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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".
Problem is the cost. 99c x 10 tracks still comes pretty damn close to the cost of a regular cd. Sure you get to cut the worthless songs but even then the prices match the store prices. This is not far enough a benefit to make it a sustainable venture. The music industry probably makes more money since now they dont have to sell any material (forego shipping/manufacturing/stocking etc).
Do you need to subscribe to one of their monthly plans first? This could cost you an additional 9.95/mo or 4.95/mo depending on the package they make you buy. $0.99 per track doesn't seem like such a good price anymore...
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"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."
You know, a couple of years ago when this started to heat up, I would have been the first customer in line to use this service in order to prove that I'm willing to be legit about music. When they started doing things like proposing the SSSCA and accusing Apple of promoting piracy, they made me mad. So now my attitude is 'screw them'.
Am I being rational? Not really. Consider this my way of saying "I want the RIAA to apologize to Apple for their accusations, and to all of us legit consumers who were never given a chance to show their good will." I doubt that'll happen. Hopefully I'll grow up one day. heh.
Why $0.99 per song? That seems excessively high to me. I mean, most new CDs here with, say, ten songs on them sell for $14 Canadian (around $8.50 U.S.) while even non-new CDs rarely retail over $17 (about $10.50). It seems to me that this company doesn't provide the same nice CD inserts and the like so really, shouldn't they be charging less? Also, I am assuming they provide you with the uncompressed music burnt onto a custom CD for you. If it is MP3 and/or you download it yourself, $0.20 or so seems more reasonable. And yes, I would pay that. Perhaps a little more, say $0.25 or $0.30, for uncompressed music burnt or pressed onto a CD and sent to you.
Secondly, how much of this money goes to the artist? On the assumption that $1.00 of each regular CD goes to the artist, I would expect to see about $0.10 from each track be paid directly to the artist. Yes, that's while I'm paying approximately $0.20 per track. I don't want to pay per track if the artist simply will not see any revenue whatsoever from this. At least if I buy a CD, there's a chance the artist will see some profit from me.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Nice concept... but may not fly outside of the US. Say, 15 tracks would cost $30.00 NZD (New Zealand). You can buy the whole CD for cheaper than that.
As a few people have already mentioned this; when is the record industry going to realize that the product they are trying to sell isn't worth the money when compared to other items you can buy.
...
For example, on Amazon.com you can buy Mariah Carey's Glitter cd for 13.28
Even if you're a die hard Mariah fan, there are really only one or two tracks that made it onto the charts. Not to mention that two of the songs on the CD are the same, where one is just a remix.
Compare this to the The Lord of the Rings for 17.97.
Hrm.. a cd that probably was thrown together in a month [free nervous break down included] compared to a movie, like LOTR, which I won't even begin to comment on how magnificiently it was created.
Add in the fact that it would take about 10 minutes to download and create your own glitter cd for free. Unless you're buying this as a gift, most people would just download the one or two popular songs and be done with it. Currently, it's a huge pain in the ass to download avi files. It's easier just to buy the dvd.
Anyways, the worst part about this post is now Amazon is reminding me on the left hand side that I looked at the Glitter cd. If it starts recommending
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[trying to sign up for trial] "Please upgrade your browser. In order to register for Rhapsody, you must use one of the following browsers: Internet Explorer 5.0, or newer Netscape 6.0, or newer (Please note: In order to use Rhapsody, you will need Internet Explorer 5.0 or newer.) Get the latest version of Internet Explorer Get the latest version of Netscape"
They still don't get it
It's just more for less. A step in the right direction, but still somewhat disappointing.
What do I mean?
It's simple. $0.99 for each song. That's in American dollars so for me that comes to around $2.00 each. Add it up and I'm paying the same as I would if I purchased a new release at the local retailer. This is based on the fact that if I look through my CD collection, they average around $25 - $30 each (new release), with an average of 10-15 songs.
If it's an old release, I'm paying more.
At the same time, the pressing and distribution costs for the distributor have substantially decreased. So it adds up to more profits for their bottom line.
Will that in turn mean more money for the artist? Somehow, I doubt it.
Not having to pay for the album fillers is about the ONLY benefit here I can see. Thing is, for most of the music that I buy, I really don't find to many of them.
Am I being pessimistic?
this is bad. not good. for one simple reason - you are still getting hosed. $.99 is a rip off when you have to pay for the bandwidth, and the materials (blank cd) to make a single track usefull.
