New player in the world of online music WiredRecords.com is adding to its online wares, partnering with BMG Australia in a distribution deal that will see BMG artists' work available at the WiredRecords site by November.
With an Australian music industry worth AU$1 billion in retail dollars and a prediction by online research company www.consult that 10 percent of music will be sold online in Australia by 2002, "wired is in a strong position to capitalise on the growth of digital music," WiredRecords director, Domenic Carosa, told ZDNet.
WiredRecords already has the exclusive rights to the Festival Mushroom catalogue, which has cornered 10 percent of the Australian music market, whilst BMG Australia represents 7 percent of Australian music.
WiredRecords claims that its service, a comprehensive mix of digital rights management (DRM) technology, content licenses and delivery mechanism, is a first-time package of its kind in Australia.
Digital rights management technology protects the distribution of music over the Internet, setting limits on the amount of times a track can be played. Although the music file can be swapped between friends, files can't be accessed until a licence has been purchased
When WiredRecord's sales start in November, the site will hook up to the 'a la carte' download model, which requires customers to pay per download.
"With higher penetration into homes of high-speed networks, we will be looking at a [download] subscription model," Carosa said.
Forrester research anticipates that the subscription download model, which works on a fee-per-month basis, will take over by 2004.
