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"Long before Sir Richard Branson dreamed of becoming the latest billionaire with a reality TV show, before he started his cellphone company, his airline and his record label, he sold music from the Virgin Record Shop on Oxford Street in London. When he began in 1971, of course, music was presented as grooves pressed into a vinyl disk.

"Today, Sir Richard starts a new music store, VirginDigital.com, this time selling music as streams of bits to be downloaded from the Internet. Virgin becomes the first major music retailer to enter the download market, which has been dominated by Apple Computer and other technology companies.

"What’s interesting is that Virgin is putting its biggest emphasis on its subscription service, rather than on selling songs one at time for 99 cents a track, as Apple and Microsoft do.

"It is betting that new customers will join its Virgin Music Club for a $7.99 monthly fee to listen to an unlimited amount of music from Virgin’s one-million-track library on their computers."

Saul Hansell. Music Sites Ask, ‘Why Buy If You Can Rent?’. The New York Times. Sept. 27, 2004.

See also:
John Borland. Virgin Launches Online Music Service. News.com. Sept. 26, 2004.
Sue Zeidler. Virgin Launches New Digital Music Service. Reuters. Sept. 27, 2004.

(Editor�s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archive.)