Slashdot Mirror
Burn A Song For 99 Cents
tusixoh writes "CNN is running an article about an online music company, Listen.com, who has signed deals with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group allowing users to burn songs from both companies' catalogs (more than 75,000 available tracks) on Listen's Rhapsody music subscription service for 99 cents per track. Until now, Rhapsody had primarily offered only streamed music to subscribers from all of the world's largest record labels as well as several independent labels." The upside of this, of course, is that it won't be necessary to pay for songs that are just "album filler".
Now: let's see if they also allow independent artists distribute their music the same way.
Finding God in a Dog
They're actually changing their business model to coincide with modern times. I'd like to believe music companies generally care about their customers. This may be the first step to realizing that dream.
Honestly, from this point on, if I want an mp3, I'll check to see if one of those labels are the labels that the artist in question is on, if so, they get my 99 cents.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Metallica S&M would run over $20 on this. I'd rather pay the $16 for the CD and be able to burn it in the for4mat of my choice. (i.e. ogg)
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
At $20 bucks a cd its still more than a lot of people are willing to pay. I'd be willing to pay $5 cdn for a cd. Even before the mp3 revolution i rarely bought anything.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
This requires Windows. So, when Version 2.0 comes out and requires a Palladium-enabled version of Windows, how exactly will this be a good thing? Not to mention they've replaced standardized components with their own. What will happen when this software starts burning special copy-protected CDs only and your CD-R reaches the end of its lifespan?
I'd better not hear one peep out of the Slashdot crowd on this one. All anyone ever says on here is "well, I would buy the songs if they were cheap and by the track so I didn't have to buy a whole album". Put up or shut time, /. Most of the posts I've seen so far have been either "they had better let indie artists do it too" or "they don't have anything I want".
Personally, it's nice to own the music I listen to, and if this makes it so I get the songs I want for $15 on one cd rather than for $225 on 15 cds, great. Now, the article seems rather slim on the facts in this case, but I would hope that (a.) the music is in a machine readable format (not copy-protected), or (b.) available in MP3 or some other open format as well.
"What we elect to call imagination is mere combination of things not heretofore combined." - Frank Norris
Yes, but it's 18 dollars for 18 tracks you WANT, instead of 18 dollars for 2 tracks you want and 17 tracks of filler. Doesn't sound too bad to me.
You could do like me and only listen to bands that make full CDs of good music. I can't imagine only wanting to buy a part of a CD. IMHO a band isn't worth listening to unless they build a decent albumn. In fact, a good deal of the best CDs in my collection are intended to be played from start to finish as one full serving of excellent music, not as a collection of individual songs.
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
It sounds so good, then I see the details.
A dollar per track is a bit high, but I would certainly be interested in buying some tracks for that price. However, that price is "in addition to paying a monthly subscription fee of $9.95." I can't imagine buying more than ten songs per month. Once that's worked in we're up to two dollars per track. Two dollars? Too much.
Furthermore, I expect that this new functionality will be available through their proprietary software. I don't want to deal with your unknown software (even if it did run under my primary operating system: Linux). I want to open a account with some money, then download songs off your web site until my account is empty. Nice and simple. Do it for one dollar per song and I'll very occasionally use it for catchy tunes. Do it for fifty cents and I'll regularly use it. Do it for twenty five cents and I'll make heavy use it, regularly buying music on a whim.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
How is this going forward? I can walk to the record store and purchase a CD with 16 tracks for about $12 - cool case, cool cover, lyrics, everything.
Or, I can spend my time searching for the tracks I want, pay for my own blank CD, bandwidth, wear on my burner, and end up with a crappy copy (marked with a Sharpie, of course) and a few more files in my playlist for a few dollars MORE!
$10 for the month's subscription, plus $12 for 12 songs.. $22 for a 12-track mix tape, seems to me like not a *great* deal, but that's really not bad either since i get to pick what the 12 songs are. I'd almost be inclined to say they "get" it. In fact, i'd be inclined to say, "yeah, i'll pay for that."
Except, oops, it looks like you have to have windows in order to do any of this stuff. I don't own windows, just this macintosh. My college does have some WindowsXP labs with CD-Rs drives, but the since the user-permissions policies here are currently in the process of changing i'm not sure if i'll actually be able to use their client there. And i do not feel like badgering one of my friends to let me take over their computer for a few hours each month so that i can compose and make for myself mix cds.
