Wal-Mart to buy UMG
p2pnet.net News:- Proving that it’s as serious about dominating the music download business as much as it has dominated the retail sphere, Wal-Mart (aka “the world’s largest retailer”) announced yesterday that it will buy Universal Music Group from troubled media conglomerate Vivendi Universal, as Ernest Miller points out on Corante here, going on:
“The purchase will give Wal-Mart immediate control of nearly 30% of the US music market including such popular artists as Eminem, No Doubt and Sheryl Crow as well as a historic catalog that includes artists such as Abba and Louis Armstrong.”
Apparently, Wal-Mart wouldn’t discuss if the purchase will lead to changes in its music download service, but “knowledgeable insiders confirm that Wal-Mart will certainly decrease the price of both CDs and individual downloads for their artists, putting further pressure on alternate music download services such as Apple’s iTunes and Napster 2.0,” says Miller earnestly, no doubt referring to the company press release here.
“Additionally, analysts believe that Wal-Mart is considering experimentation with a subscription-based download service that would provide rationed download access to the entire Universal catalog for a flat fee of approximately $5/month.”
(Wipes tears from eyes …. )
