Napster, Edel Hook Up

mongolian_beef writes "Edel Music AG, an independent European music label, has agreed to distribute music over Napster Inc.'s popular song-swapping service, marking the Internet upstart's biggest deal since it agreed to create a legal version of its service with Bertelsmann AG. Under the terms of the deal, Napster will make songs by popular Edel artists such as Craig David and 2Step available to those of its 50 million registered users who agree to sign up as members for its new fee-based song-swapping service. Financial terms weren't disclosed."

Comments

Why all the B&M on fee-based napster?

[Masem]

Sure, when napster first came out, it was free, could have gotten nearly any song ever made, yada yada yada. But all this meant was that the creators/musicans of the songs never got to see a cent from all that downloading, which I know a good majority felt was wrong (yet some still continued to use napster). Now Napster's going to a *SMALL* fee ($5/mnth is a bargain!) for unlimited, legal access to a good library of music (and hoping to increase it), the musicans will get a cut (abet small), and most people appear to be B&M about this. It really doesn't make sense, though the main reason I'll get to in a bit.

Face it, there were basically only two ways that the Napster and digital music on the net would have worked out: either we get this sort of settlement between the RIAA companies and Napster, or we start the world's largest game of whack-a-mole to remove all illegal music distribution sites on the net (And if you think that freenet or gnutella would offer protection, I very much doubt it, since it would be the operators of the various servers/peers that would be threatened, not necessarily the creators of the program). IMO, the first option of working out a deal is a much better prospect.

I know most of the complaining comes down to money: physical music CDs are too expensive, and early Napster was free. For starving college kids, the choice is easy. But let's say that all the other RIAA companies jump on with BMG and the $5/mnth service continues with lots of sign-upers. At $5/mnth, that's about equal to 3 to 5 CDs a YEAR in terms of price, and I know that's a bargain. Because of that, CD sales might flounder as more people sign on -- on the other hand, CD sales could continue steady or rise if people use Napster to pre-test albums. If the former case occurs, two things would have to happen: either the napster fee would have to be increased (which would cause a lot of people to drop out, and therefore the last possible resort), or the cost of CDs will go down, which is beneficial for everyone, since the music industry appears to be operating right of the supply-demand interestion-- lowering costs will increase sales and increase revenue. If the latter case happens, with increased sales, the only thing that the RIAA people could do is to continue to embrace Napster and possibly lower fees to entice more people to it.

Remember, the boundary right now for most average people is the question of legality of downloading music as such. The fee-based Napster takes away any such threat, and I would expect to see a massive rush of people joining Napster for this service when it's made available.

Re: Why all the B&M on fee-based napster?

[Masem]

I do agree, that if you are sitting on a 56k modem, $5/mnth isn't that great of a bargain compared to a cable or dsl line, but it still is a savings. And, IMO, if you are having that much trouble with your dailup line, there's something wrong with your ISP or your modem setup, both which you can change. The easiest way to look at this is that you STILL download a new album overnight assuming no major failure, and 30 albums/mnth for $5...

Now, as for bitrates and size, I would think that those that are just downloading to hear music aren't going to care about bitrates -- they just want to hear said tracks. On the other hand, those that are audiophiles are probably going to download the 128k files and make a decision to buy the album or not from those, since the CD will be better quality than the mp3. That leaves those that download the 196 or higher bitrates but won't buy the album; I would figure that these are the people that are already going to have the large bandwidth and storage mediums that they don't have to worry about this.

I do agree that a flat $5 month for all users is questionable given the difference between usage patterns, but trying to charge based on transfer rate will also raise problems. Do you set the change at the time that the user creates the account? If so, I'll create the account on a dail-up and then go use work or home broadband to get everything I need. Do you charge by bytes sent? Then there is a loss of anonymousity as napster can now easily track who downloads what since they have to keep track of bytes.

Re:Why all the B&M on fee-based napster?

[Masem]

Remember that RIAA has gotten a hand slap for overchanging CD prices, thought that's pretty much all it was. With all the controversy over CD costs and online music, the music industry will be in the FTC's sights for some time, and increasing the costs of both cds and napster above rate of inflation rates will set off bells at FTC HQ.

Re:Why all the B&M on fee-based napster?

[Dr. Awktagon]

But all this meant was that the creators/musicans of the songs never got to see a cent from all that downloading, which I know a good majority felt was wrong (yet some still continued to use napster).

