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inMusic (formerly known as Sympatico/MSN Music) was a Canadian music news portal and an online music store. The music store had over 2 million tracks in English and French from various genres. Samples of 30 seconds for each song were offered at no charge. Purchases and downloads could be transferred to a CD or compatible digital music device.
Bell Sympatico and Microsoft partnered to launch the Sympatico/MSN Music Store on July 31, 2006. Powered by Hip Digital Media Inc., the store initially offered 850,000 songs, but with ongoing support, this has risen to over 2 million.
The store was designed as MSN Music's portal in Canada, and featured various Microsoft integrations such as Bing and Hotmail. The Sympatico/MSN Music Store was tightly integrated with the Sympatico/MSN Entertainment Portal.
When initially launched, the Sympatico / MSN Music Store offered their catalogue of songs on a pay-per-download basis (similar to that of iTunes). In July, 2007 the store added a subscription service called All Access Music, allowing users unlimited access to their All Access Music Library for a monthly or an annual fee. In October 2007, the Sympatico / MSN Music Store further expanded its offerings with an MP3 catalogue, providing music in the MP3 format, thereby catering to the iPod market.
The music store is discontinued. inMusic now directs visitors to purchase songs on iTunes.
inMusic sold music by the song and by the album. While the service used a WMA format with digital rights management (DRM) during its Sympatico/MSN branding, the provider eventually discontinued such sales in favor of the MP3 format when it was rebranded as inMusic and used Puretrack's engine. Individual songs were sometimes sold at 79¢ each, although the 99¢ price point was more common.
When the service was branded as Sympatico/MSN Music, it offered a subscription based service at launch with two plans: All Access Music and All Access Music To Go. The former plan was $14/month and only accessible from any computer, while the latter was $16/month and added the ability of transferring music to a compatible digital music device. Windows Media Audio was the file format used for the service's songs, and all such files were encrypted with Microsoft PlaysForSure DRM. This limited the playback of music to three authorized computers while offline, although music can be streamed from any computer with an active Internet connection. The DRM also prohibited the burning of song files to an audio compact disc. Bell Internet (then known as Sympatico) customers received a $4/month discount for subscribing to either plan, and the service could be charged directly on their Bell Canada monthly bill. After the Sympatico/MSN Music brand was phased out DRM-based subscriptions were no longer available.
inMusic offered exclusive content to its users such as special recordings from artists at the Live @ Orange Lounge as well as articles and playlists from featured and recommended artists. Gift cards were also available.
The iPod is a line of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about 8+1⁄2 months after the Macintosh version of iTunes was released. As of May 28, 2019, only the iPod Touch remains in production.
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs.
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple Inc. that opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offers 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 TV shows, and 65,000 films. When it opened, it was the only legal digital catalog of music to offer songs from all five major record labels. As of June 2013, the iTunes Store possessed 575 million active user accounts, and served over 315 million mobile devices.
FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company to protect copyrighted works sold through iTunes Store, allowing only authorized devices to play the content.
Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, Digital rights management support, UI responsiveness, device performance, compatibility with Windows Media Player, synchronization performance, and so on. PlaysForSure certification was available for portable media players, network-attached digital media receivers, and media-enabled mobile phones. The PlaysForSure logo was applied to device packaging as well as to online music stores and online video stores.
Napster was an online music store and a Rhapsody company, branded under the purchased name and trademarks of former free file sharing service Napster.
MSN Music was a part of MSN's web services. It delivered music news, music videos, spotlights on new music, artist information, and live performances of artists. The website also served as a digital music store from 2004 to 2008.
The open music model is an economic and technological framework for the recording industry based on research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It predicts that the playback of prerecorded music will be regarded as a service rather than as individually sold products, and that the only system for the digital distribution of music that will be viable against piracy is a subscription-based system supporting file sharing and free of digital rights management. The research also indicated that US$9 per month for unlimited use would be the market clearing price at that time, but recommended $5 per month as the long-term optimal price.
