After 24/7 Entertainment's Frank Taubert said at the Popkomm conference that only 3 million out of the service's 4.5 million tracks had ever been downloaded, eMusic, the ultimate long tail retailer, went on the offensive. The company sent around a press release with a statement from the Managing Director of eMusic Europe, Madeleine Milne . "Three-quarters of eMusic's entire four million track catalogue sells at least once every year, or to put it another way, we sell more than 50% of our catalogue at least once every quarter," she said.

But Milne didn't exactly refute Taubert. Many of 24/7's clients offer mobile services, and mobile doesn't lend itself to music search and discovery as well as online resources. This was the point made by Jupiter's Mark Mulligan and the point I echoed in my post yesterday. Milne's statement echoes it as well. "Music discovery on mobile devices may not be supporting long tail sales," Mile said, "but the new digital music consumer is web savvy, and turns to social networks, blogs and the web to find out about new music."

OK, great. So we all agree on it. Mobile discovery on mobile devices do not lead to trips down the long end of the tail. eMusic may get all sorts of purchases of bedroom producers and unknown Indian sitar players, but mobile users stick with the more familiar. I imagine it's a function of screen size and the services a device can offer. If anybody ever figures out how to put a music service on a watch, it will be a boon to the Top 40.

If mobile's inability to foster music discovery continues, we will be left with a mobile paradox: Mobile devices are thought to be the future of music, and the future of music is all about ubiquity and selection, but mobile music leads to less choice and benefits the short head over the long tail. That doesn't sound like the future of music to me.