Artist BT targets digital music

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This was sent to the CLUBExL news section:

BT is after a slice of the digital music action today, launching a new online music store to compete with iTunes, Napster, and Loudeye/OD2 - after trialling the service with songs by Robbie Williams.

Powered by the white label technology service Blueprint, the service is designed to allow music labels able to dictate the terms for selling their tracks - a move which will create a plethora of different offers for consumers and contrast with Apple Itune's "one-size fits all" approach.

BT has UK-based EMI as a first signed label and plans to ink deals with all four major labels by the end of the year.

Using Blueprint's 'Open Royalty Gateway' (ORG) and 'Song Centre' software, the scheme will allow for many different price points and sampling arrangements, and various DRM schemes.

ORG is a response to some music label that the iTunes pricing and DRM approach which from the outset set firm prices for songs and almost no discounting - a move which probably helped its early success in getting consumers used to the idea of digital music downloads.

But some music executives think consumers will embrace the many deals and offers which arrive with OGR.

BT says the new approach will "address many of the key problems hampering the development of online music businesses, such as time to market, capital expenditure in IT and networking technologies, control of rights and the margin structure of the present models." A mobile platform is planned for the Spring.

OGR was trialled for Robbie Williams' recent No.1 hit single 'Radio' with Australia and New Zealand's leading music retailers, Sanity and Sounds. The audio, video, visual and mobile content was bundled together for sale, and linked with a competition utilising Blueprint's referral and reward technology to drive additional opportunities to win prizes. The service is now powering the global Robbie Williams 'Greatest Hits' digital download store.