2004: The Year Of The Online Music Stores; Napster Chief Slams Apple

by , 11:00 AM EST, January 28th, 2004

As the battle heats up for online music services, 2004 stands to be a deciding year for the increasingly competitive market. While iTunes continues to carry a strong lead, Chris Gorog, chairman and CEO of Roxio (Napster's parent company) warned music industry representatives to "stay-off the Apple platform" at the recent Midem International Music Fair in Cannes, France, according to the Mail & Guardian.

Gorog backed up his remark by explaining that more music players are compatible with Napster and predicting that its $9.95/month business model for unlimited streaming downloads will prove more popular than Apple's 99 cent a-la-carte service.

Meanwhile, Apple vice president Eddy Cue dropped an interesting new factoid regarding the iTunes Music Store: 95 percent of its catalog of 500,000 tracks have been purchased at least once. Cue also trumpeted that the highest spending customer on iTunes has purchased $29,500 music -- something that Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the crowd during his Macworld Expo keynote.

Perhaps most important to many of those in attendance at Cannes was the reiteration that iTunes, as well as Napster and other services, will soon be available in Europe. Differences in copyright practices, retail pricing, and differing release dates of albums from place to place are reportedly among the biggest obstacles online music services have had to accommodate for before they make the services live.

The Mac Observer Spin:

If Gorog's two points are an example of how he intends to woo record companies away from Apple, he certainly has his work cut out for him. More than likely, all the online services will end up featuring very similar music catalogs, although Apple is seemingly in a better position to capture artists that other services can't, as the company appeals to Mac-using musicians.

Having said that, Apple will invariably find itself running into difficulties wooing owners of non-iPod MP3 players to buy songs from the iTunes Music Store if they can't play them on their devices. Of course, unless the protected AAC format finds more support on new players, the only solution will be to make tracks at the iTunes Music Store also available in Windows Media Player format, something we just don't see Apple succumbing to.

One thing is for certain: iTunes will remain at the forefront of online music services this year, despite the dismay and protests from the like of Mssrs. Gorog, Dell, and Gates.