The question is why one would buy cds there anyway. I mean, the selection and prices are both terrible. I live in a town without an actual music store or Best Buy or much else really. There's an overpriced Musicland or Sam Goody or whatever at the mall, the always disturbing Hastings, and a used cd place... the independent music store closed 3 years ago (oddly enough this a college town). With such complete lack of choice I still wouldn't ever consider Wal-Mart. I just buy online (none of this digital crap
      • Why would anyone shop there in the first place? I have yet to find anything of quality in a WalMart. The only reason I go to one is that it is the only convenient place near work to pick up cold medicine (which probably tells you how much I patronize them).

        In truth, I try to avoid the mass-retailers like WalMart, Meijer, KMart, Target, etc. The places are just so depressing. It's not the stores or their customers per se; the employees are generally friendly and helpful, and if you are looking for somethin

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Rolling back prices... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ForestGrump ( 644805 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:41AM (#7471864) Homepage Journal
    So will we be seeing them for 49 cents a song then?

    And I can print out a coupoun for a yellow happy face with the purchase of each song online-Walmart song right?

    Is the little tune they play with each commerical free download? or do I have to pay for that too?

    Can I buy online and pickup the songs on a cd in the store? That would be great!

    -Grump.

  • Too....many......music download services (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dethl ( 626353 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:41AM (#7471865)
    Why Wal-Mart, why? Isn't the industry flooded enough as is? Although Wal-Mart does make enough to offset the losses it will incur with the music service (as all music services do), its just another iTMS wannabe.

  • Also makes you wonder..... (Score:5, Informative)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) * on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:43AM (#7471885) Journal
    If they'll offer a wide range. Wal-mart tends to be somewhat puritanical on what they offer. (Marilyn Manson anyone?).
    Still for mainstream music it shouldn't be too bad. Here's an older story about Wal-Mart's [metroactive.com] controls on music sales.
    • Marilyn Manson anyone?

      No thanks. I prefer listening to music.

      Anyway, with any luck, they might offer songs for less than $1 a song -- in which case, it might be worth looking into. (Even if I was inclined to buy songs that wouldn't be available through the wal-mart service, a service with some of the songs I want is better than none.)

      Of course, chances are that you'll need some proprietary windows software to play the music, so I doubt I'll be able to use it anyway.
      • No thanks. I prefer listening to music.

        Not that I'm a Marilyn Manson fan, but this method of declaring some music you don't like "not music" is just stupid. The funny thing is that the music that has been called "not music" in the past has very often become some of the most popular and influential music around. Elvis, KISS, ACDC, Black Sabbath, rap/hip-hop in general, etc.

    • They're one of the few mainstream stores that actually has a decent Christian music selection, so hopefully they'll carry that on their service. Some folks may see a lack of choices, but, some of the stuff they sell isn't found at target, K-mart, or even BMG, Best-Buy, or Circuit City. And probably not in the iTunes store either.

  • Lossless (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Patik ( 584959 ) * <cpatik@gmail.COMMAcom minus punct> on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:44AM (#7471892) Homepage Journal
    The first company to sell decent music using a lossless codec will get my money. Until then, I can't justify spending $10+ for an album of crappy MP3s when I can buy the CD used for less (or even sometimes new for a dollar or two more).
    • You want to buy only a lossless codec wich is why you are sticking with cd's for now. Mmmm, right. You do know that cd's aren't lossless either? They leave out parts of the original sound to fit on a cd.

  • Will it run on thier Lindows PCs? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RumpRoast ( 635348 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:44AM (#7471896)
    Online music for Linux, maybe?
    • Now thats a good point: however much one dislikes Lindows as having all of the downsides of Windows, it wouldn't make much sense for them to allienate this customer base, which by presumably means a mainstream Linux port will be easier.

      Now, would anyone like to bet on how long it will take before they bundle it on the machines they sell and someone start shouting about Anti-trust matters?

  • How will it make money? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by paxcirca ( 694737 ) <pertristis@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:46AM (#7471906)
    I'm confused as to what Walmart's impetus here is. Steve Jobs has very clearly stated that iTMS makes about squat for profit; it's just a pretty Trojan Horse to get people to buy iPods (and eventually Macs). Walmart doesn't have an MP3 player (that I'm aware) to push. Selling music to get people to buy MP3 players seems a bit more plausible than, say, selling music to get people to buy tires/clothing/cereal in Walmart stores.
    • I'm confused as to what Walmart's impetus here is. Steve Jobs has very clearly stated that iTMS makes about squat for profit...

      But remember: why would he say this?

      1. Believes in full disclosure, doesn't like keeping secrets
      2. He's required to disclose that according to some federal regulation
      3. Because he wants to discourage potential competitors from entering the market
      Well?

