...which has already been supplanted by Sony BMG's own announcement of opening their entire catalog to Amazon's MP3 store (pretty much guaranteeing that this thing is stillborn).
We had another "exciting way for our customers to buy music" only a few months ago...also cooked up by Sony BMG...it was also stillborn and the discs just collected dust in the backroom waiting for a release date that passed them by when we'd gotten word to add all the titles to a recall before they had even come out: the Ringle.
Don't know about the "Musicpass" service...basically, the idea is this: You go to the store and buy a gift card. The gift card is only good for a particular artist's album (with some bonus features like interviews or videos thrown into the mix). Then you go home and download the album as DRM-Free music. The problems: there are only 30+ albums to start with (the Clerks fan in me is hoping to say "37?!")...the artists are not the hot artists that the KIDS want to buy...nope...They include Celine Dion, Barry Manilow and Tony Bennett.
I found this great article called "Why It Won't Work" that pretty much sums up my feelings on this...here's the link.
Basically, if you want to download an album, why go to the store (even if you want to legally do it there's both iTunes and Amazon)? If you are already AT the store, why wouldn't you just buy the CD?
My District Manager basically accused me of being a Debbie Downer because I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the crap that the movie/music industries are foisting on us, but I'd like to think of myself as being a realist...why not just make GOOD music and maybe put better music on the RADIO/SIRIUS/XM/MTV/IN-STORE PLAY/ETC. instead of the ten songs of audible pablum in each genre that Clear Channel wants to push on us? Maybe people would get excited about buying music again if we weren't constantly treating our entire fanbase as criminals every time they want to share a song with their friends or try something outside of their normal box...!
