News

Virgin Digital Shuts Down

Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 9:40 AM - by

Virgin Digital, the online music subscription service from Virgin, is closing shop. The service is shutting down on Friday, September 28, and will shutter its windows for good on Friday, October 19, according to The Register.

Virgin Digital subscribers will still have access to their music, but once their next monthly bill is due, all of the songs will stop working thanks to the digital rights management copy protection built into each track.


Virgin Digital in the US now goes to Napster.

Virgin had been hoping that its online music subscription service would be able to hold its own against Apple's market dominating iTunes Store. Unlike the Virgin Digital store, however, the iTunes Store lets users purchase and download songs that they can keep without paying additional monthly subscription fees.

In the U.S., Napster is honoring Virgin Digital subscriptions. In the U.K., however, it looks like Virgin doesn't have an alternative subscription service for its customers to migrate to.

Virgin did not offer any reason for the shutdown but did state on its U.K. site "To all our customers we would like to say thank you and offer our apologies for any inconvenience this might cause."

13 comments from the community.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1011 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:49 am

Another one bites the dust.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:21 am

Another reason buying is better than subscribing...

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geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1917 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:09 pm

Quote:
but once their next monthly bill is due, all of the songs will stop working thanks to the digital rights management copy protection built into each track

And that is why I won't use a subscription service for music, video, or desktop applications. If <shudder> Apple were to close up tomorrow I would still have all the music and video I bought.

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brett_x said:

member since 24 Jan 2006 with 322 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:14 pm

Another one bites the dust.

But clearly, a subscription model is good for everyone, right? It is according to the people who pimp the services. Even Forbes thinks its a good idea. They let Alan McGlade write a scathing editorial about how bad Apple is with iTunes. And of course, Alan should know:

"Alan McGlade is president and CEO of MediaNet Digital, which enables some of the world’s best-known consumer-brand digital-music services, supporting subscriptions and downloads of music and video through online and portable devices."

Here's a link to the cached article so we don't increase their clicks and earn additional revenue for them:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:gCU7QFOSzBkJ:www.forbes.com/opinions/2007/09/20/apple-after-what-oped-cx_amg_0921afterapple.html+%22Of+apple+and+oranges%22+forbes&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=safari

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:42 pm

That article isn't about how subscription is the future of online music downloads. It's a good article and thanks for the link, but it is an astute assessment of the limits of a megaplex like iTunes. I don't use iTunes much for purchasing music, for one I don't want to "purchase" a track that I do not own (it's only a license that is limited to certain uses), but more to the point, iTunes is lacking in the areas of music that I want. His point was that in order to satisfy the diverse needs of music listeners we will start to see more and more services that cater to specific tastes. Just as you can walk into a Best Buy, Circuit City or CD Wherehouse and get albums cheaply, you cannot find large collections of music that do not carry mass market appeal. Apple's iTunes is the online version of these box stores, and just as people seek alternative stores for their classical, hip-hop, jazz, or other under represented genres, the same will be true as the online music industry starts to grow to a significant portion of total music sales.

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Mikuro said:

member since 15 Jun 2002 with 457 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:06 pm

geoduck wrote:
If <shudder> Apple were to close up tomorrow I would still have all the music and video I bought.

Only until you buy a new computer or alter your current one in such a way that iTunes thinks it's a new computer (this has happened to me twice, although I think it's since been changed to be smarter). If Apple's activation system disappears, you're out of luck.

Whether you buy or subscribe, DRM is DRM. At least the subscribers aren't really losing anything. They got what the paid for — a month of access to the service.

I'd rather buy than rent, too, but not if DRM is involved. It's a risky investment.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:22 pm

Quote:
If Apple's activation system disappears, you're out of luck

No, you're never "out of luck" with FairPlay.

Burn your music to a CD and re-import.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:24 pm

Quote:
It's a good article and thanks for the link

Did you read the same Forbes article I did? It's a load of crap.

More here:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/TechQ307/Entries/2007/9/22_Forbes_Prints_Insanely_Self_Serving_Attack_on_iTunes_by_MediaNet_CEO_Alan_McGlade.html

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:32 pm

Guest wrote:
Quote:
If Apple's activation system disappears, you're out of luck

No, you're never &quot;out of luck&quot; with FairPlay.

