Virgin, online music sells like this

London – It still suffers from various technical problems and it is not free but certainly the jukebox for the legal distribution of music on the Internet launched by Virgin, a multinational and big player in the international discography, is of great interest.

Crying to “save the single”, Virgin Megastores store executives reached an agreement with OD2 to launch a service that has about 200 thousand songs in the catalog that can be purchased individually in packages with variable prices.

The basic idea is to charge only what you download and offer large discounts to those who buy a lot. Then seasoning everything with the possibility to listen to music in streaming or to burn it on CD or, again, to transfer it to a portable player.

To British users only, a limitation due to the complex copyright situation, Virgin will offer songs for 99 pence, with prices that can go down to 60 pence for single when at least 50 are bought together, choosing them freely from the available catalog. For a pence, however, you can stream any piece offered by Virgin.

Richard Branson, Virgin’s chairman and creative mastermind, said this service will help put the single back “on the road to recovery.” “We want it to be simple – he added – and inexpensive”.

As is well known, OD2 (“on-demand distribution”), founded by the famous musician Peter Gabriel (pictured), is the company that has entered into important agreements with record companies for the management of catalogs as well as developed distribution technologies. Many agreements have been made in various countries and also in Italy, where there are partnerships with MTV and with Tiscali.