No Rock And Roll Fun

ONLINE DOWNLOAD PRICE HEADS, um, DOWN: Much as the music industry wants to start forcing the online price of music up, the proliferation of competing download companies and formats seems to be kicking off a miniprice war. OD2, the company which does the work behind the MyCokeMusic, Wanadoo and Virgin wrappers (amongst others) is hoping to draw some of the pain away from the launch of Nice, Industry Approved Napster by doing a half-price bundle. You pay them twenty quid up front, it'll go twice as far. "You're getting forty pounds worth of music for twenty pounds" is their claim, although the truth would be closer to "You're only paying about double for your music instead of quadruple." But its all sign that the unseen hand might yet stop the Big Labels from squishing our wallets too badly.