The online music stores are different from music streaming services because it enable users to download songs (and not just listen to it).
In 1993, the first online music store, called Internet Underground Music Archive, was launched. Another important step is the foundation of Ritmoteca.com in 1998. This website had a a catalog of approximately 300 000 songs. Ritmoteca.com offered the possibility to download a single MP3 song for $0.99 and an entire album for $9.99. The site had distribution deals with four major labels: BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group), Warner, Universal and Sony Music.
With the emergence of services like Napster or Kazaa in the 2000's, the major labels decided to launch their own online music stores, but it was a great failure. For instance, on Sony's one, the user had to pay $3.50 to download a single song. The major labels didn't find a right answer to the problem of illegal downloading and today, the only online stores like eMusic or Rhapsody, which have a large audience, don't belong to major labels. And the leader of the market is more than ever the Itunes Store, but how long people will pay to buy a song online when the same song is also availaible for free ?
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