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Six Giant Music Retailers Will Try Online Sales Together
PingXao writes "The New York Times is reporting that several music retailers are banding together to test online sales. Sad to see the article's author flat-out claim that '... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.' The retailers are starting to get a clue but still have a long way to go as evidenced by 'Recording companies make the music...' and 'We are in the customer relationship business.'"
Of course, who else would provide us with all this kewl DRM content ?
Then again, they may just want to "give it a shot" before submitting to DRM technologies... I bet the switch is not going to be cheap for them, either.
So if the question is, if those labels happen to make a good buck selling inline, will they bury DRM ?
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Sad to see the article's author flat-out claim that '... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.'
Why is that sad? It's probably true to a degree. The good news is that these companies are trying to embrace a new distribution model. What's sad is that they may not be successful when a 100% free alternative exists with as much consumer perceived add-value to the product.
Obviously, I don't agree with the motivations of the music companies. But I DO think it's cool that we have this ongonig *technical* struggle...the DRM arms race.
Again, I hate the music companies, but seeing the clevarness go back and forth is great to watch. I hope I can get in on it personally some day.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
The retailers are starting to get a clue but still have a long way to go as evidenced by 'Recording companies make the music...' and 'We are in the customer relationship business.'"
The silly demonizing of the record companies is really getting counter productive. In a strict sense, of course, the recording companies don't "make" the music (of course the artists do, but under contract), just like software companies don't "make" the software (their programmers do, under contract), and just like home-building companies don't "make" the homes (the construction workers do also under employment contract).
But it is a useful shorthand to say all of the above. Without the record companies the vast majority of songs that get traded so happily on P2P networks would never have made it to rippable CDs in the first place (as an aside, I always found the usage of the term "rip" in this context to be somewhat revealing).
And the poster's implied distinction between the record companies and the people who "made" the music suggests that the artists are uniformly against the record companies and their efforts in this area. P2P advocates are being flat-out chauvinistic if they think that all artists - or maybe even a majority - disagree with the RIAA's stands. It irks me when I see a few artists' views trotted out with the implicit assumption that their views are representative...what's the real big picture ?
To be sure, there is a vocal group, but I wonder whether they're getting disproportionate press precisely because they're arguing something more controversial - you never hear about Metallica complaining about P2P anymore, because it's just boring and it seems obvious.
Has anyone conducted polls of major artists to see where they stand and how they feel about the RIAA ? I'm not talking about disenfranchised had-their-day-in-the-sun-more-than-a-decade-ago artists (*cough*Janis Ian*cough*) and I'm not talking about little independent artists who probably secretly would *love* to get a big record deal if they could - what about a survey of artists in the Billboard 100, or artists with the best selling CDs in the last 10 years, or the top 100 artists traded on Kazaa/Gnutella...or some other reasonably objective criteria that defines a sample of artists under contract to record companies represented by theRIAA ?
What is needed here is hard, representative statistics, not agenda-laden anecdotes that fit whatever story happens to be convenient with the story-teller's philosophy.
Any proof? I have not seen any closing stores yet, but I have seen an OPENING one (due in a month). If they close 107 stores and open 108, that's not quite the same as just closing 107 stores...
The average cost of a compact disc, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group which represents recording companies, is $14.21.
What is the average cost of a DVD? An audio tape? judging by the prices, the audio tape costs much less on average, yet it's the same music...?
The 25% decline in industry output, the economy, the specifics of the offerings, the collusively illegal prices, the wide variety of other available choices for purchase, the ubiquity of music available free on MTV, these are all bothersome and distracting. And "reporting" can tire one out.
I remember purchasing music from cdnow thinking i was getting an mp3 file i could later burn to a cd, only to find out (after the fact) the music was in this liquid audio format where the "recommended" player was liquid audio player (which i believe was the only player). It also claimed the song was only playable from 1 computer and was crippled in such a way that I had to do an analog rip of the song from one of my computers to the other. My point is that if they are going to be successful they have to be MORE convenient that file sharing programs. And not just by having easily downloadable mp3s, but an easier interface, more reliability, and faster downloads, etc...
The major American motion picture studios are doing better financially than the major American record labels partly because a movie often pays for its production at the box office alone, whereas a record has no box office at all, except for motion picture soundtracks.
Solution: Make music videos for all songs on an album. Interweave them with a cheap plot, and turn them into a movie. (I'm thinking like Moonwalker but hopefully better written.) Release the movie theatrically on the Friday before the album comes out. Then, after a few weeks in the box office, put the videos into MTV's heavy rotation.
This should be easy enough for Sony, Warner, and Universal, who own both a record label and a movie studio. It may not work for Bertelsmann and EMI, who don't have major U.S. movie holdings.
If I am talking out of my rear end, please explain to me in polite language why this wouldn't work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Indeed, plenty of good songs are on bad CDs. It would be nice if you could make compilation CDs with the individual tracks you want - preferably made in a local kiosk. That way they could cost less, and they would have just what you want. Ideally, you could also call the local music store, buy one over the phone and drop in to pick it up.
Downloading songs allows me to be sure about buying a CD before I do - I've wasted money on plenty of "One Hit" CDs that I never listen to.
Buying online, if available per song with a *slight* discount for a complete album, could prompt me to buy music more. The convenience it a big factor.
And even if it's set up in a DRM environment, if the sound is high-fidelity (better be if it's locked out - should be anyway) I can encode an MP3 on a second computer (maybe even the same one) and use it elsewhere.
Of course, they have to keep in mind that it's very easy to make the switch back to file-sharing if things go badly.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
The best thing bands can do today is to put up a website with free downloads of all their songs. Beside each song have a recommended donation price ($1 to $3 per track) - with a paypal link so folks who appreciate your work can pay.
Then, get out there and tour - pay your dues every weekend to promote your music and your website. You're not here to get rich quick - you are here because you love the music.
~~~
The best thing music lovers can do is start donating to these pioneering indy bands - and stop buying CDs - unless it is absolutely worth it (and I don't consider much new music produced in the past 5 years worth it - with a few exceptions).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Nobody talks about this, so I just thought that I'd point out the rats nest that is publishing rights. For an online service to be legal, one needs both copyrights and publishing rights. Copyright for most works is held by the members of the RIAA. The similar organization for publishing rights is called Harry Fox Agency. However, Harry Fox has thousands of members and they are all very small. If you want to make a legal online service, you have to get written authorization from these Harry Fox members. However, the lack of coordination and technology at Harry Fox makes this almost impossible. It is extremely diffucult to get this permission because they don't know who owns the publishing rights, or are unable to contact the owners for many songs.
This is why even services like pressplay and musicnet do not have a very good selection. For background, see this article where Universal lost a lawsuit when it was sued by the publishers when they attempted to put music that they owned the copyright for online.
If individual songs were priced around a nickel (5 cents US) and album prices were a dollar or less online music sales would be a success and the companies involved might actually make more and not less money.
There is a precedent for this type of scenario. Remember Compuserve in the late 80s and early 90s ? It had several hundred thousand members and charged $6 and $12 per hour for access. Remember what happened when Netcom introduced the $20 per month flat rate plan ?
I realize that given the greed of the current music "industry" leaders this won't happen soon, but besides that does anybody think it *wouldn't* work and solve most of the "piracy" problems if it was given a chance ? Compuserve always said their prices were a bargain and no one could do it for less also.