slotMusic announced; uses microSD for audio distribution
Say goodbye to those jewel-cased CDs and say hello to music-filled microSDs. Universal Music Group, SONY BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music in conjunction with Sandisk, have announced a new audio distribution platform called “slotMusic”. With slotMusic, you will be able to buy a microSD card filled with DRM-free, 320Kbps MP3 files. No DRM means that the music can be played on any system that has a microSD slot. They are even bundle with a USB reader so you can use it on your desktop, laptop or any other device that has a USB port. So far Best Buy and Walmart have agreed to sell the new slotMusic cards which are expected to arrive in time for the upcoming holiday season. It almost seems too easy to have been put together by the record labels. Nonetheless, we applaud their move to a distribution platform that removes DRM and lets us listen to our music where we want, when we want and on whichever device we want. We only wish they would use something a bit bigger than those “easy-to-lose” microSD cards. We bet that many phones on eBay will accidentally come with an unexpected bonus slotMusic card installed. Chime in and let us know what you think of this new audio format. Any chance it might keep you away from Pirate Bay?
Tags: DRM, mp3, record label, SanDisk, slotMusic
Great idea, still depends on the price point for me. Unless it’s cheaper than Amazon, then I won’t use it.
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I think it’s stupid because who wants tens if not hundreds of micro SD cards? Instead you could probably buy a CD for the same price which you can then rip and encode to losless bit rates without DRM. Plus with the CD you get a physical booklet.
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I think it a great idea. Its all about convinence. I do agree price is going to be a factor it cant be more expensive than cds but given the fact that a 1gb m. sd card cost an average of 5 dollars it shouldnt be to bad especially if they included music videos and other little tidbits, i could easily see this become the new media. Especially given how many phones are out on the market already with m. Sd card slots.
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This is pretty stupid. Everyone knows digital media is the future. Why do the record companies want to stick to a physical media? This would be like the NY Times deciding that the future of news is to print on microfiche rather than newsprint. Consumers want a product, like an ipod, that will hold all of their music. I would not want to carry around a bunch of SD cards.
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A little presumptious (at this point) to think we wouldn’t get a physical booklet with these babies, but point well made about having what could end up amounting to hundreds of microSDs laying around. A better idea might have been setting up a kiosk inside the retail location where you could insert your MicroSD and download an album straight to it for whatever the fee might be. As far as ideas go, I can’t see this one taking off….
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thats a excellent idea! No more scratch cds, less packing material and no need for rippin cds to computers, just drag and play. Very genius there.
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This is as stupid as disposable DVDs. I just want 1 HC card will all my music, movies, pictures etc. If I like the artist I buy the CD and rip the songs. Otherwise I just buy the singles on Amazon.
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Schreiber said slotMusic albums will be sold on 1 gigabyte microSD cards, which means they will be able to hold a full album and related content such as liner notes and cover art. Buyers will be able to use extra space on the cards to hold songs and photos from their own collections.
The cards and dongles will come in boxes similar to current CD packaging, and Schreiber expects the cost of slotMusic releases to be “in the ballpark” of current CD prices.
So it will contain album art and extras as well there will be space left to put whatever else you want on it. And for those who like to have a collection to show it sounds like the packaging wont be too different from what we may be used to
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Bad for Apple since ipods nor Macs have built in MicroSD slots…Best buy and every other music distributor loves that!!! More importantly with 20 of these bad boys falling into my couch I will probably have to go out and buy 3 or 4 of each album since I’ll be losing these bad boys. Of course now there will be a huge market for MicroSD storage cases to hull your 200 MIcroSD Music Cards around!!!! yeh baby…
HOW STUPID!!!!!
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ha, the age of the CD might come to an end.
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Simple Questions For Success:
Are they $5 a Album?
Do they come with a case with a cover and booklet?
Are they totally DRM and security bullshit free?
Will there be lossless bitrate options?
If all are yes. We may have a winner.
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way to read before posting your question champ
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On the one hand, I think it’s fine that Sandisk is promoting a new hardware medium for compressed song files.
