BigShinyThing

So when eBay bought Internet telephony service Skype a while back for rather a lot of money there were murmerings about what in the hell the auction site was thinking. We just got all excited about Skype-enabled click-to-call ads eBay’s small time sellers via Skype… then this happens:

Skype to sell EMI music on retail site

EMI Music Publishing, the song rights company, yesterday announced a deal with Skype, the internet telephony business, to sell music on Skype’s new retail website.

Under the deal, Skype will be licensed to use song copyrights from EMI’s catalogue to sell music as downloads and ring tones. It is the first time that music copyrights have been licensed worldwide in such a way. Normally licences have to be applied for by the seller on a country-by-country basis, making it more difficult for songwriters to collect payments for their work.

Skype has not yet set a launch date for its new online store. The company recently signed a deal with the Warner Bros’ group of record labels, allowing Skype use of Warner Bros’ master recordings.

As the world’s largest music publisher, EMI has more than one million copyrights, including those to some of the best-known songs ever written, such as New York, New York, Singin’ in the Rain and Over the Rainbow.

The clever folks at MIT said this would happen (as did BST, kinda — check prediction #6). Back at the time of the eBay Skype deal they wrote:

The long post in a nutshell: I think eBay wants to use Skype as a distribution platform for content, micro-paid for through PayPal and accessible on a wide range of devices… Imagine a music library into which you can dial either with your Skype, or your cell phone, or even a land line. Finally, all those “free nights and weekends” will be put to good use. Also imagine each user paying a token amount — say, $0.01 — for each content unit, a song. The sound quality is good and the transfer is fast thanks to the Skype’s distributed model. Payments are painless and barely noticeable, and are debited directly from your PayPal account. Who needs satellite radio then? Who needs (oh my God) iTunes?