Major Labels

WalMart Adds WMG MP3’s. Napster Next?

Wmg
The Warner Music Group family of labels has widened its full catalog mp3 offering to include WalMart.com.  Previously Amazon was the only North American based download provider with the catalog.

Hypebot reported yesterday that WMG was about to broaden its DRM-free program to include other sites. Last month WalMart drop all tracks from WMG, Universal and Sony BMG and took its digital store DRM-free.  EMI and a limited number of indies provided content until this morning when WMG effectively doubled WalMart.com’s catalog.

As it does at brick and morter, WalMart is…

competing on price with
all tracks a 94 cents (up from 88 cents last month) and album downloads
from $7.98 – $9.22.  (By contrast iTunes generally prices at $.99
track/$9.99 album and Amazon’s offers variable pricing that is
occasionally lower than WalMart but often hits $.99/$9.99.)  Indie
music plays only a minor role on WalMart.com also mimicing in-store
content. 

WMG’s move puts pressure on the other label groups and download
stores to move more rapidly towards all DRM-free. At yesterday’s
Digital NARM, a spokesperson for Napster hinted that they would go
DRM-free within a month.

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