eMusic Might Be On The eMarket

Brian Raftery | March 21, 2007 2:54 am
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Hypebot reports that eMusic–the site for people who like to drunk-download fifty indie-rock songs at a time–might be up for sale. The question comes just after Warner-owned Vice Records pulled its albums from the online retailer, meaning that people looking for the new Bloc Party album are going to get directed elsewhere.

Our sources now tells us that European digital distributor Vital…pulled Vice’s content from eMusic Europe because of “royalty issues”. In the US Atlantic helps fund Vice; so it may have been WMG who forced the eMusic take-down here.

We’re also hearing persistent rumors that even as some labels are growing restless, eMusic is actively up for sale. Google and Amazon are most often mentioned as buyers. Some even claim a deal is close and attached a purchase price around $100 million to the rumor. I haven’t seen any of the private company’s numbers, but the figure seems high given the competition (including Amazon) almost ready to or strongly considering entering the mp3 marketplace.

We’d add more here, but we have to grab the entire mid-’80s Dischord catalog before the shit goes down and the prices go up. If you’ve got any info, please send it along to tips@idolator.com.

Is eMusic For Sale Just As Some Labels Grow Restless? [Hypebot]