New Digital Music Store ? Options

[annjohnson]

Last week I have read four different articles about a new digital music store and I wanted to know whats going on...one was at The Wallstreet Journal, the other at Billboard Magazine and also at billboard.biz and the last was at The Dallas News (someone at work said that he read about this web site also at Miami Herald, but Im not shure about it).


All those articles talk about a web site called emepe3.com (like eMePe3) that apparently is selling more than 250.000 tracks at 0.99 each and that sells the music worldwide... I check the web site out (is in spanish so it was not easy) and I see that they have develop their own DRM that seems to be similar to apple's fair play and they also have their own free proprietary software to download and play the music - in mp3 format - (is a simple but good looking one, similar to itunes)...so: if this site is what the media says i think that must be something really interesting to take a look... I mean: 250.000 songs, international, proprietary DRM and software... no Microsoft or Apple related...interesting...I tray Google News to find more info but I just get a news from today from a mexican newspapper in spanish, but Im shure that someone must know those guys better... so please let me know. If I got more info I send it again. In the bottom of this msg I have pasted the content of those news...

Tnx Ann

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BILLBOARD MAGAZINE
New Download Site Targets Latin Market

By LEILA COBO
A new all-Spanish download site is betting that Hispanics represent a burgeoning market for buying music online. Emepe3.com, which launched last week, is billed as "the world's first all-Spanish-language digital music store." The site has a catalog of approximately 250,000 indie tracks, 100,000 of which are currently available for purchase at the equivalent of 99 cents each.

Perhaps most important, Emepe3 is available to consumers around the world."We are oriented to the Hispanic market worldwide, and we have no restrictions by country," founder and CEO Andy Kleinman says.

Currently, consumers in Latin America cannot legally download from any of the other sites available in the United States, including Apple's iTunes.

Emepe3, which developed its own technology and software, allows non-U.S. customers to access tracks and pay for them in local currency.

However, Kleinman stresses, his initial focus will be the U.S. Latin market, which is already accustomed to the legal downloading process but will benefit from a Spanish-language service.

Emepe3 does not have repertoire from any of the major labels. Kleinman says he has initiated conversations with the majors, but the issues of licensing and pricing from country to country have complicated the talks.

"When we first spoke with them, the Apple store wasn't up, and they really had no idea," Kleinman says. "Now, I think they'll see us up and running, and we're a Spanish site, so they'll feel left out [if their product is not included]."

Kleinman, 23, founded Emepe3 as a music news site in 1999. His revamped company, which is financed by a German investment group, has offices in Miami and Buenos Aires.

Because Latin music piracy has reached crisis proportions in the United States and Latin America, Kleinman hopes to partner with the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to create anti-piracy campaigns.

Although Latin music is increasingly being offered at download stores, its presence and promotion on such sites have been minor.

However, a study released last month found that Hispanics use the Internet more frequently than the general online population to listen to music and download files, among other activities.

The second annual America Online/RoperASW U.S. Hispanic Cyberstudy interviewed 615 Hispanic Internet users and 300 general-population users.

According to the study, 54% of online Hispanics regularly or occasionally listen to music via the Internet, compared with 30% of the general online population. And 39% of online Hispanics said they regularly or occasionally download music files, compared with 27% of the general population.
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THE WALLSTREET JOURNAL

Online Latinos Get Salsa, and More
Survey Says Entertainment
Is Driving Internet Usage;
Auto Makers See the Light
By MIRIAM JORDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 14, 2004; Page B3
For Christiaan Lopez-Miro, the Internet is the No. 1 source of entertainment. "I can't think of any friends who don't listen to music on the Web," says Mr. Lopez-Miro, a 19-year-old Cuban-American sophomore at Florida International University who uses the Web to find new artists. "You get a gist of the album without having to buy it," he adds.
Online Hispanic consumers are outpacing the general online population in several areas of Internet usage, according to a telephone survey of 1,123 Hispanics and non-Hispanics conducted in December and January by America Online/RoperASW -- and one of them is entertainment. The survey, to be released today found that Latinos use the Internet more frequently than the overall population to listen to music: 54% compared with 30% of the general population. It also found that more Latinos tend to watch more video clips online than among the general population, 34% compared with 23%.
According to the AOL/RoperASW study, about 45% of online Hispanic consumers said they wished that more Web advertisements were in Spanish. One-third of these respondents said they pay more attention to ads when they are in Spanish. And 23% said advertising in Spanish makes them more likely to buy a product.
The survey also indicated that auto makers, already the sector most likely to invest in Hispanic advertising, are successfully attracting Latino consumers. The survey found 46% of Hispanics in households that bought a car in the past three years were more likely to use the Web to research features and options, while 12% of Latinos in the survey bought a car online.
The Internet also is becoming an important entertainment alternative for Hispanics because they tend to earn less money than the general population, according to the survey. With limited funds, Latinos might spend less on purchases, such as compact discs, and rely more on entertainment at home. In fact, 36% of Hispanics say they are watching less TV since they started going online, compared with 19% of the general population, the survey said.
Leading U.S. marketers are taking note of Hispanic migration to the Web. Peter Blacker, a vice president at Time Warner's America Online unit who is chairman of the Hispanic Committee of the Internet Advertising Bureau, has received requests from retailers, manufacturers and consumer-products companies for presentations about the survey's results.
Just this year, Wal-Mart Stores, Kraft Foods and L'Oreal's Garnier hair-products line started advertising on Batanga.com (www.batanga.com), a leading online Latino broadcaster. Batanga's 20 stations, which transmit salsa, tango and rock en español, draw 1.2 million listeners monthly, mostly in the 18- to 34-year-old age range.
McDonald's began sponsoring Batanga's Latin alternative rock station early this year. Ford Motor is sponsoring Zonica station, an eclectic Latino music station on Batanga, for the second consecutive year. Luis Brandwayn, president of the site, says the sponsorship is paying off: one out of 10 people who tune into Zonica ends up clicking on the link to the Ford-product site. By year's end, Mr. Brandwayn expects the broadcaster's monthly audience to reach two million.
Still, marketers say Latino music fans remain relatively underserved. The first online music store that caters exclusively to Latinos has just opened. Emepe3.com says that it hopes to become to the Hispanic market what Apple Computer's iTunes is to the mainstream market. The site boasts a music library of 250,000 songs from independent and established Latin artists, which can be legally downloaded for 99 cents each.
The growing interest in Web-based entertainment is partly a question of access and disposable income. "If you're a Latino in Charlotte, N.C., you might not find an Adán Sánchez album at a local store," says Mr. Blacker, the AOL executive, referring to a popular Mexican-American singer who recently died. "You can find a lot more Latino music on the Web."

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THE DALLAS NEWS

Download store going online for Hispanics
MIAMI – Hispanic consumers in the United States have a new source for downloads. Emepe3.com, which officially launches this week, is being billed as the world's first Spanish- language, worldwide digital music store.

Emepe3 aims to eventually reach consumers in Latin America, who currently don't have sites from which to legally download music. But for now, founder and CEO Andy Kleinman says, the site's main market will be U.S. Hispanics.

Emepe3 has 250,000 tracks available for downloading, all from independent labels. They cost 99 cents each.