Buy.com founder Scott Blum told USA Today’s Jefferson Graham, “‘In the computer industry, a month is a huge amount of time, and we’re going to take advantage of it.’ He says he’s prepared to sell 1 million songs a day. ‘I expect to do 200 million to 300 million downloads in the first year.’”

Blum launches BuyMusic.com today. Graham reports, “BuyMusic.com will stock 350,000 songs for as little as 79 cents each, though most sell for 99 cents or $1.19. All can be transferred to portables or burned to CDs.”

“Buy.com kicks off with a $40 million ad campaign (1,900 TV spots in the next two weeks) and the introduction today of the ‘world’s largest billboard’ – 150 feet high, 60 feet wide – in Times Square with a near-naked rocker Tommy Lee, who is the service’s spokesman,” Graham reports.

“BuyMusic’s songs are fully portable, but there’s a catch: None can be moved to Apple’s iPod, which has 50% of the digital music player market, though they do work with players from Creative Labs, Rio, Lyra and others,” Graham reports. “‘If you don’t support Windows, you cut off 97% of the market,’ Blum says. ‘The iPod is the best little product I’ve ever seen, but it’s like building the best car in the world, yet it doesn’t use everyone’s gas.’ The Windows version of iPod isn’t compatible with iTunes or BuyMusic.

Windows Media Player 9 (not available for Macintosh) is required to buy music on BuyMusic.com.

Graham reports, “Despite the flurry of action in the paid-download arena, Ted Cohen of EMI says he doesn’t think a la carte singles are the only answer to the record industry’s blues. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all thing,” he says. “ITunes is great for getting a specific song, but it’s not a Border’s-type experience for browsing. If I look up Bob Dylan, I don’t get as much information about him as I would at Rhapsody.”

“‘The reason Apple has done so well is they’ve advertised it really well,’ Cohen says. ‘None of the other services has done a good job explaining its message.’ Jupiter Media analyst Lee Black says Apple proved that people were willing to pay for what could be found free, as long as the price was right and the rules were few. ‘They unbundled it from a subscription and made it a clean process for purchasing. Apple owns the software, the operation system, and it’s a nice synergistic platform,’ he says. ‘It’s going to be harder for the PC companies. But if Buy.com can make it easy, they should be able to attract a lot of attention,’” Graham reports.

Full article here.

Related article from MacDailyNews:
“BuyMusic.com launches; founder says Steve Jobs ‘a visionary, but he’s on the wrong platform’”
“BuyMusic.com TV commericals blatant copies of Apple’s iTunes Music Store ads”