In a move that is bound to have loyal customers talking, eMusic has brokered its first deal with a major label. Sony Music Entertainment has come on board to offer ‘catalog’ albums to eMusic suscbribers. What this means is that if you are already an eMusic subscriber who gets 50 dowloads a month for 15.99, you will now get 35 for the same price but now you have hundreds of thousands more choices to download from and expand your collection. If you’re like me and were grandfathered in and actually still get more downloads (I get 65) for the 15.99 price, I am now gonna have to ante up more money (see chart below) in order to have the amount of downloads I used to have. Given that it was hard to come up with 65 new songs to download every month, I actually think the 50 number will be easier to reach and the ability to get the real studio recordings of classic albums from my youth and beyond is great.
| eMusic Pricing Plans | DL/Month | Monthly | avg $/song |
| eMusic Lite 12 | 12(every 30 days) | $6.49 | $0.54 |
| eMusic Plus 35 | 35(every 30 days) | $15.89 | $0.45 |
| eMusic Premium 50 | 50(every 30 days) | $20.79 | $0.42 |
| eMusic Connoisseur* 75 | 75(every 30 days) | $30.99 | $0.41 |
| 3 month commitment required* |
Now, if you loved eMusic because it didn’t have major label content and you loved the thrill of discovery, you’re likely to be a bit bummed or even outright mad. I think that’s not the right approach to take since the presence of this music, which Sony says is at least 2 years old to be considered “catalog,” will likely bring more users to eMusic and open fans up to even more to those indie artists, particulary since eMusic has always been great about suggestions based on your purchase. This also gives fans who are looking for an economical way to purchase mp3’s legally the opportunity to get some of their favorites, which include Kenny Chesney, Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, to name but a few of the artists. There’s no way to see this addition as anything but great for the consumer and it’s likely to have the other major labels like EMI, Warner Music Group and Universal joining eMusic before long, thus making them the ‘economical’ and independently minded leader for legal mp3 downloading.
I would have guessed that EMI would’ve been the first label to sign with eMusic given the fact that they were the first to go DRM free at iTunes but I suppose Sony, without BMG around to co-decide things anymore, decided that they wanted to sever from their consumer-hating DRM loving past and embrace the internet and legal mp3 sites like eMusic. It’s a nice change of pace and it certainly makes me even more happy to be an eMusic subscriber.
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