MP3.com 'Subscriber Service'

nelomolen writes: "Looks like MP3.com is trying to promote a new $2.99/month ($29.99/year) ad-free service. as a listener I've come to love MP3.com as it provides exposure to a LOT of good music (and bad). In the past I know artists have had it out for MP3.com in regards to their "payback for playback" -- wonder if this new ad-free subscription service will help?"

Comments

P4p

[OmegaDan]

The P4P service unfourtanatley is a "wealth redistribution" scheme ... You have to pay 20$ a month to join the service ...

WTF? I have to pay 20$ a month to get paid? Mp3.com takes their cut of the subscriber money and then redistributes the rest back to artists by popularity ... So alot of artists loosing money is paying for the few who are making alot of money :)

Re:Check out eMusic

[great throwdini]

It's definitely worth checking out.

It certainly is. Seems like an interesting collection of artists and tracks. Some things to note (the devil's in the details):

• $10/month requires a twlevee-month commitment
• "EMusic currently encodes its MP3s at 128 Kbps." (read the FAQ)

On the other hand, they *are* offering a 30-day Free Trial -- with a 100-song cap on downloads...

I assume eMusic's successor will only offer crippled mp3s...

Some would argue that 128kbps encoding does cripple the format. :)

Re:Clue me in

[Anonymous Coward]

midtown is a pop/punk band that mp3.com has supposedly awarded over $1000 and have gotten somewhat of a big following and are inching towards the status of bands like new found glory.

MP3.com doesn't set the CD prices.

[mbauser2]

Stops raising the damn prices of CDs!!!! They have been slowly yet steadily raising the price, ugh! It now costs the same to download a CD as it used to buy one, grrrr.

Are you sure that's all MP3.com's fault? According to their Help section for musicians, the artists are setting prices on their own CDs. MP3.com just sets the limits on the minimum/maximum price (currently $3.99 and $30.00, respectively) for the downloaded CDs, then adds $3.99 to determine the price of the physical CD.

Maybe too many artists bought into the hype they can get rich off the Internet? Or (more likely), they raised their CD prices to compensate for not being in the "Pay for Play" system?

Musicians don't always make sensible business choices when it comes to pricing CDs. (After all, if they knew everything about selling music, they'd probably run a record company.) For example, I've found one singer who charges $6.99 and $10.98 for the netCD and DAM versions of her CD, when the real thing only costs $6.49 through her label's web site. I like her music, but I have to wonder what she's thinking there....