The BMG acquisition is the latest move by the record industry's preparation for an anticipated online music avalanche. A locker, Pakman says, allows users to take songs out of a record company's catalog and keep it for fast retrieval and play.
Lockers make online music experience much more easier for consumers.
These companies have been busy of late building the online technology muscle to handle a predicted avalanche of users looking to buy music over the Internet. According to Jupiter Media Metrix, a high-tech consultancy, online music will comprise a quarter of music sales by 2005. Underlying these multi-billion dollar bets are the woes of Napster, the pioneering online music exchange site which claims more than 65 million users. Napster proved to be too good at what it did, letting users freely exchange duplicates of copyrighted songs. The world's largest record labels, including Sony and Universal, have been waging a fierce legal battle against the site in US courts.