On the other hand, these won’t pick up much of the existing market. Not everyone has an SD slot on their device of choice, nor necessarily on their main computer. Also, people who buy CDs must at this point still be interested in the high quality audio data, the benefit for archiving and interoperability (mp3 is just a proprietary file format), and/or the used CD market.
I don’t see any proprietary system of content delivery capturing more than a certain portion of the market. At the point, for audio certainly, Apple is still king and can only lose market share. Any system that tries to get music in digital format to the consumer around Apple is already working with a small market. I would certainly put my money on Amazon before Sandisk and the craptastic music recording industry.
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Not to mention the fact that the last thing I need when I buy music is a pile of 1GB micro-SD cards. At least the CDs hold the data at higher quality and in a different hardware medium.
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This is another option. Its success depends on the consumers and what else comes with the device i guess
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In theory the idea sounds great, but really, who wants a stack of cards that will be much easier to lose. 1 album, 1 card. 2 albums, 2 cards, etc. Why not setup a kiosk where you can put your one card in, purchase the music and download it to the card. one card multiple albums.
CD’s have album art imprinted on them, will these small cards have similar labeling? What if I’m looking for a specific album to listen to and the cards all look the same. Now I’ll have to put each one in until I find it? I’m one for sure who won’t be buying any of these anytime soon.
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I think the system is a great due to a universal idea. I have a blackberry. My friend has a blackjack. I just purchased a new album. Friend inserts into his blackjack. BOOM. Mind you most of the public aren’t as tech savvy as the rest of you here on BG. There is simplicity in sandisks new system.
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I don’t get your point about the kiosk thing. Why would you not download the songs on Amazon or similar no DRM music store in the comfort of your own home instead of having to go to some store just to copy the things to your card? I think this will ultimetly fail as people can either buy CD’s and rip them to digital or they can buy directly from digital music stores at their houses.
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How will they be LABELED? How can you sift through them without losing one when you’re driving?? poorly thought out. If it were DRM-free music, < .50 each, and I could have it on an 8gb card that I could load as I wanted with my name authorizing an upload at point-of-sale, it’d be one thing. But managing a multitude of 6pt font micro-SD is just … the record labels pretending to cave when in fact, they’re just continuing to offer music that I can buy, only to have lost, stolen, or damaged - irreplacably, despite my rights to a single-end-user license agreement. Close, but no cigar.
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In response to Mackenzie Callnan not getting the point about a kiosk. I for one do download my music. Haven’t bought a cd in years. My point would be say those who don’t have broadband internet or don’t want to give out a cc/debit number over the internet and prefer going to the store. Instead of purchasing several cards that will have free space to put more music on, why not allow people to buy any memory card, be it SD, Micro or MiniSD that they can take to a kiosk, browse the music they want and download it onto the card and be done. This way you only have one card with multiple songs or albums on it and not have to keep up with every card you buy. Also, lets say an artist put out a cd and a radio station streamed the entire album to promote it and you only like 2 or 3 out of the 10 or 12 songs on it. Wouldn’t you prefer to spend money on just the songs you like instead of a full album of music where you won’t listen to most of it? A kiosk that gives you the option to do that would probably make a lot of people happy also.
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Not to mention, MUCH of the music endustry’s market are under 18 and therefore do not always have the option to hop on iTunes, Amazon, or whomever else sells music, to purchase this stuff. A kiosk might have a bill/coin slot, not to mention would definitely draw a crowd for those on dial-up or (heaven forbid) internet challenged all together.
And for those who keep arguing that not everyone has a device with a MicroSD slot, it has already been stated that these will come with a USB reader (not that I want a new reader for each card), meaning that you can use it not only in your computer, but in the instance that your car stereo, home stereo, home theater, TV, Playstation, XBox, etc. has a USB port. Also note that a MicroSD to MiniSD and/or SD adaptor can be purchased for next-to-nothing on eBay for those who have a slot, but the wrong size.
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