Burn your music to a CD and re-import.

This results in a loss of quality on files that are already not even the best to begin with.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:33 pm

Guest wrote:
Guest wrote:
Quote:
If Apple's activation system disappears, you're out of luck

No, you're never &amp;quot;out of luck&amp;quot; with FairPlay.

Burn your music to a CD and re-import.

This results in a loss of quality on files that are already not even the best to begin with.

Oops, also meant to mention that it won't work if your DRM isn't work, this is something you must do with every track at the time of purchase in order to prevent yourself from losing tracks due to the problems the original poster described. So in addition to losing quality, you're also spending a lot of time and burning a lot of discs. Might as well just get the CD in the first place.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:56 pm

Guest wrote:
Quote:
It's a good article and thanks for the link

Did you read the same Forbes article I did? It's a load of crap.

More here:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/TechQ307/Entries/2007/9/22_Forbes_Prints_Insanely_Self_Serving_Attack_on_iTunes_by_MediaNet_CEO_Alan_McGlade.html

Unfortunately, that roughlydrafted article is bogus. At the very least, it is uninformed, at the worst, it is spreading lies.

"Apple does stop DRM providers from using the iPod, and this incenses DRM providers like Real and Microsoft."

As a matter of fact, Apple has taken great lengths to prevent DRM providers from using the iPod, specifically Real. In 2004 Real's music store used their DRM scheme called Helix. Real introduced Harmony, a technology that allowed users who purchased music from that store to play it on Apple's iPod. Apple disabled Harmony a little while later, with the launch of the iPod photo and a firmware update to older iPods. Real tried to keep up, but the threat of legal action which would be too costly to fight even if Real succeeded prevented them from continuing the battle. Point being, whoever wrote that article is either clueless or lying.

I'm also not sure what you have against the article. Outside of pointing out the obvious (that Apple has a near monopoly on music downloads and uses this position to bully content providers) it wasn't even attacking Apple. In fact, if you go into the slide show, he actually praises Apple for embracing the movement away from DRM. Is it just that anything with that has mention of the bad side of Apple must be vigorously attacked?

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 24, 2007 5:10 pm

Guest wrote:
Guest wrote:
Guest wrote:
Quote:
If Apple's activation system disappears, you're out of luck

No, you're never &amp;amp;quot;out of luck&amp;amp;quot; with FairPlay.

Burn your music to a CD and re-import.

This results in a loss of quality on files that are already not even the best to begin with.

Oops, also meant to mention that it won't work if your DRM isn't work, this is something you must do with every track at the time of purchase in order to prevent yourself from losing tracks due to the problems the original poster described. So in addition to losing quality, you're also spending a lot of time and burning a lot of discs. Might as well just get the CD in the first place.

Hello - they're trying. They do have tracks available at a respectable 256 kpbs, and they contain NO DRM. It's not Apple's fault the rest of the music biz won't pull it's head out and follow suit.

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Mikuro said:

member since 15 Jun 2002 with 457 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Sep 24, 2007 5:15 pm

Guest wrote:
No, you're never &quot;out of luck&quot; with FairPlay.

Burn your music to a CD and re-import.

Good point. You can create DRM-free CDs, assuming you do that before you hit the activation wall. I guess that's a good last resort. If Apple does ever go under, you'll have the chance to burn all your music to CD before you need to switch computers. It'll be a giant pain, but it will be possible.

It still doesn't make me want to invest in DRM'd files, though.

Guest wrote:

This results in a loss of quality on files that are already not even the best to begin with.

Converting to CD should not entail a loss of quality, since CD audio is a lossless format. The only reason you might lose quality when converting to CD is if the source is at a higher bit depth (CD is 16-bit), at a higher sample rate (CD is 44.1khz) or has more channels (CD only supports stereo). Although the AAC format supports all of these things, I don't think Apple makes use of any of them in iTunes downloads (correct me if I'm wrong).

Of course, nobody wants to listen to CDs anymore, so you'd probably want to then convert the CD to mp3 or something, and THAT would reduce the quality.

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