March 18, 2004

Sony Online Music Store Thoughts

Tim Zilla criticizes the features of Sony's online music store. The download format is proprietary ATRAC-3 not open standard MP3 or AAC, the tracks have digital music copy protection, and can only be used with Sony portable audio products. While I agree these are restrictive issues, I don't think this is much different than the Apple iTunes store. The reasons Apple succeeds are the mindshare it gets from iPod and the intuitive ease of use of the iTunes software. Read