Pure to sell songs directly via radios

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 11 Aug 2010 at 18:19

Hear a song on the radio and want to buy it immediately? That's the idea behind Pure's new streaming music service FlowSongs.

Anyone listening to a Pure Flow or Sensia internet-connected radio will be able to push a button on the screen, find out the details of the track and buy it directly through the device.

Users can then stream it via any of their compatible Pure radios, or download it as a DRM-free file to a PC or other device.

The music store is provided by 7digital, with Shazam offering the digital signatures to identify songs.

Tracks will cost the same as downloading from any music retailer, so expect them to be on par with 7digital's own prices. Customers will also have to pay a £2.99 annual subscription.

Legal music

Will Page, chief economist for rights agency PRS for Music, praised Pure for finding a new way to legally sell music and for sorting out the licensing ahead of launch - "going legal before going popular".

Noting that Pure's parent company Imagination Technologies makes its money by licensing intellectual property, director of connected services Pete Downton said "respecting rights is at the heart of everything we do."

However, he admitted that many rights issues still remained unsolved, including who gets paid for streaming songs. "This is new ground in the industry... we're trying to find a model that works for everyone," he said.

"If we wait for the copyright legislation written in 1709 to be amended to reflect the reality of technology today, we'll be waiting a long time to launch these services, but we start from a fundamental position that we respect copyright."

Indeed, some at today's launch noted that many new releases will see heavy radio play before being made available by record labels for download, while big-name artists such as the Beatles don't license digial versions of their tracks, leaving customers frustrated in their attempts to buy via the device.

FlowSongs will be limited to Pure's own radios, but 7digital's chief executive Ben Drury hopes the idea will spread. "A lot of digital music is an impulse purchase," Drury said. "I'd like to see this technology on other devices."

The service will be trialled as a beta exclusively in the UK starting 16 August, before being released to the rest of Pure's markets "as quickly as possible" later this year.