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BusinessWeek reports Universal Music aims to join together with Sony and Warner to create yet another subscription service. Despite the fact that every subscription yet launched has withered or been outright killed by iTunes, the music labels somehow think that the repackaging will help their cause. The iTunes store has grabbed about 70 percent of downloads in the US. And, the iPod—well, what's left to say about that juggernaut? Plus, music companies have been here before. A few years ago they launched services with the aim of defeating Napster-style file-sharing—and failed miserably. And, let's not forget that existing subscription services have signed up only a few million people vs hundreds of millions [Ed—Billions, actually] of iTunes software downloads. from $249 w/ free shipping. Perhaps their plan is to pull "their" content from iTunes and offer it only via their own store. After all Vivendi's chairman (corporate parent of Universal) has said that the 70+ cents per dollar they get from iTunes is an indecently low share of the spoils. Nevertheless, with artists already abandoning the labels, anything that Universal and their fellow travelers do is really all for nought and little more than a desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable... What's your take?
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