What makes you think the artists will get anything now? There's nothing in existing artist's contracts about royalties from downloads, is there? Don't fall for that one.

Now Napster's going to a *SMALL* fee ($5/mnth is a bargain!) for unlimited, legal access to a good library of music

Good library of music? Sheesh I still haven't found anything on Napster that was encoded properly. Now I have to pay for some teenager's poor rip?

The only solution will be to have the label itself distribute the music, which will then turn Napster into another client/server architecture, why not just use web pages and sell passwords to the web pages? Amazon could set up an MP3 page with paid access. For-a-fee napster is obsolete before it gets of the ground, in my opinion!

Re: Why all the B&M on fee-based napster?

[Forager]

But let's say that all the other RIAA companies jump on with BMG and the $5/mnth service continues with lots of sign-upers. At $5/mnth, that's about equal to 3 to 5 CDs a YEAR in terms of price, and I know that's a bargain.

There are a few problems with this, which would make much less than the bargain that you make it out to be.

First of all, consider what you are getting. This is a relative term, something that varies from user to user. The fact of the matter is, not everyone has high-speed internet access, and most people couldn't have that access even if they wanted to, because of availability in their area. I live in Springfield, MA, about a mile outside my local DSL carrier's range, and about 500 yards from the Wilbriham/Springfield border. My ex-girlfriend's brother works for the DSL provider and he said there are currently no plans to extend the range of availability any sooner than a year from now. In Springfield there is no cable broadband access, but I see houses from my bedroom window where there is cable broadband. Again, plans don't call to extend it for at least a year.

So here I am, chugging along at a whopping 5.2k/s max, 3.5k/s on average (that is the record I've seen on my own system, at 3am on a Sunday night) and Napster wants me to pay $5 a month for rights to BMG's music. On my modem, I can download about 3-5 songs (128kbps quality) an hour, assuming I have no ISP disconnects (rare), no transfer errors through Napster (even more rare), and I do not do anything else with the internet (because even surfing /. uses valuable bandwith). So even if I download those 4 songs an hour, it will take me 3-4 hours to download some of the newest records. But this is not realistic. Speaking from experience, it can take me up to a week to download an entire CD off of Napster. Now all of you who have broadband can smile and say $5/month is great, because you can download a CD an hour on a bad day (my friend from Wilbriham takes about twenty minutes for a full CD). But for someone like me (and believe me, I'm not alone) it is a much bigger deal. For $5 a month, if I spend an hour or two every day exclusively downloading music with my bandwith, I can only get between 3 and 5 CDs a month. For someone with broadband, that number becomes 7 CDs a week (1 hour per CD, 7 days a week), and 25-35 CDs a month. Who's getting the bigger bargain there?

Also consider quality. I'm downloading 128kbps songs, because I simply can't afford the 192s and the 320s I've seen lately are unthinkable. Now most people will say they can't hear the difference. But some people can. Believe me, the quality gap between 128 and 320 is HUGE. But then again, so is the file size. At up to 3 times the size of a 128, 320s are just too "expensive" for me to download. That would cut my downloads/month in half, at least, if not in thirds. So rather than getting 3-5 CDs worth of noticeably less-than-CD-quality music every month, I can get 1 or 2 at near-CD-quality. But again, for broadband it's different. Even if the MP3s were 5 times the size of a 128 (file sizes at 5 megs per minute of sound), the average broadband user could, at 1 hour a day, 7 days a week, download 5-7 CDs worth at very high sound quality. Again, who is getting the bargain?

So what's the solution? Maybe there should be modulating access fees based on your modem speed. If you're downloading at 60k/s, pay $5 a month. If you're downloading at 4k/s, shouldn't the fee be proportionately lower? Something like 33-50 cents a month (it may seem silly, but it's more realistic than $5 a month for everyone)? I'll tell you flat out, the same reason I won't pay for Napster is the same reason I won't pay for EQ or Ash's Call or UO, etc: the price they charge is simply not worth the frustration of lag, low transfer rates, and high packet loss. Maybe broadband will change my tune. But for now I for one will find other alternatives to the new Napster.

-Forager.