    • Re:How will it make money? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SEE ( 7681 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @01:55AM (#7472188) Homepage
      Wal-Mart has one major thing Apple doesn't:

      Leverage.

      Wal-Mart already sells a massive volume of music. That gives them the leverage to drive down the record company cut of sales. "I think we'll have to cut our CD pre-orders if you can't bend on your cut of the download sales" is an incredibly useful threat to be able to use at the bargaining table.

      And forget just CD orders. How many of the major labels are owned by companies that sell other things retail? Sony sells electronics. Sony, Time Warner, and Vivendi Universal sell DVDs. Wal-Mart's purchasing power, as the #1 retailer in the U.S., is tremendous on those things, too.

      And if Wal-Mart can just get better "invoicing" terms than Apple gets, that can make it profitable just on the interest earned on the consumer's money between sale and paying the record company.
      • Oh yes. And Wal-Mart does this too, and does it incredibly well. Wal-Mart more or less *creates* the prices in this country, on all kinds of items. They have no scruples about using exactly the kind of leverage you talk about either. They've done it before.

        One more reason not to shop there.

      • Wal-Mart's purchasing power, as the #1 retailer in the U.S.

        Wal-Mart isn't just the #1 retailer in the US, they are the largest company in the world. With an anual revenue that just peaked US $250 Billion with the last quarter. Only 30 countries in the entire world make more money than they do. On the world listing, Wal-Mart is ranked just above Saudi Arabia which has a yearly GDP of US $242 Billion.

        Heck, Wal-Mart's yearly revenue is just 1/40th of the entire USA GDP.

        Wal-Mart is so large they have
    • Wal-Mart needs to understand that people don't want to download music online. They want to visit a physical store and pay artificially high prices for a limited selection of music that are willing to be raped by the RIAA.

      After all, which kinds of businesses usually succeed? Businesses that offer consumers what they want at a reasonable price? Or businesses that screw the consumer, call them thieves, sue them, pass draconian legislation, and restrict choices? After all, the only good music is RIAA mu

  • Coming soon .... (Score:5, Funny)

    by R33MSpec ( 631206 ) * on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:47AM (#7471910) Homepage
    All that is left now is Microsoft's turn:

    (1) Call it MS Tunester
    (2) Bundle with new version of Media Player
    (3) Introduce Drakonian DRM
    (5) ????
    (6) Profit!


  • And we would use it because...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evn ( 686927 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:48AM (#7471916)

    The article is pretty vague. Wal-mart is going to start an online music store to compete with other services which have been successful. Unless they can offer something darn impressive I think they'll have a hard time getting it out the door.

    Apple offers you iTunes - excellent music software that people actually want to use (just look at the number of non-US downloads for proof).

    Napster 2 offers...well, it's got plenty of name recognition - the music selection/pricing scheme is a little different and the format works on a variety of players.

    The other services (buymusic, napster, pressplay...) haven't had near the success of the iTMS. Unless walmart has some sort of killer feature that people are actually asking for they're doomed to be another smalltime player.

    what could that feature be?
    - Lossless files
    - No DRM/Regular MP3
    - Extremely cheap pricing ($.10 - $.50)
    - EVERY major artist/song represented (and more indie tracks too)
    Without one of those it's just more of the same, and there is no reason for consumers to choose walmart's startup over the much more popular ITMS or the much more established napster.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @01:22AM (#7472067)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You could use lossless compression to cut down a 650 meg CD by quite a bit I suspect. How well does that data compress?

        About 40-50% size reduction using the free Flac codec isn't unusual. Say 300MB for a 60-minute CD.

    • Walmart will make money BECAUSE: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by takochan ( 470955 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @01:48AM (#7472165)
      they are very very good at putting pressure on suppliers to cut prices, because they are such a big volume seller.

      They know now, that without all the distribution costs of physical media, that the 90cents / track that Apple currently pays to the RIAA, can be cut down to 50 cents or less because they know this is all just pure profit for the RIAA right now. This is all fat, Walmart knows it and they have the buyer market power to make this price cut happen.

      Then they will sell those tracks to us for 60 cents, undercutting Apple, and Walmart still will make money.

      This is how Walmart always does it with whatever they sell. No reason it will be any different this time.

      • they are very very good at putting pressure on suppliers to cut prices, because they are such a big volume seller.

        In their retail outlets, yes. But I've never heard anything to indicate that wal-mart.com is anywhere near as successful. Since they're trying to sell music downloads, not music CDs, then unless they're proposing in-store kiosks with CD burners they'll have some trouble breaking in.

  • >Downloading $HOT_NEW_SONG
    0%[..________]100%
    0%[....______]1 00%
    0%[......____]100%
    0%[........._]100%
    ERROR : CONNECTION TIMEOUT

    >Downloading $HOT_NEW_SONG
    Wal-Mart automatically Rollsback for you!
    0%[..________]100%
    0%[....______]100%
    ERRO R: CONNECTION TIMEOUT

    >Downloading $HOT_NEW_SONG
    Wal-Mart automatically Rollsback for you!
    0%[__________]100%

    ...

