Universal Music and UK-based satellite TV broadcaster Sky are preparing to launch a new DRM-free music with hopes of competing with Apple's iTunes.

The new and as of yet unnamed service will be of the subscription variety, meaning instead of having to pay for each track or album, you'll pay one flat fee each month and have access to as much or as little music as you'd like.

By being free of DRM, the service hopes to succeed where others, such as Napster, have struggled.

No word on exactly how the pricing will be other than to say that it will be "competitively priced" against their rivals.

[Via Electronista and The Guardian]

Now available for the very first time, Magnatune Memberships allows you to hear Magnatune music without any announcements or interruptions between songs! Starting at just $9 a month, you can stream over 500 albums and mixes into iTunes or player of your choice. Listen online all day, every day wherever you are. For serious audiophiles, we recommend our Download Membership, an "all you can eat" plan that lets you download any of our music, whenever you like, as many times as you like, and in any format, including CD quality WAVs. BONUS: BOTH PLANS include access to our new two hour, talk-free podcasts.

I checked out the details of the two plans. For $9 a month you can stream the company's entire catalog of music, and for $18 a month you can download the company's entire catalog of music. Let me repeat that part: for $18 a month, you can download every album on the site to your computer. (Magnatune only asks that you not strain its servers by using a downloading robot.) You also get access to streaming audio and members-only music podcasts. Under both plans, 50% of your subscription fee goes to the musicians whose songs you downloaded and/or streamed. Pretty sweet.

I do not recognize a single one of the artists listed on the site. But what I do recognize is if I really want to expand my musical horizons, Magnatune is a great way to go - particularly if I want to explore baroque, classical, medieval, and electronic music. And there are some fascinating oddities, such as Professor Armchair and his "demented 19th century children's music".

I'll have to think about whether membership is right for me, or whether I'd prefer to cherry-pick tracks that I like. But I'm really impressed with the company's pro-customer, pro-artist policies.

Ich habe es trotzdem versucht, und tatsächlich, ich bekomme die gleiche unfreundliche Fehlermeldung. Nach einem Blick ins Hilfe-Verzeichnis lese ich folgendes:

Other browsers may be able to access our original Music Downloads store. This older site has fewer user features than our latest version, but it does offer all the same music.

Hier der Link zu dem alten MP3-Store von Walmart. Darüber kann man die gleichen Dateien erwerben, also richtig fatal ist es nicht, auch wenn die Aussage:

System Requirements:

• Windows 2000, XP or Vista (sorry, no Macintosh or Linux)

für eine Webseite(!) schon ganz schön frech ist.

Source: 7digital