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Music Cos. To Offer DRM-Free Music On MicroSD Cards For Phones

Here's an interesting move. SanDisk, maker of Flash memory cards, and the four biggest recording labels are teaming up to offer microSD cards that are pre-loaded with DRM-free music. You'll be able to walk into a Best Buy and pick up that new album for $7-$10, pop it into your phone, and listen to it right away. Can this business model work?

I think it is pretty clear that buying music on physical media is a dying business model. CD sales topped out in 2000, and ever since have been contracting more and more each year. With companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Rhapdosy offering high-quality downloads for less than the cost of a CD, there's no incentive to buy physical media any more.

How often to you actually put a CD into a CD player and listen to it? My car is the only place I play my CDs, and that's only because I haven't installed an iPod hook-up in it yet. For the most part, playback is performed via PC, MP3 player, mobile phone, or other storage-equipped piece of hardware. SanDisk and partners EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group think they can change this.

The new venture cooked up by all of them is called slotMusic. According to the press release, slotMusic cards enable consumers to instantly and easily enjoy music from their favorite artists without being dependent on a PC or Internet connection. Users simply insert the slotMusic card into their microSD-enabled mobile phone or MP3 player to hear the music -- without passwords, downloading or digital-rights-management interfering with their personal use.

slotMusic cards will be packaged with a tiny USB sleeve ensuring seamless interoperability with all computers -- Windows, Linux, and Mac. The upshot is that slotMusic will enjoy an unparalleled, pre-existing installed base at launch: hundreds of millions of multimedia -- phones, virtually any computer with a USB connector, and a growing number of in-car sound systems will be able to play slotMusic cards.

The MP3-based music tracks will be played back at up to 320 kilobytes per second (kbps), offering a high-quality music experience for the MP3 format.

It is true that many phones are equipped with microSD slots. But how many people are really using their phones as their primary music player? I would bet the answer is fewer than SanDisk and partners think it is.

If the cost is correctly being reported -- $7 to $10 per 1-GB microSD card with music -- then I think something else is going to happen. Right now, 1-GB microSD cards sell for anywhere from $10 to $20, depending on where you get it. To spend less than that, and get music to boot may cause many to start buying the cheaper cards and just erasing the music. Though I, for one, think 1 GB is a pretty small amount of storage space.

In any event, I can't believe that this venture is going to be successful. If I'm not interested in buying new music on a CD, that means I'm going to simply download it from a download service.

Buy it on a microSD card? No thanks.

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