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Downloaded Music Gets More Expensive
Reverberant writes "Just as the online music market is starting to gain traction, what to music execs want to do? Why, raise prices, of course! Under consideration is raising the price of online singles up to $1.25 to $2.49, or bundling less desirable tracks with hot singles."
Most albums have 0-1 decent songs on them. I wouldn't mine paying for single songs from albums like that. If the album is decent all the way through, I am going to jsut buy the CD.
Geez louise! That's exactly the problem with CD distribution in the first place! They still want me to believe I need to spend over $ 16 bucks on a disc that I know damn well cost them only $ 0.40 to manufacture and distro. Even with a couple bucks to the artist and the studio, it's overpriced. Then, I have to buy 12 or more songs, of which I'm only ever going to like about 3. Which is why I want my iTunes and MP3s in the first place. I like to be able to take even my legitimately purchased music and reduce it to the set of what *I* want to listen to. Isn't that my right as a consumer? Oh, and let me pick the medium to do it, whether that's my PC, my iPod, or a CD mix I burn for the car...
(and maybe also first post?)
Ich suche die Leidenschaft, die keine Leiden schafft.
Of course the industry wants to bundle bad tracks with good, or to raise the price-- if people just buy what they want, it wrecks their whole business model of investing heavily in a few "artists" and making sure they make it-- if people just listen to the few tracks of the few artists they like, not enough money will be flowing through the system for the execs to skim the requisite off the top. CD sales would go down, and... oh wait ;)
--
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
They want to charge what the market will bear, so as participants in that market we should refuse to bear their prices.
Trying to get me to buy a cd or downloaded music for anything other then $10 when DVDs are loaded with tons of extra for only $15 or so.
Daily Shenanigans
Umm...Wasn't one of Apple's guidelines that you can't sell a single for more than $.99, or an album for more than the price of the singles?
I don't care if OSX IS Unix-based. He just lost MAJOR cool points with me.
(Like he REALLY listens to what I have to say anyway...)
As long as there's high demand, one keeps raising prices. Why should music be any different from anything else?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
From the article, it's stated that only one album is at $16.99. Sure, it's a popular album, but it's only one album. And although another handful or so are at the more expensive cost of twelve or thirteen dollars, the vast majority of the albums are at the ten dollar mark. The chances that consumers are going to like an increase in the price of singles is highly doubtful. If we have to, we would only grudgingly.
As for me, I continue to use my Pepsi caps to score free music. Pepsi, not Apple, has gotten my money for music.
These record companies are getting absolutely sickening. I mean, the legitimate file sharing companies are making next to no profit thanks to the already high licensing fees from the RIAA. Prices for legitimate songs off these networks is close to the same as buying the CD even though the overhead for distribution is much less, and now they want to raise prices. Keep it up RIAA, can't wait to see your sales go down by another 7% next year.
Is there ANYONE at the top of the music industry who has a clue? Consumers get a chance to get choices and pay half-decent prices. So what does the industry do? Take away the choices (the whole reason why people we're moving to online music) and raise the prices! They want to take away every reason to buy things online. They act like jerks to customers, customers demand something better, something better comes, the industry tries to change it to treat customers like jerks.
What a winning business strategy. QUICK! Call Donald Trump and tell him the great idea!.
Does anyone else get the feeling that music industry execs don't listen to any music? How else could they be so radically out of touch with what they are doing to consumers?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I wish that the RIAA would "get it". Their sibling organization, the MPAA, has at least realised that if the merchandise is inexpensive enough, people will buy it, despite their objections on DRM (region codes) and forced things like the startup commercials. I don't like what the MPAA did to try to get DeCSS, but their products are cheap enough that I feel that I'm getting my money's worth by buying them.
The RIAA charges as much for a CD as the MPAA for a movie. I don't feel that this is worthwhile, and thus I don't buy music, while I'll buy a DVD once a month. There's no reason to charge more than $10 for a regular CD. $17.99 is just ridiculous to expect from someone for twelve songs, with only two of those being particularly memorable.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
don't buy the garbage that major record labels force feed the american public. 99% of it is putrid, recycled shite that won't be worth the plastic it's burned on six months from now. Support local bands and independent record labels (although beware of them, many major labels buy indie labels now to hawk their bullshit). Stop lining the pockets of record exec wankers and put the money back into the hard working musicians pocket.
I remmeber a while back, when itunes was relatively new, there was an article that detailed a good many of the restrictions places on people who wanted to publish on itunes. two of those were $1 a song and, more importantly, no picking and choosing which songs were available for download. the whole shebang, or nothing.
