If you're explaining, you're losing - JC Watt
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Universal wants USB music
RECORD outfit Universal thinks that the best way to stop music piracy is to replace CD singles with more expensive USB memory sticks.
According to the USB-core.co.uk, Universal thinks that serving up the music on a more expensive form of technology is just the sort of wizard wheeze which might save its bacon.
The music on memory sticks will cost nearly twice the price of a CD and will probably come with some form of DRM which will be cracked before music hits the shop.
It has some advantages. The music will be of a better quality than you can pirate, it will be fairly portable and slot into your computer or music player. It will also be a lot easier for people to rip it onto their computers, once that nasty DRM has been removed.
It indicates that the music industry really has not got a clue what its problems really are. It is currently trying to compete with a free product with a better distribution network. Its answer is to keep the distribution network and make a more expensive product.
However other music companies have similar ideas. EMI plans to release Pink Floyd's studio albums on a memory stick while Warner Music will launch a part-album from electro-punk band Hadouken some time this year.
More here. ยต
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It doesn't say what format the music will be in, if it's compressed that would nicely take away any reason to get legal music, namely the quality a CD offers compared to compressed formats.
So you pay more AND don't get what you payed for when you payed less, that would be genius.
I know it reads 'better quality than what you pirate' but that's a bit of a tall claim, pirates often deliver better quality than services like itunes deliver so I wonder what format they plan then.

It has already been done by Matchbox Twenty. USB wristbands are on sale containing their greatest hits album called "Exile on Mainstream" + some other goodies.

See: http://stores.allaccesstoday.com/p-842-usb-wristband-exile-on-mainstream.aspx
their STUUUPID
If they rally want to sell more Cds, they should cut the price. This USB thing will just become a fad which will die away when people realise they're being ripped off again - at twice the price!! It also goes to show that record co's are being run by old greedy executives who don't have a clue what music lovers really want (a high quality format which is really affordable so that people don't have to become pirates). Reduce the price of CDs, give added value (include an extra DVD, detailed packaging, posters etc.) and watch your sales increase again.