Starbucks' (SBUX) plan to give away 50 million songs -- not a good sign

The glow is fading. The only people who still believe it are SB executives. They would have been much better off bundling their coffee with music downloads instead of bundling music with their coffee.

Doug, you make a good point and I agree Starbucks is maturing on a national level, but on the bright side... winter is coming and Starbucks will rise as always, to the season. Also, their ongoing international expansion, which is huge, continues to brighten the future outlook.

But again, I think you're right... it's not gonna hurt
Starbucks to add a little nice music to that cup of coffee.

Thanks for listening,
Veronica

wow enough assumption in this article... specifically based on the unconfirmed idea that Starbucks is "paying iTunes for all of the content" ... songs that consumers don't even get to choose.

There is no reason Apple would pay for them, and the record companies and artists have to get their cuts.

come on, i don't know how many times you have been to starbucks

starbucks ALWAYS GIVE AWAY FREE THINGS

free sample drinks when you sit in the store long enough,

free coupon (for next time) when they miss your order or make the wrong drink

when you use their starbucks credit card, you get free drinks all the time, i even got a 1/2 pound of coffee shipped to my house as a gift

this is the way they do business,

i don't see how Starbucks giving away free iTunes song would be a bad signal at all

they are different from just a "coffee" shop in so many ways, the way they do business is just different. they make it a total cultural experience.

Doug, you did it yet again.
You took a couple of facts and wove a story with a subplot that I'm sure doesn't make sense even if you were to think it through.
Try this...T Mobile and Starbucks in a co-marketing deal underwriting the discounted iTunes costs.

Who wins?

Everyone... T Mobile gets a chance for additional visibility and revenue for their network access profit model.
Starbucks gets a chance to sell more house artists material on iTunes where they may have profit participation with Apple and the artists management.
Sounds like a winner all around.

That still does not answer the question of who pays the artists and record companies.

Doug McIntyre

Actually it does, let's think this one through.
T Mobile and Starbucks perhaps share a discounted iTunes cost which allows both to expose their businesses to a greater potential customer base.
The artists who might have a reduced royality arrangement with Starbucks still get their money, Starbucks gets more coffee drinkers, T Mobile exposes more users to their pay-per-use network and Apple gets more iTunes customers.
Sounds like a hat trick to me.