KEY POINTS:
Music download store Coketunes.co.nz has confirmed it will close from August 10, effectively removing one of the big players in the local Windows-centric digital music market.
Mauricio at Geekzone wonders what will happen to the copyright-protect music people have already downloaded. Like him I tried to contact Coca Cola for comment but have received no reply.
The company has posted a notice on the Coketunes website saying it is "changing its approach to supporting New Zealand music with a brand new project which will bring local music directly from the street to the Kiwi music lover".
It has also revealed where the profits generated by sales from the store went in the form of Music Fund grants:
Ladi6 received $15,000 to produce her as yet untitled debut album.
My Life Story received a grant towards Edgefest and got their travel expenses paid for.
The Madison Press which received $12,000 worth of gear from The Rock Shop
And... that's it - $27,000 all up. Which shows why Coke is going back to basics and selling fizzy drinks - it was never very good at selling music and was just trampling on the toes of other good download services it wants to cozy up to in order to tap the youth market.
