eMusic, having been acquired by Dimensional Associates LLC, has eliminated its all-you-can-download plan (the only thing that made the service worth the $10 a month), in favor of a 40-download-a-month plan, with a “premium” $15 plan that gets you 60 tracks a month. The whole point of digital music is the risk-free grazing — downloading things on the chance that you’ll like them, downloading songs for an occassion (such as Christmas songs, or the time I made my Dad a three-CD set of different versions of “Stormy Weather”), and other forms of no-risk, all-you-can-eat entertainment. Well, eMusic was fun while it lasted. Bye.
Q: Why is EMusic changing its service?
A: The music industry continues to suffer under intense financial, legal and technological pressure. As a provider of music downloads, EMusic is subject to a complex system of intellectual property rights and technological challenges that impose high costs and often uncertain risks on the company.In order to respond to these ongoing challenges and maintain a compelling service for our valued customers, EMusic will be making a number of significant changes in the coming weeks and months. As part of these changes, we will be discontinuing the current unlimited service plan and replacing it with a new service offering, as described above.
Translation: Our industry is thrashing in the tar. We had a pretty decent service here that didn’t involve treating our customers like crooks, but the studio execs hated how stupid that made their DRM-and-lawsuit strategy look, so they’ve made us break it. Our new plan, described above, doesn’t taste so bad if you put a lot of ketchup on it and hold your nose. Won’t some nice lawmaker please stop us before we hurt ourselves?
Link to new Terms of Service, Link to Cancel eMusic Account Form
(via MeFi)