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").