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'Free' music downloads, complete with a hook - International Herald Tribune
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'Free' music downloads, complete with a hook - International Herald Tribune
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A new online music company called SpiralFrog said Tuesday that it would make songs from Universal Music Group available for free downloading if users agreed to watch advertising, the latest in a series of efforts to wean young fans off pirated music and t
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'Free' music downloads, complete with a hook
By Eric Pfanner
Published: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2006
LONDON: A new online music company called SpiralFrog said Tuesday that it would make songs from Universal Music Group available for free downloading if users agreed to watch advertising, the latest in a series of efforts to wean young fans off pirated music and to challenge Apple Computer's iTunes.SpiralFrog,
a privately held company headed by Robin Kent, a former advertising executive, said that Universal had agreed to license its entire North American music catalogue, which includes artists like Eminem, Sheryl Crow and Sting, for download, with a test of the service expected to start in the United States and Canada by the end of the year. A spokesman for SpiralFrog said the offering would be extended to Britain and other European markets next year.Universal
Music declined to comment, beyond confirming the agreement.While
the music industry for years resisted the idea of "free" music, associating it with rampant online piracy, now it is eager to experiment with new digital business models. The growth of online advertising has encouraged industry executives that advertiser-supported music services could win consumer acceptance, while still compensating record companies and artists.Some
record company executives also chafe at the dominance of iTunes, particularly its insistence on a one-size- fits-all pricing model, saying that it has restricted the growth of digital sales.SpiralFrog
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is not the first legitimate service to make music available free to consumers. Napster, a former scourge of the record companies that was later reborn as a legitimate digital business, this year introduced a limited advertiser-supported service that lets users listen to some songs without paying.Kazaa,
a digital file-sharing network that last month agreed to settle copyright infringement lawsuits with the music and movie industries, is also expected to introduce an advertiser-supported offering when it is reintroduced as a legitimate service.The
company said in July that it would create a service "unlike anything you've seen before," while John Kennedy, head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said the record companies would not object to the creation of a legitimate, advertiser-supported Kazaa.SpiralFrog
pre-empted a move by Kazaa with its announcement, which was reported Tuesday in The Financial Times. Unlike Napster, whose free offerings are "streamed" to users, SpiralFrog plans to offer downloads, like iTunes. Users would have to watch or listen to a number of online ads in exchange for free music, said Neville Hobson, a spokesman for SpiralFrog. Music will be protected from additional copying by digital rights management software from Microsoft, and will not be compatible with Apple's iPod portable music player."Offering
young consumers an easy- to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling," said Kent, a former chief executive of Universal McCann, a media-buying unit of the Interpublic Group advertising holding company.While
the company's initial agreement is with Universal Music, the company plans to pursue licensing deals with the other major record companies Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music, Hobson said.Still,
given the fragmentation of the digital music business - there are hundreds of would-be challengers to iTunes, most with tiny market shares - analysts said that new offerings like SpiralFrog would face difficult challenges, despite offering the lure of "free" music."Few
service providers are currently in a position to provide the large audiences that advertisers require, and few pure music providers have the heritage of building a business funded by advertising," said Michele Mackenzie, principal analyst at Ovum, a telecommunications and Internet consultancy.Managing
the relationship with Apple will also prove to be tricky for the industry, analysts say. SpiralFrog took pains to distance itself from talk that the advertising-supported model would mount a threat to iTunes."This
is certainly not being pitched as a challenger to iTunes," Hobson said. "It's a very different model. It's complementary to iTunes."
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