:)
w a/ viewAlbum?playlistId=1324726
I now see a lot of albums with only a few songs available for download, and some saying "album only". go look up shakira's new one (if only to see shakira, she's a hottie
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
...Usenet?
Have their prices gone up? They used to have a really good deal on singles, as well as complete albums. I haven't shopped there in a while.
lets give more money to the RIAA so that they can sue people. Now I know artists need to be reimbursed and all, but this is exactly why I won't buy any music online unless it's directly from the artist.
JtK
If this is not price fixing, then I don't know what is... FTC, where are you ?
The Raven
But where is Apple making their coin? On selling hardware or the music download service?
selling hardware, and gaining mindshare
It's this kind of attitude that causes businesses to lose market share. If they raise their price a couple bucks but lose a quarter of their market, they break even, but leave a bad taste in the customer's mouth. Then, rather than having them look around for more stuff to buy, they just avoid buying things.
I really think the music industry is shooting itself in the foot by charging so much money and taking legal action against file swappers. The majority of my friends still bought CD's after Napster came into use, but now they've started boycotting the RIAA because they are leading an assault against our personal freedom. Personally, I buy used, and don't hesitate to get anything off the Internet that I wouldn't ask a friend to let me borrow and make a copy of. I don't think it's right to get new music for free if you like the band, but I don't think it's right to feed the RIAA at this point, hence the used CDs.
And once I get some free time, I'll look into the indie bands. There are a few I like now, but I haven't been able to afford tickets or CDs for quite some time now.
Really... The music industry (specifically the RIAA) still does not get it! They're obviously still working under the old school sales book of "find something consumers want, and as soon as they show they're willing to pay for it, raise the price".
Their business model is probably a slight variation of the typical "Underwear Gnomes" theory, and goes something like this...
1. Introduce new music/artists which sound and look very similar to other acts you've succesfully promoted
2. Drop newly signed artists if their debut record sales don't top the sales of existing signed acts
3. As soon as the listening audience shows interest in anything being promoted, immediately mass-market it to the point where they're all sick of it (Thus insuring that 90% of the signed acts out there never release a succesfull sophmore album due to the over-saturation of their 1st)
4. As people begin to get sick of the oversaturation, begin to crank up prices to try and suck as much as possible from the remaining buyers
5. As sales continue to dwindle off, spend enormous amounts of money tying to find a scape goat to point the finger at, rather than
a. spend that money on R&D to improve the company's operations
b. spend it on signing better, more original acts.
c. Trying to figure out what consumers really want
6. Sue, and threaten to sue anyone who markets or trades music in any way outside of the usual channels established by said music industry. Above all, DO NOT let the established monopoly change
7. Continue to charge more to those who are honest and continue to pay for their music. Blame the increase on the scape goats established in step 5
8. Repeat
As the saying goes, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
There were practical reasons to justify the existence of b-sides, the most prominent one being that vinyl in fact had a b-side, something might as well by pressed there, and the person buying the single mostly just wanted the single.
And people bought singles. IIRC, singles were of a higher quality than LPs. Also, people often wanted, and only had enough money, for the single. Many were willing to wait for the LP to go on the used rack
The interesting thing is that in the pre p2p days, there was much talk that singles were the cause of the declining record sales. The labels claimed that people were buying singles instead of albums, which was likely true, but in that case we were actually paying money for music. The labels did not like that money and began to try to limit the availability of singles.
Which bring us to today and the current evil of p2p. One reason we do not legally license music(as we no longer are allowed to purchase it) is that the music is just not there. There are many tunes for which I have to download album for 10 bucks. I often buy the used cd for 7 or 8 bucks. Often the desired track is widely available. Just as often I can run off a copy from a friend. The labels need to just let Apple sell tracks for a buck. People are buying them. It solves a bunch of problems. All this other crap is just unneccesary jacking with market.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The idea that a copyright owner can charge what ever they want for the use of their property is lost on some people.
With all due respect, I think you miss the point a little. I do not think most people here saying free as free beer, but free as liberty.
For some reason, big business is dirty for wanting to profit on their IP
There is no problem that big companies make big money if they do it on the field of fair competition. However, what constitudes property ?
Property is either a constitutional or natural right, or it is granted by society for the benefit of society. In case of IP, there is no natural right for IP. Until the Gutenberg press nobody ever calim copyright on anything. And because of the Gutenberg press the English crown first introduced a copyright law. Interestingly not to protect the IP of somebody, but to protect the crown from libale as they saw it.
Therefore why is IP protected and how should it be ?
