Exclusive tracks online

Exclusive content is both , The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) reports today. Apple, which has paid special attention to promoting tracks available only through iTunes, has reaped big gains from such offerings as it finds exclusive tracks accounting for a good portion of its sales while also luring new customers to the service. The ability to also make available live recordings shortly after they're performed, such as Beyonce's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner that could be purchased on iTunes the day after the Super Bowl, is another aspect that's setting the online music business apart from its traditional counterpart.

Some industry bigwigs also see exclusive content as being the factor that will separate the winners from the rest in the digital music space. "That's what it comes down to," Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Universal Music Group's Interscope-Geffen-A&M division believes.


"In the course of an album cycle, artists create different versions of their hits. It's always been an issue how to share that stuff with the fans and how to monetize it," Ron Shapiro, co-president of Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records explains, citing online distribution as an ideal medium for that kind of material to reach fans without requiring a label to commit to manufacturing thousands of copies of a CD.

by MacNN Staff