Lala debuts stream-anywhere online store

Lala today introduced a music service it claims will escape some of the limitations of conventional music stores. The self-titled service functions as a regular online service with unprotected MP3 songs downloadable at a minimum 89 cents per track but also grants customers immediate access to their collections over the web by scanning users' existing music collections in iTunes or other apps, including FairPlay-protected iTunes Store purchases.

Any song recognized by Lala is playable for free to anyone signed into Lala, while users can also buy the rights to stream songs an unlimited number of times for 10 cents each. The web interface has full features and supports playlists as well as continuous streams for playlists and whole albums.

The service doesn't require advertising and currently has the support of all four major music labels (EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner) as well as independents. Lala also characterizes itself as platform-agnostic and supports both Mac OS X and Windows systems as well as common browsers for each operating system.

Filed under: industry, audio
Other story tags: iTunes, sony, Universal, Warner, EMI, Lala