Sony Lets eMusic Sell Back Catalog
By Anna Johnson on June 7th, 2009Sony Music Entertainment will let subscription-based online music retailer, eMusic, sell songs from Sony’s back catalog (i.e. songs that are more than two years old).
To date, the major music labels have refused to do business with eMusic. This is presumably because they don’t think eMusic will make them enough money. eMusic’s approximately 400,000 subscribers pay a monthly fee to download a certain number of songs. Under the basic plan, for example, subscribers pay $11.99 a month to download 30 songs.
This amounts to about 40 cents per song, which is less than the per-song price on Apple iTunes. Each song is in the MP3 format and there are no restrictions against copying. eMusic will, however, raise prices slightly and decrease the allowed number of downloads as part of the deal with Sony.
Is it just a matter of time before Sony lets eMusic sell its entire catalog… and before all the labels do business with eMusic?
Source: Brad Stone, “Sony Agrees to Provide Its Older Songs to eMusic,” The New York Times, May 31, 2009
