Despite industry backing for several subscription-based online music services, such as Rhapsody, pressplay and MusicNet, response has been tepid.

ECONOMIST: How to pay the piper

Andy Schuon, president and chief executive officer of Pressplay, an online music service formed as a joint venture of Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group.

FORBES: The Digital Rights Future

As with every other market on the Net, this one will consolidate in the end, and the likely winners will be Pressplay and MusicNet, which have the major record companies' support.

FORBES: Magazine Article

There were five major record labels at the time and they invested in MusicNet as a service provider and Pressplay as a consumer product to offer legal paths to consume digital music.

FORBES: Steve Jobs Was Wrong -- Consumers Want To Rent Their Music, Not Own It

Digital Deals: Universal Music is part of the joint venture Pressplay, but it also runs a handful of smaller, somewhat disparate digital music sites that it's acquired as struggling dot-coms went looking for corporate cover.

FORBES: Vivendi Universal

Andy Schuon , chief of Pressplay, the new music download service backed by Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people), EMI Group and Vivendi 's (nyse: V - news - people) Universal Music Group, says there's always been two kinds of artists, those who make albums as artistic statements, the Bruce Springsteens and U2s of the world, and those who produce a collection of songs because it has been the conventional way of marketing music.

FORBES: Magazine Article