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eMusic Close to 100 Million Downloads
Monday, November 20th, 2006 at 3:30 PM - by
eMusic, which is second to iTunes among legal providers of downloadable music, on Monday announced that it will deliver its 100 millionth track in the next few weeks, an event that it will celebrate with a song from the Barenaked Ladies that will be personalized for the subscriber who downloads that tune. The company noted that it took two years to reach 50 million downloads but has now hit 100 million a year after that milestone.
Barenaked Ladies has been an eMusic staple, with their latest album, Barenaked Ladies Are Me, available as a special 27-track digital package on the Web site. After the band writes its personalized song, eMusic will make the tune available for a week in January as a free download, before including it with their next album, due in February.
Also on Monday, eMusic informed its users that they have one last chance to upgrade their accounts before changes are made to the site's subscription services. As iPodObserver.com reported at the end of October, the company will reduce the number of downloads included in each plan as of Nov. 21. The Basic plan will allow 30 (formerly 40), Plus will allow 50 (formerly 65), and Premium will allow 75 (formerly 90). Users with active accounts, however, will keep their current levels of downloads, and will be able to upgrade to better accounts at the old thresholds until the end of the day Monday, Nov. 20. Pricing for the plans will remain the same.
Unlike iTunes, eMusic has no DRM (digital rights management) on its songs, meaning that users can play the MP3 tracks they download on any computer or music player, including the iPod. Cathy Halgas-Nelvins, the company's vice-president of corporate communications, said: "We have no objection to DRM philosophically; we support MP3 because it is the only interoperable format and offers the consumer the best experience and the most flexibility with their music."
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