Just a Bertelsmann PR manoeuvre

[Anonymous Coward]

Edel is a mid-size, ultra-commercial German record label that sells Eurotrash teenager pop music. Their stock has gone down considerably with the decline of the "new economy". (Yes, NEMAX - the German NASDAQ equivalent - equally includes Internet companies, TV/film production companies and record labels.) It has been written in the German press that Bertelsmann might take Edel over soon. Given the bad resonance the Bertelsmann/Napster deal in the rest of the music industry, this move is pretty obvious PR fluff.

Re:Throw them in and see if they sink...

[cyber-vandal]

As far as I can tell, the garage scene consists of a bloke with a drawn-on beard, a fat ex-boy band member, a bunch of black guys wittering on about how they're the best rappers in the world and how much sex they have (every 'new' music style has had this since 1982 - old aren't I?) and the obligatory 'sassy' (i.e. wearing virtually nothing) females.

New Napster Model: Users Get Money!

[kenthorvath]

I have been thinking about this for some time and have come to the conclusion that I can't find a single thing wrong with it. So here goes:

What if napster started charging a small fee, say 5-10 cents per download, and a percentage of that say 2 or 3 cents went to the uploader?

Proprietary software could be issued for ripping mp3's from a cd and tagging them in the beginning and the end with a "quality code" so that if at the end of the download both are not present then the song is said to be incomplete and therefor not considered downloaded.

People make money by hosting songs. People paya fair amount of money for their mp3's and everyone is happy.

If 100 people a day were to download from me then that would be about $2-3 and in a month I would have enough to cover the cost of my bandwidth! (And buy more cd's to rip)...

Fuck dealing with BMG... Anyone see anything that I'm missing?

See, here's what I see happening

[Karen_Frito]

Okay, I'm an average consumer (Okay, I'm NOT an average consumer, but I'm a consumer, with a credit card)

I get on Napster one day, and a popup window saying "Give us your credit card number, we'll charge you 15 dollars (or 3 dollars a month, or 5 cents a download, or WHAT-EVER) and this will all be legal. " (paraphrased for my convience)

Now, I've got a credit card, my wallet lives (when its not in my pocket) on my computer desk, (Eh, so my wallet is the case for my Palm Pilot, I'm SURE there are real non-geek people out there who toss their wallet on the computer desk too, but I digress) -- so I yank out Mr.Visa, and I give Napster the relativly minor amount of money they want.

And I download my little music-lovin heart out for another year.

Because I'm LAZY. I don't *WANT* to download gnutella. I don't WANT to learn yet another protocol. My time is valuable (Even if its spent playing Command and Conquer with my roommate).

Giving Napster 15 dollars (or 3, or 5 cents or whateveR) is MUCH simpler than downloading gnutella, installing gnutella, learning to USE gnutella, teaching my roommate to use gnutella, mpoving my mp3's, etc, etc.

But, at the moment -- with Napster NOT requiring it, and only asking us to pay for stuff from some weird Eurolabel? Eh. No, I'll pass. I'll spend my 15 dollars on something else. Its too much of a pain for something I might not want.

When its a sure thing -- it'll take off. Now? I don't think it will.


Poor little no puppy toe!

Bet this one won't be available

[Bojay Iverson]

http://www.edel.de/german/products/00002465.htm

Re:Napster can go to hell

[Ka0s]

It's not free. And it's completely illegal, but it's there, and the opennap SERVERS don't/wont try to charge for their illegal service (or try to make it legal). So I (like all the other napster users) will abuse this until it's taken down and we're all forced to use freenet or something like it.

Translation

[BindMe]

""We welcome Napster's commitment to protect the interests of artists, songwriters and other rights holders through their new business model, and we will support any activity that provides for fair compensation for everyone involved. " Translates to "We understand that Napster and other sharing utilities are not going to go away and if we don't accept them we are basically going to be left by the wayside". Finally a company willing to take a chance on actually using this service instead of just complaining about it. Albeit they may not be in the best of financial standing but maybe that is what it took to get them to realize that here is the bandwagon now get on. Don't know about the rest of you but if I was a musician or a record company and I could get the music out to 50 million people relativly cheaply should there even be any thought. Just my opinion

This won't solve the problem

[fhwang]

There are a lot of people who'd be willing to pay $5/month to use Napster, at first. The problem is that to justify that cost, Napster will need to continually innovate to stay ahead of the free, open-source competition, and they seem to incapable of doing so. Of course, the idea of Napster itself is world-changingly innovative, but what have they done to maintain the software since then? All I've seen them add in the past year is the ability to exclude search terms with the minus sign. For God's sake, the bloody Napster icon is still messed up on my WinNT client.

On the other hand, go over to SourceForge and do a search for Napster to see how many people are trying to build on the idea. It's only a matter of time before:

1. Napster gets fat and complacent on its subscription fees, and lets its quality of service fall to shit
2. Some hacker adds some great new feature to some part of the system, and tells eir friends about it
3. Napster is blissfully ignorant of the feature, or just ignores the feature, hoping it will never catch on
4. The feature catches on, tons of people switch over to the open-source alternative
5. The easy revenue stream for musicians disappears again.

So a fee from Napster won't solve it. Once again, I feel obliged to point to the Street Performer Protocol as a way around this: It offers a way for artists to be paid for their work, without forcing any arbitrary controls on the methods of distribution.

Re:This won't solve the problem

[Masem]

I don't agree, for two reasons. First, it's still the issue of that without paying anything, most average joes would not use napster because they feel they may be violating the law, so even if it was based on Napster code but didn't have the fee, I don't think people would use it. (You also have to consider that the average joe knows squat about how to find and use open-source projects -- if it didn't come from tucows, where did it come from?). The other issue is the legal force that is RIAA -- you'd be naive to think if they don't have their lawyers working out a way to take down freenet, gnutella, and any other open source project if/when the material traded starts to heavily impinge on RIAA earnings. Any open source solution that does bypass the fee of Napster, in addition, will be further shot down (and IMO, they have every right to take such actions). But in this latter case, it boils down to the game of whack-a-mole, as taking down one open-source project may create 2 more.

how will fee Napster work?

[iso]

ok, i haven't been following the Napster news all that closely as i prefer less mainstream music, but i'd like to know if anybody can answer this: how will fee-based Napster work?

Napster is a P2P (kinda) filesharing service. when Napster implements their fee-based service (presumeably with "legitimate" material on it), what will be the difference between Napster and, say, an FTP site? i assume it will no longer be P2P, right? (or at least, the "illegal" stuff will not be on the P2P section anymore).

so is it basically going to be like an FTP site that you search through the Napster client? if so, what the hell's the point? why not just make it a web-based service? i guess the "point" will be that clueless people are getting used to using "Napster" to get files, and would like to continue using it that way. still, it seems silly to use this "Napster" protocol and proprietary client to do soemthing that would be better served by exisiting technologies.

now again, i haven't been following Napster too closely, but some please: enlighten me!

- j

Napster can go to hell

[Ka0s]

Sellouts.. I know I wont be paying for napster. Thats for damn sure.. besides, theres all those opennap servers ... :)

How would like your death?

[Bojay Iverson]

At least Edel have a varied and interesting catalog(with the exception of Craig David). What does Sony have that you would hold out for? Michael Jackson?

Before you all start bitching & moaning...

[Siqnal 11]

Read the FAQ:

Will Napster continue to offer a free service?

Yes! We are committed to creating a system in which users can choose to participate without paying any money.

--

This is nothing new....

[NTSwerver]

..."Phonics Cat" have pioneered releasing their material straight to the public via Napster, with dire consequences!

----------------------------

Napster issues

[mirko]

Yesterday evening and this morning (MET/GMT+1) I filled Napster form in order to get my GPL'd music available for free to the whole Napster Community.
I also use it as a test in order to know whether I can trust them for a more ambitious project.
After clicking the submit button, I got a form to print, to fill and sign and to fax them in order to activate my account.
I tried many times to fax it but their device never answered.
How surprising, my entry was added.
I believe I could have filled the HTML form with Metallica's name and Lars Ulrich as contact.
Of course, I could have easily been caught "la main dans le sac" but there's still a problem, here.
--

How Long until

[bmongar]

How long until some small or new music labels decide to distribute music on the non-fee based Napster service as a matter of business, like distributing to radio stations? If someone can show more profits by using napsters free music distribution as adds for cd how long until money hungry RIAA lables join in.

Throw them in and see if they sink...

[Mike Connell]

From the article:

> Edel, which recently reported poor results and cut its 2000 earnings forecast, [...]

So, just maybe, Edel don't have that much to lose. I can see the big boys watching to see what happens; will they sink or will they swim?

Just my very cynical 0.02 widgets.

Mike