Free music at a price

Celia Hirschman, KCRW's resident music industry expert, doesn't like yesterday's deal between SprialFrog and Universal Music for ostensibly free downloads.

At first glance, the SpiralFrog deal seemed like a huge departure from the long held view that consumers must pay for downloads, either by individual fees or by monthly subscription. Have the major labels finally caved to the notion that illegal downloading cannot be stopped? Is this the beginning of the end of the record business as we know it?

Not at all. Rather, this is classic Record Business. Read the fine print of the SpiralFrog deal, and the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up. First of all, when consumers download the track, they'll be subjected to a 90 second audio advertisement embedded at the beginning of each track. That's 90 seconds of advertising for every song downloaded. And the downloads will only be available to the listener for six months, where upon the song will be erased from their libraries like a Mission Impossible espionage tape.

But here's where it gets even more complicated. To keep those songs in their library just during those six months, listeners will have to log onto the Spiralfrog website every month to renew their account. And, disappointingly, none of the songs will play on the iPod hardware.

Her On the Beat commentary airs this afternoon at 4:44 on FM 89.9 (and on the web.)