Jonathan Takiff: Turning up the volume: Music services offer deals to expand subscriber lists

THE GIZMO: Rethinking subscription music and (maybe) video game services.

PICKING UP THE PACE: People have lots of experience renting movies - from video stores, Netflix and on-demand from the cable company.

But other than satellite radio, the concept of renting music for a monthly fee hasn't really caught on in the U.S. Even in this tough economy, only about two million customers now subscribe to the three leading services (Rhapsody, Napster and Microsoft's Zune Pass) that offer unlimited access to millions of user-selected tracks and albums for a single monthly fee.

This year, that may change. There's hardly an artist or tune that we can't find today on these deep catalog, on-demand subscription services.

Now new deals you can't refuse and a growth in access points could finally get across the message - musical riches await at a pauper's price.

NOT TAKING A NAP: Napster, now very legit and part of the Best Buy empire, has just dropped the price of its monthly all-you-can-eat music subscription to a ridiculously cheap $5. And for no extra cost, the operation is throwing in the user's choice of five unencrypted MP3 track downloads per month which become yours to keep forever.

In fact, Best Buy retail displays touting Napster subscription cards (priced $5-$60) make it seem like you're buying the songs for a buck each and then getting the streaming service for free!

Microsoft first came up with this tail-wagging-the-dog concept late last year, when it changed the marketing for its Zune Pass subscription music offering. While the $14.99 monthly fee stuck, Zune started offering (and still does) a bonus of 10 "free" music downloads per month to keep on any kind of MP3 player, including Apple products and MP3-ready mobile phones.

Now a new commercial for Zune Pass also underscores what a good deal the basic service offers. The commercial notes that if you were to fill up a high capacity (120 GB) music player with tunes purchased individually, the cost would be a whopping $30,000.

With Zune, the same feat can be accomplished (if, God bless you, you have the time) for just the cost of an album a month.

BUYER CAVEATS: The downside of these subscription offerings is, of course, that if you let any of them lapse, the music vanishes from your player. But as most people listen to favorite tracks or albums until they're totally sick of 'em, is that really such a concern?

Also take note - the bargain Napster offering only allows for live streaming music onto a computer or a dedicated Internet music player like a Logitech Squeezebox or Sonos Music System. And fine print wording suggests this deal isn't going to last forever.

While a bit pricier, the $14.99 subs from Zune and Rhapsody let you simultaneously listen to all that music live on three different streaming devices and/or store it for future playback on upwards of three portable devices. Thus, several family members can feed from and split the cost of a single account, making it ridiculously cheap.

GEARING UP: No surprise, a Zune Pass only works with Microsoft-friendly gear - Windows-based computers, a networked Xbox 360 game system and Zune-branded portable music players.

Rhapsody, the old hand (8 years or so) at this stuff, has the most partnerships with gizmo makers and the broadest vision of how subscription services will eventually take over the music world.

Besides streaming on PCs and wireless (Wi-Fi enabled) Squeezebox and Sonos home systems, a Rhapsody-To-Go subscription lets you load the music onto players from Philips, Haier, SanDisk, Samsung, Sony and others.

Rhapsody music access also will be baked into Vizio's first Internet-ready TV sets, coming later this year.

And Rhapsody America's VP of business management Neil Smith said the company is working very hard to get Rhapsody-To-Go functioning on mobile phones in a more user-friendly way.

"At the moment, with a device like Verizon's Blackberry Storm, you still have to connect the phone to your computer to do music transfers," said Smith. "But in the next six to 12 months, we expect to see mobile phones that can transfer Rhapsody music wirelessly in Wi-Fi zones or on 3G and beyond networks. And we're pushing to have the music streaming included as part of a phone subscription, as is already happening in Spain and Denmark."

STREAMING, SONY STYLE: There's a good chance that a video game rental service will be a big selling point for the second generation PlayStation Portable game system which Sony is expected to introduce at the E3 convention next week.

The new PSP reportedly does without Universal Media Discs, so how're we gonna load games on it? Why not wirelessly, via Wi-Fi, connecting to the Sony Network? And why not with a subscription service?

Developers first got that pitch at a game conference in March. Recently, a consumer survey has been gauging interest in a "monthly fee" service that would allow users to download "a fixed number of games."

Oh, and it's no secret that Sony has been cooking up increased music download offerings for the PSP, too.

Anyone for a combo-meal? *