Yahoo! Music Unlimited was an on-demand online music service launched on May 10, 2005 and provided by Yahoo! Music. The service was discontinued on September 30, 2008.
Urge was an online music distribution service run by MTV Networks. Urge was integrated into Windows Media Player 11.
Zune was a line of digital media products and services marketed by Microsoft from November 2006 until its discontinuation in June 2012. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, digital media player software for Windows PCs, a music subscription service known as a "Zune Music Pass", music and video streaming services for the Xbox 360 game console via the Zune Software, music, TV and movie sales, and desktop sync software for Windows Phone. Zune was also the provider of music streaming for United Airlines in-flight, after a partnership in 2010.
SpiralFrog was a very early music streaming service based in New York City that launched in the United States and Canada on September 17, 2007. SpiralFrog offered free and legal music downloads, all supported by advertising, and was the largest site of its kind in North America. On March 19, 2009, SpiralFrog terminated operations due to loan recalls. While SpiralFrog was not successful in the end, it nonetheless helped shaped the digital music industry shift from the purchase to streaming models, and its ultimate revenue recovery
Zune is a discontinued media management software for Microsoft Windows that functions as a full media player application with a library, an interface to the Zune Marketplace, and as a media streaming server. The software is used to sync with all devices with Zune functionality including the Zune 4, 8, 16, 30, 80, 120, Zune HD, Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft Kin. Zune devices work exclusively with the Zune software, which applies many design principles of Microsoft's Metro design language.
Digital music stores sell copies of digital audio, for example in MP3 and WAV file formats. Unlike music streaming services, which typically charge a monthly subscription fee to stream digital audio, online music stores download songs to the customer's hard disk drive of their device. The customer will have the copy of the song permanently on their disk, provided the track is not deleted by the customer, the disk does not get physically damaged, or suffers from being corrupted. Major examples of online music stores include iTunes Store, Amazon Music, Bandcamp and 7digital.
Amazon Music is a music streaming platform and online music store operated by Amazon. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights management (DRM) from the four major music labels, as well as many independents. All tracks were originally sold in 256 kilobits-per-second variable bitrate MP3 format without per-customer watermarking or DRM; however, some tracks are now watermarked. Licensing agreements with recording companies restrict the countries in which the music can be sold.
A digital copy is a commercially distributed computer file containing a media product such as a film or music album. The term contrasts this computer file with the physical copy with which the digital copy is usually offered as part of a bundle. It allows the disc's purchaser to acquire a single copy of the film on digital device such as a personal computer, smartphone, tablet computer, or digital media player, and view it on those devices without requiring access to the physical media. "Digital copy" is also commonly referred to as "Digital HD".
RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of artificial intelligence and computer vision based products. RealNetworks was a pioneer in Internet streaming media delivery software and services. They are based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The company also provides subscription-based online entertainment services and mobile entertainment and messaging services.
Bell Video Store was the premium Internet video-on-demand service offered by Bell Sympatico. It had a French language equivalent, LaBanqueVideo/Boutique video Bell. It started in Beta mode on 4 May 2007 and offered movies, television shows and music videos/concerts for $1.99 and up, with a pricing structure similar to that of iTunes by Apple Computer and Unbox by Amazon. A purchase included a full resolution video file with the rights to download on up to 4 devices. The Bell Video Store ceased operations on 15 July 2009. Movies were not available for purchase or rent after 15 June 2009.
Didiom was a digital media company that specialized in the development of streaming media applications and wireless content delivery platforms. Built on peer-to-peer placeshifting technology, the company's flagship product allowed customers to stream their home computer's audio collection to their phone wirelessly, eliminating the need for data cables and memory cards. With two million songs under its management, Didiom previously launched an on-device music store that allowed customers to name their own prices for music downloads. In February 2011, Didiom was acquired by SnapOne, Inc.
MSN Dial-up is an Internet service provider operated by Microsoft in the United States and formerly also in several other countries. Originally named The Microsoft Network, it debuted as a proprietary online service on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of Windows 95. In 1996 and 1997, a revised web-based version of the ISP was an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet.