Google and Universal Music Group will be partnering with gBox, Inc., an online music retailer, to sell DRM-free music tracks via Google search results. gBox, based in Apple's backyard of Cupertino, California, will begin selling Universal tracks, sans DRM, via their web site on August 21. Universal will purchase text ads on Google's searches to direct searchers to gBox sales pages.
Though Universal will also sell music without copy protection through Wal-Mart, Best Buy Digital Music Store, Rhapsody, Transworld, Passalong Networks, Amazon.com and Puretracks, only gBox will benefit from their Google search advertising. Tracks will cost $.99 each, which undercuts iTunes by 30 cents for DRM-free music.
Noticably absent from the list is Apple's iTunes. As the New York Times notes, it appears that the music industry is attempting to shift power away from Apple.
"The effort is likely to be seen as part of the industry’s wider push to increase competition to iTunes and shift leverage away from Apple, which wields enormous influence over prices and other terms in digital music. A month ago, Universal notified Apple that it would not agree to a new long-term contract to sell music through iTunes."
This move is likely a coup for gBox, which offers embeddable widgets for social networks that let people create music wish lists allowing their friends to purchase tracks as gifts, but also a win for record labels. More people on the gBox web site means more people using gBox on their MySpace profiles, which in turn serves to spread music downloads virally. For now, gBox only works with Windows PCs running Internet Explorer, though a note on the site says that Firefox support is coming soon. It is unlikely that the Universal artist pages, however, will be restricted to Windows users because only the creation of gBox widgets is IE-only -- the embedded widget itself is cross-browser.
Read/WriteWeb Network blog last100 has a lot more info on this announcement.
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Josh,
Yeah gBox only supports IE which kinda sucks. Also many folks are talking about potential impacts to Apple as a result.
This gets even more interesting as Universal refused to renew its annual contract with Apple.
Here are some of my thoughts around potential danger to Apple from this trio:
http://abhishek.tiwari.com/2007/08/13/should-apple-fear-the-universal-google-and-gbox-tag-team/
Let me know what you think.
ps -- Not fully sure why Universal is relying solely on gBox, who is virtually unknown.
Posted by: Abhishek | August 13, 2007 2:53 PM
We've been had. gBox is just a startup company that's buying Google ads using AdWords. There is no relationship between Google and gBox otherwise, except of course for that common first letter.
Posted by: Jason | August 13, 2007 5:24 PM
Take that, Apple. I hope MusicNet gets the DRM-free Universal stuff shortly as well... I *think* they feed Zune's marketplace... which shouldn't be far from its next version either.
Posted by: Dan Grossman | August 13, 2007 6:30 PM
I was half-way interested until I saw that it was only IE - is this true? If so, why?
Posted by: DHP | August 13, 2007 7:38 PM
@Jason: I think my write up wasn't the most clear. As I understand it, Universal is partnering with Google (via a massive Adwords buy for this "experiment"), and Universal is partnering with gBox to sell songs via those text ads. So by association-only is Google partnering with gBox.
Posted by: Josh Catone | August 13, 2007 7:58 PM
The animosity towards Apple in this whole story (ongoing) is mind boggling. Apple was the first company to give the music industry a real chance at selling digital music, and it's not like they're making much money in this business. Most of the money being made is going straight to the big lables, they just want more and more and more, because that's what they're used to--ripping off the song writers, the musicians, anyone who plays their music, and then finally anyone who buys their music.
The reason they don't like Apple is that for once someone besides them has taken control of a small domain in the music business (granted the one that will probably become the single most important legal domain). But at the end of the day, this whole model is going away. We're already seeing the evidence that the real money these days is in live performances and maybe other merchandising.
The good thing about live performance taking the pie? (Just my snobby opinion): It will be the end of the plastic studio-made bubble gum pop star (you know the ones who can't sing a real note or play a real instrument without 10,000 hours of production work and make up).
Posted by: Paul Roberts | August 13, 2007 8:02 PM
This would be great and I was excited for the chance to finally be able to use music on my ZEN Vision W (read NOT iPod), but I do use a MacBook and it doesn't support IE. If Universal really wants to hit Apple in the wallet, they need to support OSX and Safari.
Posted by: Sean | August 17, 2007 8:55 PM
I agree with the post that speaks of all of this being overshadowed eventually by live music. It is inevitable. The reason so many artists today make a living performing old standards, or "oldies" in general, is that although people love the original versions of songs they love even more to hear a living, breathing musician make it new and real now. To me, these shifts in the digital download market are only diversions on the road to the real thing.
Posted by: Cat Johnson | September 4, 2007 8:59 PM