Music site to sell songs for a dime

A new site that has the backing of the music industry will sell songs for 10 cents each starting Tuesday. The songs will play on any computer as long as it has a Web browser and Internet connection.

The approach comes from Lala.com and is supported by the four major music labels plus thousands of Indie labels, offering more than 6 million songs.

Here’s the catch:

Lala sells “Web songs,” which you can play as often as you want but never can download to your computer. However, you can spend an additional 79 cents to 89 cents to purchase a digital rights-free version of that Web song that can be burned to a CD or transferred to an mp3 player, including an iPod.

It’s a lease-with-an-option-to-buy approach to music, and for 10 cents a pop, it might be worth a try. Also, Lala is offering 50 free Web songs to anyone who signs up. Users must register with the site.

“We live our lives in a browser, whether it’s e-mailing, watching television shows or using Facebook,” Geoff Ralston, Lala’s CEO said in a press release.

Here’s another neat trick: Lala will match the songs on your computer with those from its catalog so you can access your digital music collection from any computer. If you have an iTunes library with 5,000 songs at home, Lala will mimic that collection so you can access your music from the browser on your office PC.


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