In the US contitution Congress is authorized to make law to protect inventions and writings if it help for progress of sciences and useful arts. This is the only reason to grant such monopolies as copyrights and patents.
Most IP today would never mustard that test. However, what does this test mean. It asks the question if innovation is raised or society benefits in other ways by the grant of such a monopoly. While one can probably discuss forever if strict IP control is good or bad, or free IP is better or worse, nobody has a natural right to IP. If somebody has this right than it was granted by society in the form of laws, and it should be to the benefit of society and not only to a few like in a feudal system in the medieval ages...
The interesting question starts now, how can this be achieved. And btw. it has nothing to do with socialism v. capitalism. Both models fight who serves the people in a better way. At the end the question for me is over control v. freedom
Is there a Darwin Award for business and companies?
If not - Why not?
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
This proves that P2P isnt a problem and all the RIAA is doing is trying to keep it self around. I mean if piracy isnt a problem why do we need the RIAA wouldnt the member companies stop tithing money to them and they would dry up? If p2p file shareing or other forms of so called 'piracy' was a real problem how could the music industry afford to raise prices or pull other marketing tricks to screw consumers? If p2p was a real choice and real competition then the labels would be cutting prices and trying to do everything they could to stop it via market forces. Instead we have the situtation where they are trying to milk extra fees.
If you buy a couple of singles off an album, you might as well buy the whole damned thing.
Its just a marketing ploy to get people to buy albums again.. to get them away from the attitude of just getting mp3's...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They didn't release single songs because there was no competition - because the record companies colluded to raise prices and control their supply chain. The only reason they started releasing single songs is because if they didn't, their market would download what they wanted for free. Most people would rather get their music legitimately than not, but they aren't willing to swallow crap to do so. So now, the music industry has a model that allows customers to get what they want legally, thus negating many of the reasons why people use P2P to get music.
The problem is that the music industry got rich by giving people what the music industry wanted them to have, charging what they could for it, and colluding to prevent others from undercutting them. The music industry didn't have to listen to its customers because they had nowhere else to go. Now, customers want music how they want it, because if they don't get it, they can go online and copy it for free - a few would have done this anyway, but now the widespread frustration with the music industry and their pricing drove many more to do so. If the music industry moves to restore the album model to online music, they will simply succeed at driving people back to copying music via Kazaa, etc.., with the consequent improvement in technology making infringers harder to catch.
You're correct - they don't get it, because they colluded, and so never had to listen to the people to whom they sold music. Now they have no choice but to listen to their market, otherwise they'll get robbed blind. The music industry wants to go back to the days of blissful ignorance when they could do what they want and their customers would buy whatever they sold; they're hoping that "trusted computing" and upload restrictions by Internet providers will bring it back for them. The problem is, people are angry, and now they know it, and they know that they can do something about it. The music industry can't unring the bell, no matter how hard they try. Once people know that they have power, they won't go back to being consumers without a fight. The record companies are closing their eyes and hoping that their problems go away, when all that's going to go away is their market.
I agree that music reviews have their worth, but one mans trash is another mans treasure. I don't want to trust someone else's opinion of a CD and use that opinion to base my purchasing habits. I want to listen to the entire CD, as I do when I buy a new CD, and then decide if I want to pay for it.
Downloading mp3's allows me to do this, and I will most definately purchase a CD that I feel is good enough to buy. If it turns out that I only like 1 song, I'll just keep the copy I downloaded and delete the others.
Hopefully the music industry will realize that putting out 1 good song and 11 other crappy songs just doesn't work. I refuse to buy all that fodder to get one song.
I'll enjoy seeing them squirm even more, harping to the newpapers that their sales are declining due to evil pirates.
You laugh, but that's exactly what they'll do - some soulless marketroid will be quoted "Even with the advent of legal downloading, we're still seeing MILLIONS of copies of our property being traded illegaly. These people claim to be motivated by the convenience factor, but this just proves that they're a bunch of freeloaders."
Basically, i can see how this decision was made: "What do you mean they're only buying *some* of the songs? They can't just buy some of the songs, they have to buy all the songs, dammit." What is it about these guys, were they dipped in clue-be-gone when they were young? When somebody goes this far out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot, you just gotta wonder.
It'll be interesting to see how this stuff plays in Europe - legal dowloading is just starting up (nowhere near US levels despite a common currency and market) and the EU usually takes a dim view of these kinds of practices. Meanwhile, i suggest the RIAA just get to the point: use all that lobbying firepower to have congress declare an RIAA tax so they can take their pound of flesh right out of people's paychecks without having to worry about the whole "music" thing. Maybe then they'd shut up for a while?
