7Digital are stepping up the ante in the download market by announcing they will be selling DRM-free albums for a fiver, which means tracks on a ten tracker come in at fifty pence. The albums come in lovely MP3s, so work on an iPod.
7Digital chieftain Ben Drury told CMU: "Static pricing and inferior quality formats being offered by certain online retailers is limiting consumer uptake of digital downloading. We've decided enough is enough - we are now offering MP3 album downloads from £5 giving an equivalent track price as low as 10p each". (That latter remark presumably means there's a fifty-track album on their somewhere).
Talking up his company's ever growing MP3 catalogue, he continued: "In the run up to Christmas, when many will get new MP3 players from Apple, Samsung, Sony and others, it's important consumers realise that they have choice when it comes to buying downloads. MP3 is the only truly universal digital format for music and we are striving hard to make our entire catalogue available as MP3. The big issue now is making downloads available in a consumer-friendly, high-quality format at a reasonable price. iTunes has long been the market leader, but its reluctance to offer any kind of flexible pricing or formats other than AAC, which is far from interoperable, has left many consumers unconvinced by legal digital downloads. Our own sales show that, given the choice, consumers overwhelming choose MP3 downloads, which don't have DRM restrictions. Earlier in the year MP3s were outselling WMA and AAC by almost four to one".