Virgin Ends Digital Music Venture

Virgin is calling it quits in the digital music business. The company has stopped selling tracks and accepting new customers as of Friday, and will shut down for good on October 19. New sales of music will end September 29, according to a message on the UK portion of the site. Those customers who have a payment due before the shut off date will lose access the day their next payment is due, according to the note.

The US side will also be ceasing, although it will handle the closure somewhat differently. Whereas UK users lose their unused credits, US users will be able to transfer them for use in Napster's online store. In either case, subscription customers will lose access to their music completely upon the 19th. The closing of Virgin Digital follows that of MTV's Urge, which shut its doors due to ineffectiveness in competing with Apple's iTunes.