Limewire Launches Irrelevant Digital Music Store

limewire fail
It looks like Bob Lefsetz’s favorite P2P software solution has decided to go legit.  Limewire has opened up a digital music store with a virtually no differentiation from the other music solutions out there.  They’re selling tracks a la carte for $0.99 while also offering eMusic-like monthly plans consisting of 25 tracks  for  $9.99 and 75 tracks for $19.99.

A quick search for The Decemberists yielded a disappointing result of only two tracks.  If Limewire is not offering anything new in terms of music availability or price, what’s the point of even investing the capital to launch the store?

P2P blog reports:

the company has plans to integrate context-based links into the client itself so that people who are searching for a certain song will have the option to buy it legally.

If I’m pirating music and I feel guilty about doing it, I guess I could see how this could theoretically be a convenient way to “go legit.”  However, in reality, I just don’t see this being practical.  Most of the music that is pirated (read: music people have heard of) isn’t even available for sale on the Limewire store.  Discerning users would rather buy from an established store with greater selection or just buy the CD.

Also, if this is Limewire’s main differentiating feature from the competitive digital music retailing market, they’ve got a lot more problems than worrying about the generosity of music pirates.

Read more about Limewire’s store launch [p2p-blog.com]

About Andy Yen