.... .99 .30 (guessing)
not to mention the only reason i use p2p is to find non-mainstream non-commercial stuff. if i wanted to listen to some friggin skinny blonde chick sing about her teenage crush i would go buy her CD ! i want indie artists and sampling.
if you dont own the CD how are you supposed to know what you want to download ? pay $.99 per track off the album plus for your bandwidth and the blank CD ? so
15 songs 15 x
1 blank cd 1 x 1.00 (guessing)
bandwidth
= $ 16.15 per CD.
wow that sounds like its STILL A FRIGGIN RIPOFF !
ill give them credit when they come up with a better soulution for ME ! the CUSTOMER. NOT THEM the EVIL MEGA-CORP.
although i will give them credit for trying. albiet a shitty attempt.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
except now you're paying $1 a track, and a full cd will run you about $15-$20, so about the same it costs now... but you're providing the media, and doing the replication yourself. hmm now the price is the same, but now there's no packaging, no shipping, no reproduction costs, no nice art on the CD or case. Sounds to me like they've just figured out how to keep the cost the same and totally cut their overhead resulting in larger profits for RIAA. If it's costing that much less, why isn't that saving passed on to the consumer? It's not worth the price if you ask me! should be closer to $.25.
Good things never end "eum" they end in "MANIA" or "teria"
This is definitely a step in the right direction. The business model is going to need a few tweaks, however. There should be a "per album" price ($10?) that is never higher than the retail price. Some albums contain filler tracks (jokes, skits, etc.) that aren't worth a dollar each. Regardless, I would like to buy - some - entire albums without having to filter this stuff out beforehand.
Also, tracks for burning should be available a la carte. I should not have to pay $10 a month for the RIGHT to buy tracks at 99 cents each.
The CD burning implementation needs to be flexible and work well. Ideally, they should write a plugin for Nero, Easy CD Creator and whatever you Linux guys use to burn CDs. You would download the track in some protected format and then burn it from your local machine. You cannot stream a track over the Internet while burning it. It just won't work.
I can think of 2 reasons:
1. Existing p2p networks are slow and unreliable. I hate getting half way through a download only for the guy at the other end to disconnect from the network
2. The quality of rips varies *wildly*
Yes, it's a model that adapts to modern times... But that's not why Warner and Universal have signed on. With CDRW drives all but standard with new computers and CD burning so popular, offering this (which is priced to compete with CDs, not CDRs) won't put an end to home CD burning. And they know it.
To me, it looks like these two giants are making a small investment now so that if and when Palladium and trusted security prevents the average non-techie home Windows user from burning his or her own CDs, Warner and Universal will have ready a business model and the associated infrastructure capable of filling the ensuing vacuum. Then it's just sit back and reap the rewards.
The angel in the oatmeal.
I'm wondering what stops someone from doing this exact same thing for 1/5th of the price from a country that does not respect the United States intellectual properties laws.
My
Limekiller
I did some figuring out of curiosity ....
From a price point of view that's about $120/yr so you can burn songs for 99 cents a piece.
The average list price for a CD is US$18.98 including the tracks you want and don't want. Let's say about 10 songs per CD, then I'm paying $1.90 per song off the shelf. From the subscription service, if I purchase 10 songs per month then I will be paying $19.85 for that month (close to the same cost of a retail CD).
Consider that Amazon often discounts CDs. On average an Amazon CD will cost about $14.99 ($1.50 per song based on 10 songs). In this case you only have to burn 5 songs per month to make up the equivalent off-the-shelf Amazon price. Not bad.
Of course the more you burn per month (beyond these numbers) the more money you save compared to shelf prices.
And you can't beat the listenting pleasure of hand-picked music. That's worth a whole lot more.
If the music industry wants my money, here's what they need to do. I want an online/kiosk service where I can choose from every song ever recorded, arrange them in the order I'd like them to appear on my CD, and pay 25-50 cents per track. The CD would either be burned on the spot at the kiosk, or delivered to me in the mail at home, complete with liner notes with all the lyrics for each song, and the option of including MPEGs of the applicable music videos so that I could watch them on my computer. There is not a single technological reason today why this couldn't be done, and I think most people would agree that it's a pretty reasonable business model. Heck, go one step farther, and 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. Let's also do away with the traditional album format of 3-4 good songs, and 10 songs of crap, let me mix and burn my own music without the need of my own PC, and give me something (liner notes, lyrics, videos, & cover art) that I can't easily produce on my own. And, while we're on the subject, why does a CD cost more than a cassette, though cassettes cost more for the record labels to produce? And why does a CD with one hour of audio (which cost thousands of dollars to produce) cost as much as a DVD, filled with several hours of video AND audio that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce? If the record companies and artists can't make a profit at the price I'm proposing, then they deserve to fail.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
No, no, no, and no. As far as I can tell, that's not how it works. If you want an MP3, you'll have to go to a filesharing program. If you want to buy music from them, you'll have to (1) run windows, and (2) download their proprietary bloatware player.
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
I'm happily pay for music (or movies or tv shows or books) I might download, but the details have to be acceptable.
These aren't difficult requirements to meet it seems to me, except by panicy and sluggish business entities that can't read the writing on the wall.
--
bachiatari na torisetsu o yome!
One "set charge per track" will break in a lot of ways.
