Apple and Digital Album Sales

Apple's motivation for such a program would be obvious: Record companies stand to make far more money from full album sales than from single track purchases. Right now, in the era of 99-cent song purchases, people instead of complete collections.

Still, despite in the tech world, the idea -- said to be codenamed "Cocktail" -- may not be as innovative as it sounds. Early last year, for example, Sony BMG debuted a program called . The program offers "complete album and bonus materials" with a full album purchase, packaging in digital booklets, videos, remixes, live tracks, and documentaries.

Compare that to the new "Cocktail" system, which is said to include interactive booklets, liner notes, photos, lyric sheets, and video clips. Aside from the fact that Apple's edition would presumably focus on Internet-based sales -- the MusicPass cards themselves are -- the concepts sound eerily similar.

To be clear, I'm , complete with artwork and all the extras. And I waste way too much time watching live videos and behind-the-scenes footage of my favorite bands. But given that programs like MusicPass, , have seen only middling success, would "Cocktail" be any different? Would it actually motivate the digital music-buying masses to shell out the extra dough for a full-length album?