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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."
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.
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
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.
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.
Ummm...what sounds fine to you? The article says they may start bundling crappy songs with good songs. So, like buying an entire album, you have to pay for the bad track when all you wanted was the one good track.
$8.95/mo web hosting
If this is not price fixing, then I don't know what is... FTC, where are you ?
The Raven
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 in-store listening-posts or whatever they call them are indeed groovy.
The 30 second limit on iTunes sounds a little stupid to me, it would make more sense to let people hear a whole 64bit encoded mp3.
Reasoning? Jump to 30 seconds into:
American Woman - The Guess Who
The End - The Doors
Beyond The Realms Of Death - Judas Priest
Champagne Supernova - Oasis
Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones
Today - Smashing Pumpkins
The first 30 seconds of these isn't really enough to get a good impression of the song, either because the kick-assedness steps up after 30 seconds, or because the lyrics don't start until later or both. Maybe I'm making something out of nothing, bearing in mind that most pop music lasts 2 minutes 30 seconds...
And...if you're a parent who wants to listen to a track before downloading it for your young child, you should be able to hear the lyrics and decide whether they are appropriate...
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'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.