A new way of screwing honest music listeners is quietly being supported by Warner Music Group.  Lala.com has created an online service that allows users to “buy” a song from them, and play it only from their website.  You have no download privileges on those songs, and they can not be played on any external device.

While the advertisements talk about buying songs, you are really just renting it. The songs and the permission to play them are kept by Lala, on their server, and what is more, when you “buy” the song you agree that they may discontinue the service at anytime. Huh?

Remember the Virgin Music store? Yeah, me either, they ceased operation. Recently the MSN Music Store announced they would [ pull the plug ] on August 31st and all purchased songs would go into the coffin as well. If Microsoft cannot keep their store going should you really expect any store to be permanent, or at least permanent enough to trust holding your files for you?

Warner Music group has dumped about $20 million dollars into this concept, and while the API and website that LALA has put together look nice and seem to work well, it seems to me that putting music in a format that is ALREADY available for free and then requiring that people pay for it is … well it’s asinine.

I did a search for RUSH on there, and they had the majority of the collection, and for $14.09 they were going to graciously place them in a playlist that I could then stream.  Ok, but for free, I can go on YouTube and stream not only the song, but the video too.   On [ napster ], I can stream the whole songs for free as well.

Really what I am getting for my money in this situation? Nothing.  So, here we are again, with the music industry flailing in an environment they clearly do not understand, and don’t seem to want to understand.  Meanwhile, good money is being wasted on concepts that are doomed to failure for the simple fact that they bring nothing of value to a table already well stocked.

Lala.com, go sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all full here.