Yeah, but it's the law. In the USA, a songwriter gets a fixed 8 cent cut per song five minutes or less in duration. (The royalty increases with the duration of the composition.) The songwriter typically splits the royalties 50/50 with a publisher, meaning that on a typical album with twelve songs, the songwriter gets just under half a buck a disc.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Whos is this mysterious "they" you are referring to. Independent artists have nothing to do with the RIAA. They can distribute their music any way they like if they hold the copyright.
Vote for Pedro
Or the music industry could stop pushing 1-hit-wonders at us, and make a killing by signing *real* professional musicians (like the Dave Matthews Band for instance) who make far more money by touring than selling albums; these instead of Miss Britany, who in reality can't sing to save her life.
Until then, I'll just continue to D/L and burn that one catchy song that from an album that cost RIAA members a fortune to engineer and produce, and they'll make no money from me.
I think it's going to be the latter for a good long time, though I look forward to the day it's the former.
Right on -- at 25 cents per high-bitrate MP3, it's not worth my while to chase the same song all over the net. At 50 cents -- well, I'd restrict my use to cuts I'm already sure I can't live without *and* can't find on a used CD somewhere else.
Additionally, let me browse the catalog before I sign up, so I know whether there's even anything in it that I want, and offer low-bitrate (64k mono is fine) free samples, so I can check out stuff I've never heard of.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If they supported my iPod, and I was even forced to download directly to the iPod and not even keep a copy of it on the computer, I'd be very happy.
Don't they realize that the people who will sign up for this service are the cutting edge music-listeners, the ones that will probably own an mp3 player and not a discman for their portable music needs?
...is something that I would pay for. The idea of being able to pay for music that I would enjoy is very appealing to me. My main reason for not buying a CD is that I have to pay for one or two songs that I would actually enjoy listening to as well as eighteen or nineteen that I would never listen to in my life.
Some people have commented that $0.99 per song is too much to pay, but I think that's preopsterous! Compare $0.99 per enjoyable song to $10.00 per enjoyable song (assuming that you like two songs on the disc you purchase).
Although I'm sorry to say it, however, I don't think I would pay even for this, good idea though it is. The reason for that is simply that I have very fickle taste in music... my $10 or $20 investment might, in as little time as a month, seem completely foolish to me.
What strikes me as most interesting is that the record labels were willing to work with this site on this issue. They must be getting rather desperate for any money they can get. Food for thought, eh?
Okay, that song you've been toying with a bit gets recorded. Its ok, not ideal. But if you spend another week in the studio, you're paying even MORE for the time and your contract says this will be ready to be mastered by next week.
You're not proud of it, but it's good enough to slide in between tracks 6 and 8.
It happens. Really.
Bad is when you have 4 - 6 songs like that.
The grateful dead cut side two of an album up into several tracks to meet warner brothers contracts requiring "n tracks" per album.
Music and law meld as well as music and big business.
Why?
Cause there was something like 1 CD burning plant in the hemisphere. Costs were high. Understood.
Since then (1984?) costs have plunged. The entire cost of the CD, case, liner notes, etc. is around $0.80. Art work might be a little more, but CD's are too small to really have good art.
So record companies rake it in. Artists don't get any more money with the overhead being down, they just bend over and hope the record companies have KY.
Now the companies want to remove the case, the artwork, and everything but the raw bits from the equation. Yeah, someone pays for bandwidth. 1 cost after the master is burned.
And the prices are higher per song that most CDs.
F*ck that. Give me a decent indie band and I'll Paypal them a quarter per song and the artists will make far more money per song than they would in the "big leagues".
I'd also do the micropayment model that's been around:
Everytime I listen to a song, the artist gets 1/4 cent from me.
When my account is dry, I can't listen to the song anymore.
Hows that?
>But can you do it for songs for which the band has not released a music video?
:-) (Depending on what you're meaning -- this is an Audio only DVD with only 1 or 2 static images per song).
:-)
My "Blue Man Group" DVD would say so.
>And, for movie soundtracks, can you remove the dialogue when the actors speak over the soundtrack?
Yeah! Alternate audio is a huge feature of the DVD format. There's no reason you can't have a soundtrack track, and a soundtrack+speaking track, etc, etc. Unfortunately I don't DVD supports mixing the tracks, though.
Multiple angles would be the best way of dealing with the no-music-video problem... Daft Punk did an OK job of using multiple angles, but unfortunately not as I'd like.
I've yet to see a DVD fully take advantage of the features available with DVD, though.
>If catering to the "three second gap between songs" crowd is enough to turn a decent profit, why add more features?
Good point, but as someone who DJs for fun on College radio, I'm really starting to hate all these continuous mix CDs that are coming out. One or two are good for when you need a break, but not everything.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
"That's what the current model does. A 10-track disc costs $10..."
No it will cost you $20, becauase you can only burn 10 tracks per month. $1 per track plus $10 per month. They also have a $5 per month service, but the previews are only 30 second clips.