#!/usr/bin/english
I haven't bought a new CD in almost 2 years.
Nothing on the radio is worth spending that much
money on a CD. I bought a satellite radio receiver
over a year ago, and I can't tell you the last time
I even listened to the CD's I have. with over 60 commercial free music channels, talk, news etc, there is always something on to listen to. For me, it is definately worth ten bucks a month. If for anything else, NOT having to listen to those annoying automobile commercials LOL
Why do people try to equate movie DVDs to music CDs this way? It's such a flawed comparison. Here are two big reasons why (and I'm sure there are others):
1. A movie will have made money at the box office; DVD sales are just gravy on top of that. Music isn't sold to you twice this way, you buy it on CD and that's it.
2. You'll get far more use out of a CD than you will a DVD. Think how many times you've listened to your favourite albums. Now think how many times you've watched your favourite films. Unless you're the sort of fool who wastes half his/her life watching Star Wars, Titanic or Grease every week then there's no comparision. With music, you get far more bang for your buck.
Please, stop trying to compare two totally different forms of entertainment in such a crude way. Just because they both come on a shiny 5.25 in. disc and they're sold in the same stores that doesn't mean they are equal.
By your rationale, all PC and console software should cost $10-20 too, but I think you're going to be seriously disappointed if you expect the price of new games to come down to that level just so that all the similar-looking shiny round things cost the same at your local mall.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
i stopped buying albums because of the reasons everyone knows:
1) shitty quality, mostly
2) astronomical prices
and now that we give the music industry another chance, they do the same crap again:
1) shitty quality (DRM locked WMAs in low quality); yeah, like i want to bind myself tighter to MS
2) high prices
go for it guys, buy your DRM locked files and pray that the day never comes, when you want to convert your digital music archive to the newest technology.
imagine the picture: your father, trying to get his beloved copy-protectedLP collection converted to CDs. what a waste of money.
and hey, let the industry dictate you on how many devices you may listen to your songs.
in my eyes no industry has least credibility than the music industry. and that's for a damn good reason!
these managers just never learn. they whine because they earn so less, but they have no problem to pay spears/madonna a couple millions. the worst thing is the fact that they want to enforce you how to buy/listen/use the products you buy from them, instead of selling audio files in unlimited copy-mode. i have no problem with purchasing a license, but i want to decice by myself where to listen to it and how many times i copy the track from this device to the other.
But the part that *really* gets me thinking is... How much does it cost to make a movie in comparison to making a CD. That's where things get interesting.
Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions cost approximately 400 million to make (correct me if I'm wrong). It's possible to go out and get both CD's for $30, and possibly less if you shop around.
The most I've heard a CD costing to produce is Korn's Untouchables, running at 1 million (this is still ludicrous to me).
Yes, there are the music videos. Music videos are generally made for the purpose of having people buy that artist's CD. While some bands have creative direction on their music videos, most of them do not. I do NOT see it as creativity. I see it as marketing.
Marketing should *NOT* ultimately factor into how much something *should* cost. Just because a company pours $100 million into a product that costs approximately $1.00 to make, that doesn't mean that item should sell for $17.99. Especially considering that the people who made that product see so little of it coming back to them.
Then there are the bands that still don't get advertised that much. Their albums sell for the same price. WHY? I want more of my money going to the artist, rather than funding Britney Spears' next music video.
In fact, why are there even music videos? I don't care how an artist looks. And I won't buy a CD from an artist just because "they're hot".
Thank you.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I'm afraid the answer was price fixing, but thanks for playing. DVDs have much less stringent price controls, so nothing prevents a retailer from undercutting their competition. The same is unfortunately untrue of music distribution. You're also forgetting that they do sell the same music several times to you. I've seen people with the same album on vinyl, cassette and CD, and they'll probably get whatever next format comes out. There's no excuse for price fixing, and the music industry needs to get bitch-slapped by the FTC in a major way.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Examples: If you paid admission to a nightclub, some of that money goes to satisfy ASCAP / BMI. That money goes to all the members, even the musicians you hate. Hate rap? Well, too bad, you just kissed their ass. Hate Barbra Streisand? Tough. Buy ANYTHING advertised on radio, you are kissing their ass whether you like the music or not.
Bought stuff at a store that plays piped-in music? You guessed it! Some of your cash is going to gold-plated Escalades and coke, which I am sure these bastards find ways to deduct anyway at taxtime.
ask an mtv "reviewer" (for example,carson daily) what they think of the new joint effort of kid rock and britney spears.
beauty is in the ear of the listener.
