Are you a fan of the nineties hit-maker The Presidents of the United States of America? The pop band has released a $2.99 iPhone app that contains four of their albums plus live tracks, demos and regular updates. Any song you like can be bought from the iTunes store directly from within the app.
The songs are streamed, not downloaded, which means that you need a live Internet connection to hear them. In other words, imagine Pandora or Slacker, but focused on one band and with no restrictions on song order or skipping.
Dave Dederer, the band's singer and guitarist said, "IPhone apps are exploding, including for musical artists, but nobody's done anything like this." The application was built by Melodeo, where Dederer one of the company's executives.
[via CNET]
But noboday’s done anything like this? I think this is mostly due to copyright issues. Normally iPhone app developers don’t own the content copyright. I gather when the app is submited to AppStore, Apple needs to make sure the app developer has obtained the relevant copyright or license from the record label in order to build the music contents into the iPhone app.