Music Business Pioneer Says IPod Will Soon Be Obsolete

The man who bet his professional life on the future success of rap music has finally come forward to offer his vision of the future of music business in an iPod age. Legendary producer and record label executive Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, Slayer, Johnny Cash, Run DMC, Jay-Z) told The New York Times that the future is not iTunes serving á la carte songs to your iPod, but music labels offering every song on the planet, anywhere, via subscription.
Rubin said, "You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home."
Such words won't be music to the ears of consumers who have become accustomed to the iTunes model, but if the creeping defection away from Apple being led by Universal Music is any indication, Rubin's words are probably more prescient than some in Cupertino would readily admit. Rubin went on to say, "Either all the record companies will get together or the industry will fall apart and someone like Microsoft will come in and buy one of the companies at wholesale and do what needs to be done." Microsoft owning all your music? Such a scenario may sound unlikely today, but as music sales continue to plunge, it's not inconceivable that billion-dollar behemoths like Microsoft or Google might eventually snap up the major labels for (excuse us) a song and end up owning all the music you listen to... stranger things have happened.