Spiralfrog is offering 300,000 tracks for nothing

Spiralfrog is offering 300,000 tracks for nothing. So what’s the catch? Spiralfrog’s take on offering free music is that it will make money through advertising; users will have to sit through 90 seconds of adverts before downloading each song. The downloaded material will last for only six months. Spiralfrog tracks will not be compatible with Apple’s phenomenally popular iPod. So the tracks are not “absolutely free” and the service may be a little disappointment for the iPod users.

The recording industry has long fought music piracy, which enables fans to download tracks for free or virtually no cost from illegal or overseas websites. Allofmp3.com, a popular Russian site, charges from only 2p a track, for example.

Spiralfrog’s take on offering free music is that it will make money through advertising; users will have to sit through 90 seconds of adverts before downloading each song. Worse still, the downloaded material will last for only six months.

Guy Kewney of newswireless.net, a technology website, is unimpressed. He said: “It seems to me that this is just a way for Universal to get more publicity for its music, while gaining a captive audience for its advertisements. I don’t really see how it’s any different to visiting an internet radio station request show and recording music free of charge that way — apart from that the tracks self-destruct after a relatively short time.”

Source: Times Online