There have been two rather odd announcements lately in the world of Canadian music retailing. The first came from Sony BMG. The company has started selling a product it calls the Platinum MusicPass. In Sony BMG's plan, when you want to buy an album you drive to a store, buy a Platinum MusicPass card that corresponds to the album you want, drive back home and then enter the card's secret code into the Sony BMG Web site. You then finally get to download the music you just bought.

If this seems convoluted, it is. If you have a computer at home, why not just buy the music online? And if you're at the store anyway, why not buy the actual CD? That way you get a physical back-up copy of the music and you can rip it to iTunes or whatever in about the same time it would take to download it from Sony BMG.

The company says its scheme is worth your time because "in many cases" the Platinum MusicPass version will include special bonus content you can't get on a CD. On the other hand, a recent check by Backbone found that while MusicPass albums cost $12.99, a random scan of 10 of the available MusicPass albums sold on iTunes for between $9.99 and $11.99. So the MusicPass idea leaves you balancing higher price, commute time and gas usage against the possibility of some extra content.

The second slightly odd music announcement comes from Empire Theatres. The company -- and by the way, that's "theatres" as in those places with expensive popcorn and sticky floors-- just launched Songo.ca, an online catalogue of almost 2.5 million music downloads, arranged through a deal with Puretracks.

So, right now, if you buy a Concession Combo you get a card good for three free music downloads.

I have nothing against either Empire or songo.ca, I just find the business model to be a little odd: does heading out to watch Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay naturally lead to the consumer thinking "Hey, I would also like to pick up that new Theory of a Deadman CD?" Maybe it does. And do people want to drive out to a store to buy digital music they could have just downloaded directly at home? Maybe, although really I don't think so.

But -- and here's my point -- I like that music companies and retailers are trying out new models and looking for new ways to reach consumers. I believe that most people would buy music rather than downloading it illegally if it was easy, economical and fun to do so. iTunes has sold more than two billion songs, after all.

So go out and buy some digital music. The more people do this, the more incentive the industry has to come up with better delivery methods. And that will benefit musicians and consumers.


By Peter Wolchak