Ha, I think not. MySpace is very late to the idea of offering a music site, and if the two other music websites haven’t caught up to iTunes, I don’t think any site will at this point. If MySpace had gone into the game a lot earlier, they would of had a good chance of being a successful music site. I mean iTunes has the majority of music subscribers, it’s just as simple as that. I don’t think anyone will come in their way at this point. The sales of the Apple iPod definitely garnered attention from many people, and if it weren’t for the Apple iPod iTunes could have crashed-and-burned. To me, Apple has some sort of advantage in this market, although I do have to say that they pull off the software part of it extremely well and that also helps promote their sales.

VIA eFlux Media

Sony looks like they are planning to enter the music subscription service. They look very promising from a detail you will hear afterwards. Even though Sony BMG is a record label, that can’t stop it from being a crash-and-burn music download service. The price range is just your average US $9-12 per month. Song BMG CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz also said that there will be also way to buy “unexpiring” music a-la-carte in addition to subscribing to the service which will you all-you-can-download music store. Nothing new there. But what he added is that the music library downloads will be compatible with all types of DRM devices, including the iPod! I would be very excited to see all-you-can-download type services for the iPod that doesn’t involve breaking any DRM code. Maybe we can actually see someone competing with Apple’s iTunes. I am very anxious to know when this service will be released, but Mr. CEO did not specify a time.

VIA Ars Technica