Do you remember when Canada had its own digital music store? What happened to it? - BERITAJA

On Oct. 14, 2003, I recovered myself upstairs astatine the Hard Rock Cafe successful downtown Toronto to witnesser history. Or truthful I was told.

Music piracy was retired of control. Napster started it successful June 1999, and while it had been sued retired of beingness by the autumn of 2003, dozens of peer-to-peer programs popped up: Gnutella, Audiogalaxy, Satellite, Scout, Kazaa, Morpheus, BitTorrent, eDonkey, eMule, Bearshare, Grokster, LimeWire, and respective twelve different file-sharing programs were successful the wild. The euphony manufacture was successful a panic.

Sony tried to get into the crippled of trading integer music, but the hardware section was astatine likelihood pinch the euphony division, which made its download shop clunky and unusable. They past collaborated pinch Universal to create a integer storefront called Duet, which was soon rebranded Pressplay (stylized arsenic “pressplay.”)

It, too, was clunky and awful, restricting really purchased files could beryllium utilized and transferred. Meanwhile, EMI, AOL/Time Warner, and BMG had a collaboration called MusicNet. Again, a awesome fail.

Music consumers would person nary of either of these services. Why walk money connected euphony that came pinch each sorts of restrictions erstwhile Kazaa could present virtually immoderate opus for free? And besides, nary 1 knew aliases cared which explanation had which artists and songs. If a integer euphony shop was going to succeed, it had to beryllium a one-stop shop for everything.

And while the fields considered banding together to build a azygous collaborative site, that benignant of point would person ne'er passed muster pinch antitrust laws successful North America and the EU.

Apple offered the manufacture the champion lifeline pinch the iTunes Music Store, which had gone online successful April. As a 3rd statement to the euphony industry, Apple and iTunes had thing to fearfulness from trust-busters. But much importantly, it had the iPod, which worked flawlessly pinch iTunes.

Things sewage moreover amended for Apple pinch the preamble of the iPhone (2007) and the removal of each integer authorities locks connected euphony files, starting successful January 2009. Legally-purchased euphony could now travel for illustration water.

Eventually, iTunes would power 70 per cent of the world integer euphony download marketplace contempt overmuch competition. Microsoft tried to antagonistic pinch MSN Music, but that grounded by November 2006. Yahoo! Music Unlimited was dormant by 2008.

And does anyone retrieve Buy.com? What about Walmart’s euphony store? No? Both are agelong gone.

Back to that day successful October 2003. The big of the arena was Puretracks, a integer euphony storefront billed arsenic “Canada’s iTunes,” and an offshoot of an earlier institution called Moontaxi, which besides supplied in-flight audio intermezo for Air Canada. Approximately 175,000 euphony files from each the large labels were for waste for 99 cents (or less), the aforesaid arsenic iTunes. But moreover much sexy was that iTunes had yet to debut successful Canada.

The arena culminated pinch 1 of the founders (it was either Alistair Mitchell aliases Derek van der Plaat) pressing a cardinal connected a computer, downloading a ineligible integer opus successful Canada for the first time. I wish I could opportunity what the opus was, but I don’t remember.

At first, the tract did boffo business, trading about a cardinal songs pinch the first 4 months. Even aft iTunes opened up successful Canada successful November 2004 — 13 months later — Puretracks continued to do well. Zeller’s, Shoppers Drug Mart, and various convenience stores sold pre-paid Puretracks card. There were monolithic advertizing campaigns and partnerships. Bell Canada bought a large liking successful the institution successful 2006, and utilized Puretracks exertion to motorboat the Sympatico Music Store.

Puretracks’, um, tracks were successful the MP3 format — a first for North America — offered pinch a solution of betwixt 256 and 320 kb/second. Yes, location were DRM locks, but they’d autumn distant by early 2007, much than 2 years earlier iTunes did the same. Puretracks users could seamlessly transportation their euphony from their machine to their desktop to their integer euphony subordinate to wherever, regardless of the operating strategy and pinch nary penalty. There was moreover a typical hookup pinch BlackBerry, the biggest mobile instrumentality shaper of the time, to create a typical euphony shop for users. Advantage: Puretracks.

The room perpetually grew, jumping to 250,000 songs and yet to much than 3 cardinal by the early 2010s, a number that included a sizeable magnitude of French and Latin music.

There were different projects, too. You mightiness retrieve Puretracks-powered kiosks successful prime grounds stores and bars wherever you could create a custom-burned CD correct there. This was 1 of the fewer beingness manifestations of the Celestial Jukebox, an thought that had been about since the precocious 1980s. Any opus from anywhere, burned to a CD, conscionable for you.

Puretracks had first-mover advantage complete iTunes and each its different competitors. It sold millions of tracks. Public visibility was high. But past 1 time successful the summertime of 2013, it just… vanished.

By the extremity of September, the Puretracks URL nary longer worked. Its Facebook page was down to 300 followers. No 1 had posted thing connected Twitter for weeks. Fans of the institution were ghosted. What happened?

According to Cam Gordon’s caller book, Track Changes: The Origins of Canadian Music connected the Internet (1990-2010), it appears that Bell, the mostly stakeholder successful Puretracks, nary longer had immoderate benignant of enthusiasm for the product. Streaming had go the main root of euphony distribution and consumption, and neither Bell nor immoderate different Canadian institution had immoderate appetite for getting into the streaming business, particularly pinch the absence of immoderate DRM locks.

Bell had tried to bundle downloads pinch its net service, but nary 1 seemed to care. They besides tried trading integer euphony successful 2 tiers, but pinch subscriptions moving astatine $14 and $16, that was measurement excessively precocious compared to competitors. Canadians simply moved to overseas companies for illustration Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and each the rest.

Canada could person had its ain Spotify if Puretracks had been fed and watered decently by an proprietor consenting to play the agelong game. Alas, each our streaming dollars are now flowing retired of the state for illustration water.