Death Of iTunes?

One Silicon Valley company wants to make your iTunes obsolete. Not that its making music hard to download, but its spending a lot of money to bring all the music on the Internet right to your ears. Scott Budman explains. For years, Apples iTunes has had a lock on music moved from your computer to your iPod. It has been an extremely successful and lucrative marriage, but now, another Silicon Valley company has dreams of breaking up that marriage. Lala Media says it has a bright idea: a new way for you to get all the music you want to your iPod, faster than ever. "With Lala, you can play anything," says Bill Nguyn, Lala Media C.E.O. When you log on, Lala.com will bring all of your music to you, including your iTunes, right down to the familiar interface. Go ahead, sample anything you would like. "When you find something you love, purchase it from Lala, it goes straight to your iPod and youre set," says Nguyn. Straight to your iPod, without having to log onto iTunes first. How do they do it? A $140 million payment to royalty companies, so you can sample music for free. "Everything is free. All of your iTunes are online, you can listen to anything free, with the simple hope that youre gonna buy music and save the music industry," Nguyn says. A huge online shake up by a company that now has to sell a ton of music, so theyre making it easier than ever for you to take it with you. "I am willing to bet my company on it," Nguyn says. Taking a big risk in the battle for the digital music sweet spot. Apple is not commenting on the "download songs onto your iPod without iTunes" aspect of Lalas new service, but think about it: because you can put all of your music straight to your iPod, we dont have to wait for bands like the Beatles and Radiohead to put their music on iTunes. You can put them all straight to your iPod right now.