News: Universal Backs Free Music Site

Aljazeera.net:

A new free music website has won the backing of Universal Music Group, creating a model that could challenge market leader Apple Computer's iTunes.

New York-based SpiralFrog, which plans to launch its service this year, said the world's largest music label had agreed to make its library available to US and Canadian customers of the service.

Users can download an unlimited number of songs or music videos if they register at the site and watch online advertisements.

The tracks cannot be burned to a CD, but users will be able to transfer music to portable media players equipped with Microsoft Windows digital rights management software, Ford said.

Simply take a look at Universal Music's Wikipedia entry to get yourself an idea of what kind of impact this will have on the music industry. If this project is handled properly, it can revolutionize the entire digital music scene. For a list of Japanese artists under the Universal label, see Universal J's official site. However, I suspect that since the SpiralFrog service targets North American consumers, music from Universal's Japanese division won't be made available.

The fact that the files are incompatible with iPod is rather annoying, however. Because I am an iPod owner (like many others out there), I can't derive as much benefit from this service as people who use players with Microsoft DRM (are we still hung up over that?). Whether this is an actual blow to Apple remains to be seen. But honestly, I wish the files can play on iPods. *is sad*

Update - more information from Techcrunch:

Spiral Frog will offer a desktop downloader for Windows Media Files (no iPods!) that can be listened to on one PC and two portable devices. Here’s the kicker - you must log in to the Spiral Frog service at least once per month, and see their ads, or your files will stop playing! The details aren’t fully set in stone, but it will be something like that. There will be links to third party sites of the record labels’ choosing if you’d like to buy your freedom to at least skip the ads.

Spiral Frog will also offer far more than just music, but also video and other digital content. The selling point here is that users will be able to access media legally, without the malware, bad network connections and pirate’s shame that comes from other online media sources. Weird Al’s new “Don’t Download This Song” must be linked to in reference to those arguments!

SpiralFrog told the Financial Times that they were in talks with Warner, EMI and Sony-BMG as well.

Looks like SpiralFrog is trying to pull in the support of all four of the "Big Four record labels". Jesus, this is about 80% of the world's music. Information on the Big Four can be found here.