I can only imagine what they'd think of Tinpan Alley by Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
We're looking at effect not cause. Look around people. The huge jump in oil prices, the recent jump in interest rates. The sudden surcharges across the board for product because of higher delivery costs. This is just one more example of a new inflationary trend.
Look at the current economics. Tremendous deficits, atronomical wealth leaving our shores, and a dollar which is right on the verge of going kaboom on the international exchange. As the Fed prints more money, the dollar's valuation goes through the floor (have you noticed the value of Bonds lately?) So to save the bonds market, the prime goes up (and believe me you ain't seen nothing yet.) Of course this causes the real estate and building bubble to explode, and put's millions or workers and thousands of contracting firms in bread lines next to the unemployed tech and factory workers. All of a sudden, we begin to see that the phrase Poppa Bush used in 1980, "Voodoo Economics", is not only appropos, but virtually precogniscient. The only thing trickling down in our current economic fiasco, is any hope that this debacle won't end up in a full blown economic global catastrophe.
I'm just as offended by the "kneejerk greedy" as the next person. That, and it's almost certain that the the greediest amongst us, will raise prices first to get while the getting's good. We must however notice the larger economic landscape. The smallest education in ethics, game theory, social morality, or even basic philosophy, would point out the insanity of slash and burn mentality in the arena of economics.
If we've learned anything over the last 20 years, extreme diets lead to disaster. We have a nation of fat, sick people. These rules are just as important for economics. A conservative, stable system is called for. A system that promotes ethical behavior, and punishes the "get rich quick" mentality so prevalent today. The system used to punishes people willing to gut the system to get theirs at expense of all others, we need to return to a economic system with strong and reliable ethical and moral distinctions.
Genda
As someone with more than $400.00 spent in the iTunes store legalizing my collection of MP3s I have two words for ANYONE who thinks I'll pay more for a digital copy than a physical copy.
BLOW ME.
The physical copy doesn't come with restraints. I can play it anywhere, anytime. I can rip it to OGG, MP3, whatever I want, and take the results with me wherever I want, and I'm happy.
I put up with the DRM in iTunes only because it is a convenience that is also *CHEAP*.
You start charging more, the convenience goes away, and I'll either a) steal my music or b) buy the CD.
Either way they fuck themselves.
My reality check bounced.
Raising prices of a product to increase demand only works when the product in question has a quality that is difficult to determine. For instance if a consumer is given the choice between two music players that have the same storage capacity but one costs $50 more than the other they might assume that the one that costs more is better. They do what could be called gambling economics, they know in their minds that better quality materials cost more than lesser quality materials so it's likely that the more expensive product has gold wiring instead of copper.
Of course once you've played around with technology long enough you know that price can be determined in odd ways that subvert the ol' concept of supply and demand.
Music, and perhaps most art, has a value that is rather easy to determine. You listen to the thirty second sample or you hear it on the radio. You know whether you like it or not and chances are you look for either the cheapest, quickest or easiest way to purchase it.
Now I suppose some music stores could start offering different compression techniques that claim higher audiophile quality. There could be some appeal in that some people want to believe they're getting a decent version of their favorite song. Who knows maybe we'll start seeing "iTunes with Techron" or some other appeal to a higher quality compression product. I doubt it though, you're already accepting lossy when you start purchasing online and I think what Apple understands is that people want cheap music that's easy to listen to. Cornering the audiophile market with .aiff downloads wouldn't just lack profit (like iTunes does now) but would be a pit that money would actively be poured down. At least for now.
No, it's not. It's up to the seller, dude. It's the package they want to sell you. If their package is a CD with 12 songs on it, then you have no "right" to demand you only get one song.
you are correct, i as a buyer have no "right" to demand someting from the seller (unless its specifically stated in a contract or something similar).
BUT, they also have no "right" to demand my cash, which they quite obviously do.
the music industry is almost the only which gets away with providing crappy service and complaining about lost revenues (and even receiving government support).
also your analogy sucks. one track is a complete work of art, so staying with your picasso example it would be the same as telling picasso you only want ONE of his paintings instead of 20.
and please dont tell me that an album is a complete work of art, because if it would be so, radio stations would only play whole albums and not just single tracks.
so my point is: if *THEY* want *MY* cash they need to give it to me in a form i like or else i will spend my hard earned cash somewhere else. *THEY* also have no "right" to complain about me not spending my money on their products.
i need to convince my employer that i am worth the bucks he gives me, and the same counts for *EVERYONE* out there.
want my cash?
convince me you have earned it or else buzz off!
(yea its hard but thats just how capitalism works)
-- Karma: beyond good and evil - mostly affected by posting political