MIDEM 2008: Sony BMG want music to be free... sort of

More from MIDEM, and again we're picking up on PaidContent's excellent coverage, as Sony BMG's digital music president Thomas Hesse announces that the company would be happier with the all-you-can-eat digital model:

“This idea of bundling music or access ... enjoying music on a fairly large scale with either a device or with access, be it a cell phone contract or a cable contract ... to me, that’s the next frontier. We feel quite optimistic about it.”

”Access to music so that music becomes something you can access in a very free way with very little encumburences.”

Of course, the advantage for Sony is no customer would ever own anything - if you want to listen to the tracks tomorrow that you listened to today, you'd have to pay all over again. And again, and again, and again.

Meanwhile, there'd be much lower risk in the industry - people on subscriptions would always need to pay you more money to gain access to a library; there'd be less pressure to add to that library.

More optimistically, Hesse also revealed that he believes next year will see digital and physical sales reach the 50/50 point; a more rapid shift to digital sales than we've seen predicted elsewhere.

[Part of MIDEM 2008]