Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) chairman Sandy Monteiro said its members were hoping to sell digital tracks for download at that price range.
“RM2 would be for older, catalogue material while RM4 would be for premium releases,” he said.
TM Net chief executive officer Michael Lai declined to comment on the pricing because the matter is still in discussion.
“We have to come up with a pricing mechanism that makes sense to the local market,” he said. “Although, we can't get it down to RM1, we may be able to make available Internet-only tracks and rarities for 99sen.”
Lai stressed that pricing flexibility is important, adding that there is a possibility of a subscription-based model being used, where consumers would be able to access a certain number of tracks to listen to for perhaps RM10 a month.
He is confident that TM Net's music portal will be launched by the end of the third quarter. The twin issues of pricing and licensing are causing a delay in the launch of much anticipated music portal.
“There are just so many licenses to be cleared. It's a time consuming process. We have to get them from bodies like RIM, Music Authors Copyright Protection and others,” Lai said.
“It is a complicated process to get licensing together,” said Akademi Industri Muzik Malaysia (AIMM) general manager Jennifer Thompson in agreement.
AIMM is a think tank for the local music industry and it also organises the high profile Anugerah Industri Muzik awards.
There are currently 250 videos being streamed at the TM Net portal, of both local and foreign artistes.
The portal was scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of this year, with the objective of becoming the equivalent of Apple’s hugely successful iTunes Music Store, in this region (see In.Tech, Sept 29, 2005).
It will feature songs and music videos by local and international artistes, as well as industry news, interviews, artiste profiles and fan club activities.
TM Net is working with the four biggest music labels – Sony BMG Music Entertainment (M) Sdn Bhd, EMI Music (M) Sdn Bhd, Warner Music (M) Sdn Bhd, and Universal Music (M) Sdn Bhd – as well as nine independent labels. -thestar
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