Major label venture TotalMusic calls it a day

A project by major record labels Sony and Universal sought to change the distribution method of digital music. But over the weekend, a key executive unofficially declared that the plug has been pulled.

In a blog answer to the TechCrunch assessment that Total Music was "sinking fast", Jason Herskowitz, VP of Product Management at Total Music, confirmed the project's termination, saying, "I regret that we didn't get to show you guys more about what we built -- but in these extremely hard economic times (particularly for those in the music industry) it's hard to blame them from pulling the plug on a still-highly-speculative offering."

He continued, "Hell, there are very few private investors or venture capitalists that want to get anywhere near this space right now...and rightfully so considering no one has really figured out how to make any money out of this industry (and its products) that so many people love."

TotalMusic began to take shape in 2007, when the participating labels were weighing the benefits of a subscription-based model. Of course, the blogosphere at that time was full of dissidents, who predicted the service's ultimate failure. But then, consumer opposition should have come as no surprise, as Doug Morris of Universal Music Group and Total Music famously once said iPods "are just repositories for stolen music, and [the users] all know it."