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Sony’s Music Unlimited Will Not Offer Free Streams

image from cdn.slashgear.com Mark Harris at About.com almost got Hypebot excited about Sony's Music Unlimited service. In a headline on his blog, Harris suggested that the music service will be offering free streams. This would be a bold move. Sony Music would be challenging Spotify at its own game before even launching in the US. But in reading a further, we found a contradiction between what Harris said and what Bloomberg reported.

In Harris's defense, Bloomberg does say, "Music Unlimited will rival streaming and download services already on the market, including cloud-based sites like Spotify, whose majority of users access the service for free in return for sitting through ads." But if you search the article, I'm afraid free only comes up once.

"Free doesn't make any money," Thomas Hesse of Sony Music states.

Bloomberg also reports that Music Unlimited has "no designs on becoming ad-supported." So unless Sony is planning on giving away songs, we're afraid that Harris may have jumped the gun here. Now, to be clear, we're not pointing this out to be a jerks. We just wanted to clear up, in case you saw this report, that Sony's Music Unlimited won't be challenging Spotify. It will be a paid only app.

"…Sony is to offer consumers free songs via streaming audio. According to… Bloomberg, Sony's Music Unlimited service will go head-to-head with rival services like Spotify which also offers a free service along with a 'paid-for' subscription." (About)

"Music Unlimited costs 9.99 euros per month for a premium service and 3.99 euros for a basic plan.

The service has no designs on becoming ad-supported

'Free doesn't make any money,' said Thomas Hesse, head of digital operations and corporate strategy at Sony Music Entertainment." (Bloomberg)

"Sony will hope that this double-tier formula where users can first try out their music service using its free offering could be key in not only gaining ground on the more established services, but also in providing a way to promote their electronic products — just like Apple has done in fact with its iPod etc." (About)

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