Lala shut down by Apple last night, May 31st

This is just tinfoil hat speculation, I don't have anything to back it up. However, this is the way that high level, powerful executives and a certain class of start-up founder think about markets.

Particularly, "Network Based Digital Rights Management System" (http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=esKwAAAAEBAJ&dq=%...) could be valuable for Apple.

Non-transferrable licenses are quite believable, if the record companies considered Lala an experiment to test the waters. They'd put safeguards in to make sure that the licenses didn't end up at some place like Apple, so they (the record companies) can decide the pace of growth of this kind of service.

Note that if you check the date of the acquisition, and the date of the close of the service, it's something very close to six months, which sounds like the kind of grace period that would be plausible to allow for shut down of the non-transferable licenses.

An example of a company that wants you to buy their stuff is Amazon. Click a button, make an API call, and you have a new server. That's because they are the ones providing value; they are not the middlemen worrying about being cut out of the loop.

The music industry is different -- they don't do much more than act as a loanshark to the artists, which the artists put up with because the only way to have your music advertised is with the record labels. If there was just an API where you could sell your stuff, then the record labels wouldn't be necessary. Your laptop, a good soundcard, and free software is all you'd need to "play in the majors". That's not good for the middleman.

Bittorrent is an acceptable interim solution.

That said, I would love it if someone did step up. I have looked at a few similar services, but haven't found any that make for an adequate replacement.

>One person with knowledge of the deal, but who was not authorized to discuss it, said that the negotiations originated when Lala executives concluded that their prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim and initiated discussions with Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president in charge of iTunes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/technology/companies/05app...

Lala started at least five years ago. They received $35 million in venture capital. They were bought by Apple for $17 million. They had $14 million in cash. The effective price was $3 million. They were burning through $500,000 a month. I think it's pretty safe to say that now a team has explored this dark cave and found a gigantic killer bear, no one else will be stupid enough to follow. If they do, I don't know if they'll find too many VCs who want to throw away their money.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/07/lala-was-bought-by-apple-fo...