Robbie Williams Album to be Released on MMC Card

[Jason Dunn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3754094.stm

"Robbie Williams' Greatest Hits album is to be sold in memory card format for mobile phones and hand-held computers. It is believed to be the first time a major artist has sold music on the small, portable format. The album will also come with video content and will work with high-specification mobile phones and many hand-held computers, such as the iPaq. The card, at £29.99, will be available for sale at 600 Carphone Warehouse stores across the UK from next month."



I was wondering how long this was going to take - it's a cool idea, but how does that price compare with average CDs in the UK market? Can anyone from the UK chime in? I get the feeling that they're charging a hefty premium for this, but I could be wrong. They don't mention platform, format, or DRM, so my hunch is that they'll be MP3 files. MMC has no DRM protection, so the record label is taking a risk doing this - but I think it's about time someone did.

[Jason Dunn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3754094.stm

"Robbie Williams' Greatest Hits album is to be sold in memory card format for mobile phones and hand-held computers. It is believed to be the first time a major artist has sold music on the small, portable format. The album will also come with video content and will work with high-specification mobile phones and many hand-held computers, such as the iPaq. The card, at £29.99, will be available for sale at 600 Carphone Warehouse stores across the UK from next month."



I was wondering how long this was going to take - it's a cool idea, but how does that price compare with average CDs in the UK market? Can anyone from the UK chime in? I get the feeling that they're charging a hefty premium for this, but I could be wrong. They don't mention platform, format, or DRM, so my hunch is that they'll be MP3 files. MMC has no DRM protection, so the record label is taking a risk doing this - but I think it's about time someone did.

[David Horn]

I paid 13.99 GBP for the new R.E.M. album last week, roughly $20-25 US. So, about twice as expensive.

[nz0eBoy]

Of course for the extra money you get a memory card that you can use for other things. Any word on what size the card is?

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by nz0eBoy

Of course for the extra money you get a memory card that you can use for other things. Any word on what size the card is?

That might not be the case - it might be an MMC ROM card. In fact, I think it would be silly for them NOT to do that (though as a consumer, what we want is a card we can re-use).

[Filip Norrgard]

I think that is the price for early adaptation. The record company is afraid of using a new media for distributing their music and hence they've upped the ante.

In reality, this should be a cheaper alternative to CDs on the cost of shipping side. You can get around 20 SD/MMC cards on the area of a CD case alone, volume-wise you can probably squeeze 4-5 cards (SD's are thicker than MMC) on the height of one CD case. Hence, for the volume occupied by one CD case we can get 20*5 = 100 MMC cards shipped! 8O That is a hackofa good music/volume ratio.

The problem is the cost of manufacturing a MMC/SD card thanks to the amount of metals (silicon, gold, silver... and such) that is needed internally in them. CDs compose mostly of plastic with a small amount of steel and aluminum (if mind serves me right) which is much cheaper to aquire.

I believe that those are the cost related causes for the higher Music MMC cards...

[Jonathon Watkins]

Originally Posted by manywhere

I believe that those are the cost related causes for the higher Music MMC cards...

:? Greed? I don't believe that the cost difference is really that great, especially if it's a read only format. They do because they can, or they think they can. Can't see this being a big seller. Just buy the album at a supermarket for £10, then rip it to SD card. Sorted. :?