Soft Drinks company, Coca Cola, will be launching a pay-for legal music download service in the UK in January 2004. They are teaming up with OD2, who provide the technology, and will be offering more than a quarter of a million of tracks.
It is thought that this will be a major boost to the profile of downloadable music given their recent controversial deal to sponsor the BBC’s Top Of The Pops TV pop show and the BBC Radio 1’s weekly top 40 countdown show. Given the target of these shows it is strange that the system will only be usable by people over 18, as a credit card is needed to purchase tracks.
A spokesperson for HMV, high street music sellers, was clearly deluded in their comments, “From a retailer’s point of view, we feel confident that people will stick to established retailers that have a lot of experience in the area. They can offer expertise and depth of knowledge and we feel the vast majority of record buyers would want to continue buying from these sources,” but they would say that wouldn’t they.