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A former digital music giant bites the dust
We received an email from Nokia yesterday informing us that it was shutting down the OD2 music download service. The name may not ring any bells, but at the dawn of legal music downloading, it was the biggest player in the market.
OD2, or On Demand Distribution, as it was first known, was one of the pioneers of digital music sales. It was set up ten years ago and by 2004 had partnered with big names such as MSN and HMV to run their download shops. It was never designed to be a big name - the idea was that each partner would provide the front end of the shop and OD2 would handle the sales and actual downloading.
Having been set up by former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel OD2 had something of a tortuous journey, running at a loss before being acquired by American firm Loudeye in 2004. Loudeye was then bought by Nokia two years later, and incorporated into Nokia's own online music shop.
Partly, what killed OD2's success in the UK was the fact that its shops were web-based and depended for their reliability on users' web browsers, but more of a problem was the advent of iTunes, which opened its music store in Europe in spring 2004, at the same time as OD2 was starting to make sales headway.
True, those who had portable music players that couldn't play protected AAC files were still using the service, but the appearance a couple of years ago of significant numbers of unprotected music files for sale (either through iTunes, pioneering projects such as Bleep or competitors such as 7digital or the late Wippit) finally did for the service.
So following the demise of Wippit last year it's time to say goodbye to another British pioneer in the field of music downloading.
Nokia is going to be concentrating on its own Nokia Music Store, which is linked to many of its new handsets. MSN, meanwhile, has shrugged off the change with an announcement that it's moving to an in-house distribution service for its MSN Music Store.
Never thought that would happen. I wonder whether it was due to the economy
posted-by Chris Charmers | April 5, 2009 9:23 PM
That is too bad, but however chris I do not think that is due to the economy, I more likely think that music now has been so easy to download for free from multiple website, that don't mind distributing copy righted content. and you cant blame a user for downloading something he finds for free!!
posted-by Simon | April 5, 2009 11:24 PM
No, Music can't bite like a giant, downloading music from any universal site is not a crime. From multiple of web pages music can be downloaded in this world. We all have rite to load music. It overwhelmed the humans, if it happens..
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posted-by natalia | April 9, 2009 3:42 AM
information that is not good! I think so
posted-by anime258 | April 9, 2009 10:37 AM
I don't think it was due to the economy either. Music is being downloading for free in other ways that companies have to be ready for smarter technology.
posted-by John | April 11, 2009 12:56 AM
I think there's too much competition and people just don't do it right.
By far the two best out there are Amazon and ITunes. It stinks that apple locked down the music so it was good when amazon came along.
posted-by Rob | April 11, 2009 3:18 AM
How in the world (says a PC user) did Apple get such a great hold on the market. I use iTunes because I have to, but would love to have the opportunity to use ALL my music without having to jump through so many loopholes.
posted-by Murb | April 12, 2009 11:32 PM
I dont think that this info is right, and if it is true then its not good for us. We all have right to download music from any site on the web.
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posted-by Media Player Mp3 | April 15, 2009 12:13 PM
Never thought that would happen.
posted-by Romik sakim | April 20, 2009 11:09 AM
i agree with your opinions.
posted-by Rico Smith | April 20, 2009 11:26 AM