Murdoch makes the music man

BSkyB is poised to launch a on-demand music service that won't just be tied to its broadband or satellite customers. The pledges sound good - no DRM, download and keep all you want - but there's no actual detail in these early reports which confirms that, nor the all-important price point.

Omnifone (and, seriously, who would name their company to make it sound like it actually is an evil entity?) are going to do the behind-the-scenes work:

Omnifone already has deals with the major music labels and has the European rights to a catalogue of about 5m tracks. Its new service, called MusicStation Next Generation, allows ISPs to provide those tracks to their customers under their own brand names. The service can pipe music through set-top boxes as well as PCs and Mac computers

"Tens of millions of European consumers are engaged in music piracy every day." said Omnifone chief executive Rob Lewis. "Whilst government pressure is growing, we also need to deliver alternatives. With today's announcement, Omnifone is offering consumers something better than piracy."

Hmm. Is it "better than piracy"? Because if I want to hear Kid Creole's Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy, I can pirate that right now, for free; whereas with "today's announcement" I could wait until an unnamed date sometime in "Spring", and pay an unknown amount, to get the track in an as-yet-unconfirmed format. I'm not quite seeing the "better".