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Pay-For-Play Music a Legal Solution for Music Downloaders

Aired October 17, 2003 - 11:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Downloading music, The mere thought of it may cause you to cringe nowadays. After all, the recording industry is suing individuals for doing just that. But there are still ways for you to get your tunes online. You just have to pay. Our technology expert Daniel Sieberg joins us now with how you do it legally. Good morning.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Hi, Daryn. And the latest service to join the crowded filed of legitimate services was announced by Apple. People may be familiar with Apple's iTunes for Macs. Steve Jobs yesterday came out saying they are announcing the Windows or PC compatible version of iTunes. Followings the same model, you pay 99 cents a song, about $10 to download a full album. He had a number of musicians there with him, including Bono, Dr. Dre and Mick Jagger, all there to talk about this announcement.

He's hoping he can expand. The Apple only has 3 percent to 5 percent of the market. They're hoping to tap into the other 90-plus percent and get all the Windows users to buy into the idea of iTunes.

One of the many legitimate services out there. We can show you what it looks like and how it works. You can get a preview of the song you want to get. There are a number of different artists. They say they're going to have 400,000 songs by the end of the month. They're also partnering up by Pepsi where you can get a free song in a bottle cap. This is going to happen sometimes after February, after the Super Bowl.

They've also partnered with AOL, part of our parent company, Time Warner, to try and promote this service for Windows users. They're hoping to sell more iPods the popular music player they had. They had a Mac version, then they moved into a PC version. So that's a big part of this as well.

But it's a very crowded field, as I mentioned, Daryn. We have a list of just some of the legitimate service that are out there for people. You can see iTunes. Napster 2.0, which is not your father's Napster, we should say. And it's only the same in name. Company called Roxio bought the Napster name and merged with Pressplay. They are using that technology where they can download songs for a fee.

You can see the list. That's a few of more than 40 the recording industry has backed. Each a little bit different. This is the list. There's about 40 on here that the recording industry has backed. Each with a little bit different way of going about it. In some cases you can burn it to a number of CDs only a limited number of times, share them on a certain number of computers, put them on an MP3 player. They're trying to find ways to make it appealing to people. That's been the criticism, that they haven't made it appealing enough for consumers, that it's been too time consuming or confusing for people to get music easily -- Daryn.

KAGAN: I was -- I tried the BuyMusic.com. I wasn't looking to put together a whole CD, I was looking for one obscure song. On an old clunky computer I found it easy to do. It cost me 98 cents to get the song.

SIEBERG: They're changing over from the subscription model where you'd pay a per month fee and download a number of songs for this a la carte way where you pay 99 cent for one song. That's what you have to do. You can get that song.

There are different licensing or ways you can use that song once you have it on your computer. Some people want to access it from a number of different computers. Some people want to share it, burn it to a CD. Whatever it is, there are still file sharing networks out there like KaZaA, Grokster and Morpheus which are offering people for free. Illegally we should say, but for free. They are still in a sense competing with those services that are out there.

So they have to make it as appealing as possible. And analysts are saying the recording industry is finally getting on the bandwagon and coming up to speed. They're offering what consumers want. That is really the key for their survival of the digital market marketplace.

KAGAN: Time for the record companies to figure that out. Daniel, thank you for that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 17, 2003 - 11:48   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Downloading music, The mere thought of it may cause you to cringe nowadays. After all, the recording industry is suing individuals for doing just that. But there are still ways for you to get your tunes online. You just have to pay. Our technology expert Daniel Sieberg joins us now with how you do it legally. Good morning.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Hi, Daryn. And the latest service to join the crowded filed of legitimate services was announced by Apple. People may be familiar with Apple's iTunes for Macs. Steve Jobs yesterday came out saying they are announcing the Windows or PC compatible version of iTunes. Followings the same model, you pay 99 cents a song, about $10 to download a full album. He had a number of musicians there with him, including Bono, Dr. Dre and Mick Jagger, all there to talk about this announcement.

He's hoping he can expand. The Apple only has 3 percent to 5 percent of the market. They're hoping to tap into the other 90-plus percent and get all the Windows users to buy into the idea of iTunes.

One of the many legitimate services out there. We can show you what it looks like and how it works. You can get a preview of the song you want to get. There are a number of different artists. They say they're going to have 400,000 songs by the end of the month. They're also partnering up by Pepsi where you can get a free song in a bottle cap. This is going to happen sometimes after February, after the Super Bowl.

They've also partnered with AOL, part of our parent company, Time Warner, to try and promote this service for Windows users. They're hoping to sell more iPods the popular music player they had. They had a Mac version, then they moved into a PC version. So that's a big part of this as well.

But it's a very crowded field, as I mentioned, Daryn. We have a list of just some of the legitimate service that are out there for people. You can see iTunes. Napster 2.0, which is not your father's Napster, we should say. And it's only the same in name. Company called Roxio bought the Napster name and merged with Pressplay. They are using that technology where they can download songs for a fee.

You can see the list. That's a few of more than 40 the recording industry has backed. Each a little bit different. This is the list. There's about 40 on here that the recording industry has backed. Each with a little bit different way of going about it. In some cases you can burn it to a number of CDs only a limited number of times, share them on a certain number of computers, put them on an MP3 player. They're trying to find ways to make it appealing to people. That's been the criticism, that they haven't made it appealing enough for consumers, that it's been too time consuming or confusing for people to get music easily -- Daryn.

KAGAN: I was -- I tried the BuyMusic.com. I wasn't looking to put together a whole CD, I was looking for one obscure song. On an old clunky computer I found it easy to do. It cost me 98 cents to get the song.

SIEBERG: They're changing over from the subscription model where you'd pay a per month fee and download a number of songs for this a la carte way where you pay 99 cent for one song. That's what you have to do. You can get that song.

There are different licensing or ways you can use that song once you have it on your computer. Some people want to access it from a number of different computers. Some people want to share it, burn it to a CD. Whatever it is, there are still file sharing networks out there like KaZaA, Grokster and Morpheus which are offering people for free. Illegally we should say, but for free. They are still in a sense competing with those services that are out there.

So they have to make it as appealing as possible. And analysts are saying the recording industry is finally getting on the bandwagon and coming up to speed. They're offering what consumers want. That is really the key for their survival of the digital market marketplace.

KAGAN: Time for the record companies to figure that out. Daniel, thank you for that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com