Total Music to fall foul of Department of Justice

The half-arsed plans for TotalMusic - the major label's bid to try and gain control of the supply of online music - has already run into trouble before it's even got going.

The US Department of Justice has reportedly contacted all four big labels (including EMI and Warners who haven't even formally joined yet) to warn them it'll be looking closely at restrictive practices connected to the plans - the idea of 80% of the US music industry doing cosy deals amongst itself to control the supply of music looks, to DOJ eyes, like a recipe for price fixing - something for which the majors have form, having been found in the past to collude on the costs of CDs.