By Jo Best, 5 July 2004 13:35
NEWS Sony has launched its own music download shop today, despite problems with its song catalogue.
The Sony Connect shop opened its doors today in France, Germany and the UK offering single song downloads for 79p in the UK and 0.99 across the channel the same price as Apple's iTunes. Sony plans to open other stores across Europe later this year.
Unlike iTunes, however, the site is making a push to get independent labels and artists on its site Apple's song shop had a falling out with AIM (Association of Independent Music) after negotiations to include bands like Franz Ferdinand and the White Stripes on iTunes broke down.
Getting the download service up and running hasn't been easy, though. Sony had promised the shop would be available from June but was delayed due to discussions over licensing the site offers a catalogue of 500,000 songs.
All songs are available in Sony's own Atrac format, which means they have to played on Sony music players or with Sony software.
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