07/28/2004, 8:30am, EDT

Wednesday, July 28th

iTunes-rival MusicMatch debuts music sharing feature

MusicMatch has launched a new music sharing feature that allows its users to share music with other users. The Associated Press reports MusicMatch's revamped website--offering both permanent song downloads and subscription access to streaming music--features a service that allows users to send an email to friends with a special link that allows the purchased song to be played up to 3 times before it becomes "locked". The feature extends the music sharing paradigm of playlist-sharing found in other music services, such as Napster 2.0 and Apple's iTunes. One analyst says that it "will be an incremental feature that could lead them to be more competitive...You'll probably see other people follow MusicMatch's lead, particularly if it proves successful, and my guess is that it will be."

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MichaelNH

No thanks

07/28, 9:22am, EDT

This is the most creative thing they can come up with? Now I see why Apple ditched them and made iTunes for Windows. After three plays? Weak. I am happy paying my 99 cents and owning it.

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moramis

You missed the point

07/28, 9:39am, EDT

You can still pay 99 cents to own the track. The three play limitation applies to your friends who haven't paid for it and don't own it. You can share tracks (and entire playlists) with them which they can play for free three times. This is an additional feature that iTunes doesn't have, along with the music subscription feature.

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Hobeaux

07/28, 10:25am, EDT

the music subscription feature on musicmatch is very spiffy—wishing that iTunes had that :(

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z10n

Stupid

07/28, 1:00pm, EDT

So instead of ripping a CD for them which lets them play all they want for free, I'm going to email it to them so they can only hear it three times? And they aren't going to fire up a program which records straight from their computer's audio giving them a non-encrypted file? Or radio stations are going to start charging people after a song plays three times in their area? Maybe that pair of jeans I bought the other day should have a "feature" that if I don't go to the company's website and sign up for their free emailing list that the jeans explode and burn a hole in my house?

lol. Gee, I wonder why people get pissed off at the endless bullshit restrictions placed on music and end up downloading the song off kazaa? Could it be because the industry is a bunch of money-grubbing intellectual property nazis?

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pdot

Useless feature

07/28, 2:26pm, EDT

I doubt I'll ever find any use in emailing an MP3 (or whatever format) just so others can hear it 3 times. Waste of bandwidth, I think. I don't think it'll catch on. Reminds me of the digital version of disposable DVD rentals.

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testudo

Re: useless feature

07/28, 5:45pm, EDT

Ummm, you're not sending it to them so they can listen to it three times. You're sending it to them so you can say "Hey, check out this new group I found! They rox!" and then their friends will listen, and go "Oh, boy they do rock!" and they'll buy it too.

Its the same freakin' concept as the iMix, except the people actually get to listen to the whole song, not just 30 seconds of it.

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