CMX album download format takes on Apple

Sony, Warner, Universal, and EMI are banding together to take on Apple’s dominance of digital music downloads with the launch of a new file format that will bundle together an entire album, its liner notes, artwork, videos, and maybe even ringtones.

It’s called “CMX,” and it’s due around November of this year. According to the Times Online, online shoppers haven’t shown much interest in downloading entire albums — only singles. CMX hopes to change that, by enticing customers with loads of extra content if they buy and download full albums. CMX is a unique offering in that when you open it on your computer, each album has a launch page that’s distinctive and different from all others.

But here’s the twist: rumor has it that the Big 4 record labels first tried to get Apple to adopt their planned CMX format, but Apple wasn’t interested. More recent rumors suggest that Apple has reconsidered and is developing its own full album file format, codenamed Cocktail. Apple’s Cocktail format could be launched as soon as September, when the new iPods are expected to be announced.

No word yet on how much the CMX format will be offered for, but if they hope to be competitive, it will need to be in the $10-or-less range.

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