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Universal, Sony Cutting Prices on Downloaded Music

Posted by michael on from the invisible-hand dept.

Don Symes writes "Sony Music and Universal appear to be getting ready to allow downloads of singles for $.99 and albums for $9.99 without crippleware or restrictions on personal copying/burning." Another semi-interesting piece submitted by several people is this propaganda from the recording industry. 2.8 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were seized in the U.S. last year (9 million world-wide); from that the IFPI extrapolates that 950 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were actually sold, world-wide. How do you get from 9 million to 950 million? Mostly hand-waving .

5 of 428 comments (clear)

  1. I'd download them! by night_flyer · · Score: 5, Funny

    But the cable company set a lower bandwidth cap...

    --


    Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
    Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
  2. The upside for the labels: by CaseyB · · Score: 5, Funny

    The one advantage of having lower $0.99 "per track" charges, is that once the artists' royalty percentage is rounded, it equals zero.

  3. Slashdot / MP3 Comment Generator by Geeyzus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let me save you the time of reading all the hypocritical comments, just read this one.

    "This is a great start, but I'm not paying [current price] for a song/album. Maybe I'd consider [current price / 2], but it would have to be available in [some other format] and at [current sampling rate * 2]. And even then, I wouldn't pay without getting [a CD / liner notes / etc]."

    99 cents a song is a steal. Let's figure there are 3 good songs on a CD nowadays (generous assumption). That's 3 bucks for a CD's worth of good songs. As opposed to 15+ dollars in the store.

    But I'm sure people can justify not using this service anyway. Hell, I will admit that if I want some song, I'll probably get it off of KaZaA (I don't really listen to much music nowadays). But I'm not gonna criticize the system, I think it is perfect, they are biting the bullet and offering us a great alternative to stealing music. If this fails, it's not the record company's fault.

    Mark

  4. Re:Good Grief by CaseyB · · Score: 5, Funny
    The seriously ironic thing is that millions of dollars of the money that is spent on the legitimate music industry is "channeled into the drugs trade".

    How many VH1 "Behind the Music" specials have driven _that_ point home?

  5. Re:This will prove it by ryanvm · · Score: 4, Funny

    I had to face the facts: I was stealing music. A few of my friends asked me to justify what I was doing, and I couldn't justify it. I was stealing music.

    Wow - your friends staged a Napster intervention?