  • wal-mart will (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hansoloaf ( 668609 )
    have the website designed in China and maintained by illegal immigrants in the USA.

  • The RIAA will never survive it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:55AM (#7471952) Journal
    Wal-Mart has a corporate policy of beating suppliers until they relent on pricing.

    Since digital music costs fractions of a penny to duplicate, the marginal cost is less than one cent, which is where the RIAA's revenue will go once they've been strong-armed by the Wal-Mart business process.

    The only way Wal-Mart will not do this is if they buy the RIAA outright and use their ownership to make up "cost" numbers.

    Note that this will be "passed on to the consumer" in the form of a 1% reduction in retail prices.
  • I wonder if it will suck as bad compared to iTunes Music Store as their DVD rental service does compared to NetFlix.

    Just read a few of the newsgroup postings about that: Google Groups on Wal-Mart/NetFlix [google.com]

  • A minor drawback (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fleener ( 140714 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @01:02AM (#7471986)
    A minor drawback to online sales is that there will never be surplus discounts. If I can pay 50 cents a song, great, it won't matter. If not, well, I'm accustomed to paying $10 for a CD in the bargain barrel (and liking most of the songs) or $5 at a used CD shop. There is no need or cause for liquidation sales online and no way (?) to sell used electronic music without causing a big flap.
  • I for one am waiting for the day that a selection of artists such as Dre (and hence m'n'm), Madonna, George Michael, Kylie, Aphex Twin and Garth Brooks launch their own online music store, where you can purchase the music directly from the artists. Ideally the system would have a moderation system whereby as you buy music, you would be presented with the music which the artists you have purchased music from like, and/or the people who have also bought the music which you did also liked. That way the sys

  • Related to this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by amanpatelhotmail.com ( 604171 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @01:18AM (#7472056)
    Yet another music service in the works?...

    Just in my inbox:

    --------------------
    Subject: Important MP3.com Announcement

    CNET Networks, Inc announced today that it has acquired certain assets of MP3.com, Inc.

    Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form.

    CNET Networks, Inc. plans to introduce a new MP3 music service in the near future. If you would like to receive email updates on this service, including an invitation to a special members-only preview, please sign up here.

    MP3.com is not transferring your personal information to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party.

    On behalf of all of us at MP3.com we thank you for your patronage and continued support. It has been a privilege to host one of the largest and most diverse collections of music in the world. MP3.com wishes to express its sincere thanks to each of you for making us your premier destination for music online.

    Sincerely,
    MP3.com
    --------------------

  • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • that Apple's doing something right if people think it's profitable. Maybe the big 5 are just pushing hard for other music stores to open up now that Apple has shown that it can be successful, or at least pay for itself.

  • Irony (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ogerman ( 136333 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @01:48AM (#7472164)
    Looks like this 'digital music' thing is starting to catch on with the bigwigs. Finally.

    One problem: 'digital music' doesn't need bigwigs.

    Nor do we want them. For they bring us DRM, low quality audio, inflated prices, and they still screw our favorite artists.

    At least the next logical step is in place, however: Artists ditch their labels and sell directly online. Followed by: Artists forget about selling music itself because it's such cheap advertisement thanks to rapid online distribution that *everyone* now uses.
    • No kidding. "Finally, the big guys are getting involved!"

      Awesome. Replace the guys selling interesting, smaller time music (emusic, mp3.com) with people selling the same recycled top 40 crap.

      Walmart getting into online music distribution? Finally; it's been so hard to find the latest Blink 182 album around here! I rejoice!

      Bleah. The only possible upside is, as you said, artists cutting out the middle men. With a dedicated enough following, it might work out. The big labels still control most of th
  • Wal-Mart has several advantages. First it can blast out info about this service though it's retail stores. Second they will be cheaper than Apple (or else they wouldn't be entering the market), Wal-Mart has a ton of power over suppliers and can get their prices very low. Apple or any of the other services don't have the brick and motor sales has leverage.
    Wal-Mart undercut Netflix's prices [walmart.com] and they will do it to Apple.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @02:29AM (#7472271)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Heh (Score:3, Funny)

    by nate nice ( 672391 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @02:35AM (#7472287) Journal
    Like people who go to Wal-Mart know what the internet is.
  • Walmart changes their policy about censored music as it relates to their online store.

    If I'm going to D/L a Ludacris track, I'm not going to pay Walmart for "Move _____!" when I could use Kazaa and hear "Move Bitch!" for free.

