Starbucks to Offer DRM

[method77]

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs launched the company's iTunes Music Store, he compared each song's 99c price tag with the cost of a latte. The coffee analogy has proved oddly prescient, since Apple may soon be serving up song downloads to Starbucks customers.

Next Tuesday, the coffee shop chain will announce its intention to launch an in-store music download service, BusinessWeek reports today. Starbucks calls the service "a completely new retail experience" and "represents a breakthrough for music consumers, providing them with enhanced music customization, greater convenience and new ways to discover emerging artists".

Its partner is HP, which will be providing a stack of tablet PCs punters can use to select songs, play them and even burn them to CD. It's also providing server infrastructure and printers for label art, apparently.

Presumably all this will happen over the store's wireless network, courtesy of Starbucks' deal with T-Mobile.

Complete story at The Register

[DudeAsInCool]

No different than the jukebox if you think about it - here you get to take the song and packaging home. The price is still too high - 25/50 cents would be more reasonable -but this idea should have been born from Tower, Best Buy, et tal, a long time ago. At least youre getting the songs you want...

[Bombardier]

If was to use Starbucks' wi-fi, then I would just fire up a P2P application and download away using their bandwidth.

DRM? No thanks!

:shootin:

[DudeAsInCool]

Probably get the songs quicker than the coffee :P