Digital Home Thoughts: New York Times: Universal Music Group and an Online Site Plan a Joint Venture to Challenge iTunes

"A new online music company said yesterday that it would make a huge catalog of songs from the world’s largest record company, the Universal Music Group, available for consumers to download free. The company, called SpiralFrog, said its intention was to wean music fans, especially young people, away from illegal downloads and pirate music sites by offering a legitimate source, supported by advertising instead of download fees. SpiralFrog is the latest to offer a challenge to Apple Computer’s hugely successful iTunes service, which allows consumers to download songs legally for 99 cents each, and its many smaller imitators. Though the venture is not the first to try a free ad-supported approach, the backing of Universal, with millions of songs in its catalog from thousands of artists like Eminem and Gwen Stefani, Elton John and Gloria Estefan, Count Basie and Hank Williams, promises to give it instant credibility and scale."

As the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be, it probably is. The article says that the Spiralfrog service will give users "free" songs if they sit through advertisements, presumably delivered via a Web browser (unless there's a desktop client of some sort). Songs, not surprisingly, cannot be copied or shared with other people. Here's the real deal-breaker though: they're in WMA format, meaning no iPod owner can put them on their device. I just can't see this being successful.