    Elijah Muhammad once compared a glass of water tainted with ink to a glass of pure water in the following manner; Here is a glass, dirty. The water, foul. You offer this to the people, they have no choice, they'll drink it if they're thirsty. You offer them this glass, they'll make t
    • I used to think people would only drink the pure water if people enlightened them to the fact that the other water was tainted

      However, this is not always the case, otherwise people would see that Walmart only expands into markets to control and dominate them.

      I used to believe if i told people about this, they would choose against Walmart.

      I was mistaken.

      Its sad when you're right and no one will listen to you.

  • The have a 'Photo Center' where you upload (up to) 2meg .tifs or .jpgs. Then you can order prints from 4x6 up to 8x10 or somesuch. You can then have the prints delivered to your house, or free to any walmart - it takes about 3 days.

    As I have a walmart less than 3 blocks from my house, I pick them up there.

    When this system works, it kicks ass. It's cheap (26 cents), they can handle ass-loads of volume (I've ordered 300+ prints), consistent (color is usually pretty damn close to what I send them), fast (store the pictures on their servers for repeat prints), and free shipping.

    When this system doesn't work, I think about killing every walmart employee I see. In a small town, that's everybody. :(

    They used to only support IE, and some ass-tacular version of netscape. That hasn't gotten much better. (I use a mac for this). Their javascript is buggy. They make me go through 20 screens even though I do the same thing *every time*. Their servers are slow during the day, sometimes to the point of unusable. I get a million timeouts on the secure side, because they can't handle the load.

    Best of all, they had an issue where they 'lost' my pictures, and replaced them with some booger-eatin', twelve-sandwich makin', camero-rustin', trailer-house dentist's nightmare's people's photos.

    I took screen caps of all the good ones. I was surprised they could afford a camera. I really will have to post a link to them.

    Walmart did fix this, but only after I went through email hell (happy obvious taglines on every email = CSR death!).

    The photo center has improved, but having used it for more than a year, any music service is going to suck the big musical nuts in the sky for awhile.

    They'll compete on price like they always do, work out the kinks, and have a pretty bland selection.

    w00t - more volume, less choice.

  • Goddamn it slashdot! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by crapulent ( 598941 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @03:18AM (#7472394)
    Would you please quit linking to the NY Post as a "news source"? The last time this happened [slashdot.org] was when the NY Post was claiming that McDonalds would be giving away a billion iTunes songs... which turned out to be completely untrue, an unfounded rumour.

    For the love of god, stop linking to tabloids as news! If it's reported somewhere respectable then fine, but it's not a story until you've got more than this pathetic 200 word paragraph from some grocery store checkout RAG.
  • Haven't Wal*Mart, in the past, sold PCs with Linux pre-installed? If they want to run an online music store, they will have to make it work with PCs sold in the real life store -- which basically means it's going to have to be a penguin-friendly system! Let's hope it's Ogg Vorbis or another open standard :-) It shouldn't be too hard for someone to write an Apache plugin that does on-the-fly encryption against a public key sent in a cookie, and that would work well enough ..... the worst abuses I can thi
  • Hey,

    The website http://www.hearsaymusic.ca [hearsaymusic.ca] is currently recruiting Indepedent Canadian Artists wanting to sell their music online in mp3 format (as well as CDs, etc.). Artists interested should e-mail contact@hearsaymusic.ca for more info.

    Cheers,
    Warren

    ps. ogg to come later
  • Looks like this 'digital music' thing is starting to catch on with the bigwigs. Finally.

    I think this is stupid. First we have no digital music, then Apple starts a site that sells millions of songs in the States alone, and now everyone wants to do it.
    It's not like we've been saying: "Give us a legal alternative" for like what, three years?

    If I was to buy music online (still no resonable legal alternatives in Europe), I would NEVER buy it from some stupid company who's doing it just cause other peopl
  • until the RIAA is dead, dead, dead. How long have we been agitating on this site against their cartel, and now everyone is falling over themselves to give them money because they're beginning to sell things online? And here after a story yesterday about how the *AA's want to put you in prison for filesharing!

    Good god, is there any backbone in this crowd at all, or are we just as much the sheep that we often accuse the general public of being?
  • I recently read an article that stated that all US music sales are dwarfed by just the sales of Wal-Mart by 20 times.

    Considering the size of Wal-Mart, and considering that it never pays wholesale for anything, I'd be VERY worried if I were the RIAA. They're about to be bulldozed.

  • Apple has experience writing Operating Systems and other various software. They have experience dealing with artist type folks (musicians, graphic artists, etc) and they also deal with hard core nerds. They have a darn good idea of what to put in an online music store and how to design/code it for scalability, high-availability, and etc. They also make hardware, which gives them another benefit and even more credibility in my book.

    What does Wal-Mart have experience with? They make flyers. And cheesy c
  • 1. Sell only music made in China.
    2. Use illegal aliens to keep the database clean.
    3. ????
    4. Profit!

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