Looks like listen.com just lost a customer. Too bad they chose to tether their downloads to DRM technology.. then they wouldn't have to limit themselves to customers who use one software platform.
In the meantime, this emusic thingy that i found linked on this same slashdot forum looks *great*. Looks like i'll be taking my $9.99 over there instead..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Its too bad all those P2P kids don't have credit cards, otherwise this would be a good idea.
...but I will lament the lower circulation of "other" tracks. In my experience, there is usually a track or two on every album that are grossly underestimated by The Recording Industry(tm) and thus don't receive the advertising, airplay, or circulation that they deserve.
It used to be, once I got that album home to listen to, these provided a pleasant surprise, and often became some of my favorite tracks.
Now I (and I presume everyone else) will be significantly less likely to hear those tracks (because we'd have to pay for them before receiving, and are unlikely to have heard them through 'regular' channels) and even more excellent music may be lost to the common consciousness.
How do we know whether a song is "filler" or "underappreciated gem" until we hear it?
How do we hear it before we pay for it?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sure you get to cut the worthless songs but even then the prices match the store prices
The price matches, but the quality I can get for a given price increases dramatically. When I go to Best Buy and plunk down my hard-earned 13 USD for an album with 13 songs on it, I want 13 songs I like, not three. The way I see it, these CDs will be four times cheaper than[1] the CDs I can buy at Best Buy.
[1] Pedants: "Cheapness" here refers to the number of discs I can afford with a given amount of money. Thus, "Four times cheaper than" means "one-fourth as expensive as".
This is not far enough a benefit to make it a sustainable venture.
How can you be sure that four times cheaper for the average fan of oldies singles isn't enough of a benefit?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Cruise missiles, perhaps?
I *still* like my nice packaging and nice looking CDs, rather than a CDR with "Bob the Box - I Like Potatoes" or whatever written on it with a Sharpie.
;) )
Also, as other people have commented, the whole "album filler" thing seems a bit off to me. In general, my CDs have one or two songs I don't like, or even songs that suck, but those are the minority.. I don't get the "one song rocks, everything else sucks" thing.
And even if you could weed out the songs that suck, how would you know which ones suck and which ones don't, unless you already know them? Many times the best songs are the ones that hit me suddenly after weeks or months or years of having the album, and never really noticing it before, and suddenly, bam, wow, that song rocks, why didn't I notice it before?
well, that's just my 2 lire (I don't presume to think that my opinions are worth as much as $0.02..
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Can someone provide a breakdown of that 99 cents, and what goes where? I'd rather use a service that interfaces directly with the artists, so that the artists get to keep 80 of those 99 cents. If a few major musicians band together and create something like that, many more will follow. Janis Ian are you listening? The catch is that the artists who have already signed their rights away to the labels in perpetuity will never have this option. The most often heard piece of advice for new artists negotiating contracts is "get a lawyer!"
--Mike
You could do like me and only listen to bands that make full CDs of good music.
Oh, I'm sorry. I'll change my musical tastes today so I stop liking songs unless I like EVERY song by that artist on that album.
Sometimes, I like a pop song. I don't want the album, but one track may catch my ear. And how exactly do you know beforehand? What happens when a band you like releases a third album with a poor track? Do you throw it away?
Your post just sounds haughty. Not all people only like music that comes as "one full serving".
Nahh,
I want to go to their site, listen to the music, then "order" a custom-made CD with 15-18 WAV tracks with the track titles I choose from the "extensive" library, in the order I wish, delivered to my house, with a nice jewel-case, and an insert with photos and lyrics, delivered in 3 days.
Then I'll pay the 99c per track. Heck, my wife is arranging music for a party. She has a list long like her arm. She would already have ordered 3 CDs like that. Instead, she's scrounging to find the tracks with friends.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Correct, but I'd much rather have a service that works right out of the box and allows what we need/wish/want/do anyway. It's called customer service and customer satisfaction.
I started to make a similar point in a similar story but realized it's not really a fair comparison. Movies make most of their money in the theater run, and DVDs, pay-per-views, premium cable runs and so forth are secondary revenue streams, so the DVD production has been subsidised by the box office income. A music CD production doesn't have any such subsidy I can think of; it's the primary revenue source.
