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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.
It's holding steady at $0.00 per song, last I checked. ;-)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
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
The point you missed here is, competition normally drives prices down. They know this too, thats why they want to artifically inflate prices so they can continue riding high.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Yes, I believe this is called an "album" these days.
Magnatune experimented with what I would term "tipware". Here, you pay a certain amount in excess of a minimum (like at a restaurant) as opposed to donationware where the minimum is $0. Data is available from this, and it might surprise you.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Yes, you read that right - online stores just selling downloads are charging *more* than Amazon does for the CD itself (and Amazon typically has free shipping if you get at least $25 worth of stuff). That's seriously ridiculous: while I'm looking at this new "revolution" of pay-for-download music optimistically, I must admit that having the hard copy is still just better. Much better audio quality if you're an audiophile, ability to rip it and do what you want with it, and while the jewel cases suck the little inserted booklets are often pretty handy. Stick the CD and the booklet into your 288 CD binder and you're good to go. Unless they start packaging downloads with nicely designed info files with picures and lyrics and such, I'm not interested.
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.
- Listen to a copy your friend has
- Skim through it at a record shop (if they will let you)
- Download it
I personally don't have money to burn (and like to make up my own mind) but I do like to own CDs because they sound better on my equipment than MP3s do. I wish there was a way to not get duped into buying something which wasn't up to scratch without 'being shadey' or having to wait for someone else to make the leap of faith.... just like CDs did.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Virgin Megastores recently offered 6 CD's for 30, basically working out at a fiver a go. I bought my first Cd's for years during this deal, because music once again became affordable for me.
Similarly, a lot of people don't object to legally purchusaing music from iTunes etc. If they're going to push the prices up again, the same thing will happen, more and more people will turn to downloading it for free P2P. Untill the record companies wise up to these simple facts, we're just going to keep going round in circles.
If this is not price fixing, then I don't know what is... FTC, where are you ?
The Raven
Whats up with "less desirable tracks" in the first place? Why release them if you know people won't like them?
This is like raising the price of a pizza and then adding a side order of maggots.
Someday a Slashdot ID of 177180 will mean something.
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...
The iTMS doesn't play the first 30 seconds. I believe the authoring tool Apple supplies to the labels lets them choose which 30-second block is excerpted, per track.