Slashdot Mirror
Music 20 Cents a Track in India
xzap writes "Indiatimes.com , an Indian portal is now offering "International Chart-Busting" music for download legally at Rs 10 (20 cents U.S) a song. They say they (through a partner) have tied up with music labels like BMG, EMI, Warner, Tips, Times Music, Lahari, Enrico Hindustan (which is the oldest catalogue of HMV) and Archies Music "." I still believe that if the bigs let us download MP3s for
a quarter a track, we'd do it.
Although not mentioned in the article (why?), the site is already up at Soundbuzz.com
Hurra for Knark!
You have to remember something about this:
There's a huge difference between 25 cents here and 25 cents in India. The average income is much lower.
For instance, 25 cents in India could equate to around $4.00 there.
Now do you really want to pay four bucks a track? $40.00+ per CD?
I didn't think so.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
"When a business model fails, it is not the government's responsability to make laws to sustain it."
Robert Heinlein, I had no idea you were still alive...
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back." -- Robert Heinlein
My father is a blogger.
Shall I give you my number one reason? DRM.
The partner in this instance is Soundbuzz, and - as usual - they're missing the fucking point, big time.
The one thing that their site managed to tell me before it squealed and died was that they use a Digital Rights Management system.
Sigh. Forget it then. If I want to listen to music where and when it suits the music to be listened to, I'll use the radio. I won't pay 10 cents for a crippled .wmf. I wouldn't take a rights restricted .wmf file if you gave it to me, and if the labels keep pushing on down this insane road, it might very well come to that.
It's a pretty simple proposition. We can all get completely uncrippled music for nothing. It's no big secret. And the labels just don't have a big enough stick to threaten us with. The guilt trip doesn't work, because we can all see that sharing isn't hurting the music industry nearly as bad as they claim. DMCA hasn't made a dent in it, and CDBPTA looks like it's failed the laugh test. Crippleware music disks (not CD's, dammit) are about the worst idea they have come up with yet; if you buy one and want to assert your fair use rights to space shift, you have to break the DMCA (which demonstrates how insane that is) and/or grab an MP3 from a P2P system (and they are all over it like a rash). DRM just illustrates how great MP3 (/ogg) is for music lovers.
I can't believe that the labels don't get that. They must understand that by trying to sell DRM content (on disk and online), all they're doing is driving people - including their best paying customers - to P2P.
It's not a difficult proposition. Give me a site where I can enter my CC details, listen to a low quality streaming mp3, then download a high quality (200 kb/s+) version at 25 cents(*) a pop. Bill me monthly. I'll use it. Yes I damn well will.
MP3.com is close, but no cigar. It's too service oriented, too limited, too much aimed at pushing specific end uses ("burn CD's!") and maintaining a customer relationship. Often you can only buy without streaming. Sometimes you can stream without buying (!). I don't want a relationship, all I want is the mp3. Just give me the track, and I'll give you money, and we can both go away happy.
I mean, what is the label's major malfunction, that they can't understand this simple proposition: I'll pay them 25 cents for the same content that I'm already getting for nothing. I hadn't paid a red cent for music for ten years before Napster appeared, and I haven't paid any since. If I'm allowed to, I will pay for tthe good tracks, even though I don't have to. However, if they continue to offer padded, over produced, over promoted, over priced CD's and DRM protected music disks, and crippled DRM downloads (at any price), I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing right now and sharing it for nothing.
Don't they want my money?
(*) 25 cents a track. Yes, that's right, not a dollar, not fifty cents, twenty five cents. Maybe less. Because as we've seen with the instant Slashdotting of an Indian site, we're in a global market, so we need a global price. If you're wondering about the real reason why the labels won't offer online music, keep on thinking about the implications of global pricing on their market segmentation.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.