I still believe CDs are way overpriced, though. And I got burned a few times buying a band's CD from hearing one good song on the radio only to find out I paid $15+ for one good song that constantly plays on the radio plus 10 really crappy songs. So I have bought hardly any CDs lately. I'll only buy if I know there are several songs I like.
Oh boy, I can see it now. They'll disable the songs that people actually want to hear and let you burn the CD fillers. Yay!
make it a dollar per track, but I'm licensed to use that track for my entire lifetime, in whatever current music format is popular, that way I don't have to re-buy the song for my 8-track, cassette, LP and MP3 players.
That's what the current model does. A 10-track disc costs $10, and under the Betamax precedent, you can copy it to whatever writable medium is popular at any time.
let me mix and burn my own music without the need of my own PC
Mix your own music without a PC? How are you supposed to do beat-matched crossfaded transitions between songs? Yes, I do that on my own mix discs, even of rock music.
And why does a CD with one hour of audio (which cost thousands of dollars to produce) cost as much as a DVD
A soundtrack album (or any other CD for that matter) is as expensive as the movie because unlike the movie, you can play an CD in your car, in the kitchen, in your pocket player while jogging. Unlike a movie, a recording doesn't demand your full attention. Thus, you play it more often.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I give up!!!
You kids are killing me. For ages you have been complaining about not beeing able to do this or not beeing able to do that. Finally when the industry puts out a model where you can actually buy the music YOU like, for a given price (we can ofcourse discuss if it should be 99 cents or 90 cents or 80...), you all start screaming "Bloody Murder!"
What will the industry have to do to satisfy you whiners? Pay you to download and burn a track to CD?
I'm getting sick and tired of your downright stupid comments. Give the industry a chance, give them feed-back. Say that 99 cents is too much, but don't expect them to give away the music for free. They are not in the P2P busines, but in the music business to MAKE money, not for charity.
If you can't afford to buy music by paying 99 cents a track, get an education, then get a job that pays you enough to download the music. Personally, I have no problems paying the charge, $20 is less than what I make an hour after taxes and other deductions.
Get a life, get a jobe! Pay for the stuff you enjoy, don't steal!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
You are absolutely right in saying that the record companies are not in the charity business. But, they aren't in the music business either. They are dead weight. Outlived. Dinosaurs. They are trying their damndest to carve out a job for themselves.
But, the truth is that we (the listeners and creators) of music don't need them any more. They are just trying real hard to be the middleman. I won't support their hair-brained schemes.
Some guy in the 1890's used to have the market cornered for buggy-whips. But, he was no longer needed and his source of income disappeared. The record companies (as they exist now) will be gone before you know it!
I buy music. I support local bands. And, I support artists who allow me to sample their music in non-proprietary formats (like OGG or MP3). And, I buy music from artists who sell directly. There is no need for me to give my money to the RIAA.
The Betamax case says absolutely nothing about media-shifting, only time-shifting.
The Betamax case (Sony v. Universal) states in specific that time-shifting is not infringement. It also states in general that devices can have substantial non-infringing uses, as the Supreme Court outlined in what came to be called the "Betamax Test".
Now if you had mentioned the Diamond case, you might have a point.
Wasn't the Diamond case decided on the "Betamax Test" of substantial non-infringing use? But anyway, thanks for the pointer. Now I can use both Betamax and Diamond against those who try to argue anti-emulation and anti-homebrew positions.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I agree -- I want a micropayment style service. I would prefer to set up an account and not pay a subscription fee. Then, if I download 15 songs in a month, I'll get a one time charge of ~$15 at the end of the month.
I've been one of the people saying over and over that if I could reliably download a legal MP3 for $0.99, I would much prefer that over P2P. But, as a general rule, I would not pay $9.95 or $14.95 a month for the right to do so
I *might* consider it if I got 10 or 15 downloads "free" per month, but even then I don't want to enter into a commitment contract (not even a "cancel at any time" one).
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
I have a sinking feeling this is not going to benefit the artists monetarily at all. The companies are probably going to say something like "Well, it's not the whole album, and it's not a single, it's BARC(Big-ass Record Company) sampler, so you don't really get royalties for it" or something equally lame...