HMV to Sell Digital Downloads

An anonymous reader writes "Sales of digital music downloads on sites like PressPlay and MusicNet have been a bust so far and for good reason. They cost too much, have too many restrictions and the palette of music you get to download is too limited. They have almost nothing to offer over what the various P2P networks give you for free. So why do record chains like HMV want to get in the game? Simple, these services cut out the middlemen and if they should ever succeed record retailers would be left out in the cold. Research shows there is a percentage of consumers who will pay for digital tunes if the conditions are right. They aren't now, but market forces will push them to improve the terms or die. PressPlay has already capitulated to some of these limitations. To protect their interests in the long term, retailers like HMV and Tower records have jumped on board and signed on with On Demand Distribution (OD2) - a company co-founded by Peter Gabriel to be a wholesaler of digital music tunes - to provide the music and the back end to their new services. HMV's service launches in September at five pounds at month (about 7 bucks), a price point which will mean nothing if the song selection sucks."

Comments

ugh...subscription models

[mikeboone]

I hate the concept of subscription models. All of these services want to rope you into month after month of fees. Everyone from Microsoft to music wants the luxury of a constant income stream.

I don't buy CDs every month, why would I pay to download songs every month? Same goes for software.

Let me come in, buy one or two songs for a buck (and give me my fair use rights to them), and maybe I'll be back in a couple months to spend more.

Re:ugh...subscription models

[Dark Paladin]

I agree. My wish list is very simple (see Janis Ian for more - and if you have the link, post it, 'cause I lost my bookmarks :) ).

• Downloads MP3's from 64 to 320 bit encryption; costs increase for quality. Now I can put them in on my iPod if I want.
  
• Cost: $1 or $2 per song, do bulk sales (like an entire "album" is $10, or each song is $2).
  
• Statement that 33% of revenue from song sales goes to the artist, 33% to the writer, and 33% to the distributor (and no cheesy "we're charging the artist $0.50 per song for recording/distribution costs).
  

If they did this, I estimate 75% of the peer to peer music systems (Gnutella, Kaaza, etc) would drop in traffic as people could get the music they want cheap, available, and useable.

Most of the plans I've seen (like those from Sony) are either only for streaming music (blech - like I'm going to sit in my fucking car streaming music), or require proprietary solutions (like "Must have Windows Super DRM Protection Version").

Re:Just don't get it...

[King_TJ]

Honestly, I think the part many are missing is the fact that most people still need their music to reside on a physical piece of CD media before they can enjoy listening to it.

This is the real reason behind your statement (and consequently your logic) that you'll opt to go "buy a CD" instead of download a file.

There's an entire infrastructure built around the public listening to their music on compact discs - and no p2p network can change that fact.

The recording industry needs to address this before they begin trying to make money on downloaded MP3 songs!

As I've said many times before, a really good alternative for them would be building computerized kiosks that let the customer burn his/her own selection of songs onto a high-quality CD - and pay for it by the song. (Probably by taking a resultant printed receipt up to the counter/checkout lane with the shiny new disc)

This would eliminate the issue of requiring huge amounts of physical store space to display all the music. (Instead, they might have a tradeoff of a little bit of "back room" space taken up with a server containing all the digital data that makes up the music collection, and some boxes of blank media to reload the kiosk with when it runs out.)

I would think most retails stores would absolutely love this idea, as would consumers who can finally buy their own "custom mix" CDs - instead of paying for songs they don't like/want, just to get a few that they do. By tallying up exactly which songs sell best, the recording industry gets much more accurate feedback of what's "hot" and what's "not", too.

Selling downloaded MP3 music has only very limited appeal in a world where many people don't even own the tools required to move the songs onto media playable in their car/home stereo. (The rest of us do, but we don't always appreciate taking all the time/effort out to do so.)

You're smoking crack

[Alsee]

And so are the moderators who modded you up.

The suggestion is for the the MUSIC COMPANY to sell downloads of the music they sell anyway. THEY HAVE THE MASTERS. It would take gross negligence for them to sell you a mislabeled or currupted song.

I ran some of the numbers. As long as they do a large volume of sales I think they could be rather profitable at 25 cents a track. The volume of sales and free publicity are guarenteed at that price. The bandwidth, 24-hour staff, and location costs combined are pennies per download. A few cents per download for the artists. Sell it as 80 downloads for a $20 subscription to avoid micropayments. And it makes a great gift-certificate.

Sceptical they could do it for a quater a download? There was a /. article a while ago about a small label hand burning CD's and mailing them to you for $4.95, shipping included. And making a profit doing it. $1 of that went to the artist. Assuming there are at least 10 tracks on the CD that's 50 cents per track. And that includes a physical CD, hand burning each CD, and mailing it. Large volume file downloads are practicly free in comparison.

At 25 cents a track for legitimate, high quality, and well indexed music, it WOULD be cheap enough to defeat P2P.

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