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Free music download service wants a bite out of Apple | Technology | The Guardian
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Music download service SpiralFrog believes it can wrestle music fans away from the grip of Apple by giving away music for free. By Bobbie Johnson and Andrew Clark.
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Free music download service wants a bite out of Apple
· iTunes competitor backed by world's biggest label · Users will have to watch ads to get tracks
Bobbie Johnson and Andrew Clark
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 30 2006 10.41 BST
The Guardian,
Wednesday August 30 2006
The Scissor Sisters, one of the top five downloaded artists, perform in Hyde Park. Photograph: Dan Chung
A music download service believes it can wrestle music fans away from the grip of Apple by giving away music for free.SpiralFrog.com, which is set to launch this year from New York, is being backed by the world's biggest record label, Vivendi Universal. Between them they hope to give away music by some of the world's most popular artists, including Eminem and Kaiser Chiefs.Instead of copying Apple's iTunes store by charging customers to buy music, SpiralFrog says it will replace the traditional cost of downloading with money made from advertising. Audiences will have to sit through a short advertisement before downloading their track of choice, a tactic used by some other media websites but thought to be a first for music.Lance Ford, chief sales and marketing officer at SpiralFrog, said 70% of people aged 16 to 24 downloaded music online but only one in 40 tracks were bought legally. "They use computers as 21st century stereos in their rooms," said Mr Ford. "The music companies can't do much about this ratio of one bought for every 40 stolen. There needs to be a free-of-charge solution."The service will begin in North America at the end of this year, with a UK launch scheduled for the first quarter of next year. The company is keen to make deals with other labels, which will in return receive a share of advertising revenue from its website."We're in talks with other majors," Mr Ford said. "People are saying 'if you can build it, we'll come on board'."Although other services have tried to bring the ethos of commercial radio to the internet, most have copied the model of traditional high street music retailers by selling individual tracks or albums at a profit. More adventurous businesses, including Napster, charge flat monthly fees for subscriptions that allow users to make unlimited downloads.But industry experts say the rise of community websites such as MySpace, where many musicians give their music away for free, has combined with the existence of illegal filesharing to open the door to new ways of doing business."There is a sense in which the major labels are almost falling over themselves to be the first to get into these new businesses," said Paul Brindley of MusicAlly, a digital music consultancy."It's been a real change, from resisting new developments to wanting to be out there at the cutting edge." Apple's iTunes, which sells tracks for 79p each, is the biggest download service in the world, but is only compatible with the company's bestselling iPod player.SpiralFrog's tracks will not work with the iPod or with many other popular MP3 players. But the company is aiming for compatibility with the next generation of music-playing mobile phones.The deal is far from being Vivendi Universal's first foray into online music, a market now worth more than £53m globally. The company, which has a 26% share of the international music market, already operates with a number of download sites, though it sold off ownership of the MP3.com website three years ago.Some analysts believe SpiralFrog will eventually offer an ad-free paid download service alongside its commercial model. Michele Mackenzie, an analyst at Ovum, says it will be tough because existing companies such as Yahoo! "are far better experienced in dealing with advertisers and have a far wider reach".
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Free music download service wants a bite out of Apple
This article appeared in the Guardian
on Wednesday August 30 2006 on p5 of the National news section. It was last updated at 10.41 on August 21 2007.
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