Sony BMG developing digital music service

Sony BMG Music Entertainment announced it is at work on a new digital music subscription service promising consumers unlimited access to the label's catalog across a wide variety of portable media devices, including Apple's iPod. In an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sony BMG Music CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz declined to offer a timeline to launch the service, but said the label is currently mulling pricing plans and leaning towards a flat-rate subscription offer that would charge consumers around $9 to $12 per month in exchange for unlimited access to its entire music catalog. Schmidt-Holtz said it is "even possible that clients could keep some songs indefinitely--that they would own them even after the subscription expired." He added Sony BMG is in talks with other major labels as well as mobile operators, but declined to divulge specifics.

For more on the Sony BMG service:
- read this BusinessWeek article

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