Slashdot Mirror
Record Labels Push for iTunes Price Hike
csteinle writes "Looks like the major labels are getting their own way again. The New York Post reports that the price per track may be going up to $1.25, while the per album price for some albums could go as high as $16.99. The Register has its own take on this, too. Aren't you glad you starting paying for downloaded music?" Update: 05/07 19:15 GMT by M : Apple says their prices won't increase.
Ok... I understand why the RIAA wants to make more money off each track. There are only two or three good tracks on each CD. But to jack some prices up over what most new CDs are sold for in stores? How does that make any sense at all?
It's so fucking stupid that I want to rip my nuts off, cook them, and then eat them. Note to RIAA: YOU ARE A BUNCH OF FUCKING IDIOTS. God... I just can't stand it. They're begging for us to pay for music. Some people do. Now they want more money from those people while giving them less than they would by buying the CD in the store.
Casual Games/Downloads
Apple's willingness to allow some singles to be priced higher than 99 cents indicates the company feels empowered by its current success in the download market and sees a chance to boost profits from the sales of digital music.
This does NOT mean anything of the sort. It means that if Apple wants to sell these songs on its online store it has to bow to the wishes of the music cartels. It's their music afterall.
You know, I have downloaded less than 10 songs since the height of the Napster/Kazaa days (2000/2001?) and the rest have been songs that are legally available for free. Why the hell are we bothering to support the cartel's music? You realize that they are going to keep pushing and pushing (with bait-and-switch if necessary) to keep online downloads out so that they can reign supreme in the sales of music.
Support only the artists that allow the free taping and distribution of their music! Do NOT let the cartels continue to dictate to you and your favorite artists how the music you love will be distributed and at what cost.
Every time I hear about record labels these days I'm forced to think about the indies, who create the best music and get paid the least. My only hope is that a site like mp3.com will learn from the mistakes of mp3.com and come up with a solution for indies to profit and truly compete against big labels with more even footing. Nobody likes a grudge match like I do. :-)
Bait and switch concepts always fail business, and it looks like Apple will have to cave to the pressure from groups like the RIAA (who happen to be in love with shady business practices). Drug dealers do the same thing; $0.99 for the first hit and then you get gouged when you're hooked! Maybe taco was right after all?!?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
With the service agreement that they have for the iTMS, it seems already they can change the rules for the DRM (number of burns per playlist, number of computers, kinds of applications that will be allowed depending on available quicktime APIs, etc.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they start charging you to "upgrade" the privileges you have for the music you've already bought.... perhaps even charging you just to continue your rental - even though it was never part of the original deal, it seems the contract allows them to change whatever they want at any time, and their copy protection, backed by law, gives them the tools to do it. Retroactive price hikes... now possible under the DMCA!
For that price I'd rather go and buy the album and rip it myself. At least then I can choose the format I want. If an Audio CD is marked with a label that it might not play on anything else than my stereo, I won't buy it either. If this means I can't buy music anymore, well, fine with me, I'll keep listening to the CD's I already have.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
This was inevitable i suppose. I'm sure people will still continue buying, and slashdot will continue bitch. Life goes on...
The Digital Couture Collection
If i *knew* that money was going to the artists, i'd be okay with it. Since i know it's not, fuck 'em; i won't buy. Free streams are doing just fine for me.
Fine -- they can have it their way. The $.99 model was working fairly well, and a decent number of people were actually entertaining the notion of paying for music. This development will prove, yet again, that greed is running this show -- not fairness.
Until there is a "fair" alternative, meaning it's accepted as fair to the majority of open-minded and reasonable people, we will continue to see a well-defined, concerted effort to make music available for free.
iTunes was a step forward, and this represents 3 steps backward. It's a slap in the face to those who were actually paying for what was available for free. Expect them to be punished severely, in the form of greatly increased P2P activity.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
I thought there was a bad word to describe when a parent company forces a price that a retailer has to sell a product for....
Oh...wasn't that practice illegal as well?
Cheers
J
When are the record labels going to understand that their product isn't worth what they want to charge?
It's like the NBA - a big marketing scheme where the underlying product does not have the appeal nor the value their pushers would like us to assign...
It's a pretty cheap service, but some doubts were brought up whether Americans could legally use the service.
It charges 1 cent per MB of downloading, and it works out to about 5-8 cents per song. You can choose your encoding (mp3, ogg etc.) and bitrate. Allofmp3.com
The good 'ole Walton family stands to make a pretty petty (and a good bit of market share) if they can use their clout to keep the prices at their music service at $.99
Sorry Charlie........
It was always a boggle as to why the Post Office didn't just go right up to 20 cents a stamp instead of the weird 19 cents. It would have increased revenues and forestalled, at a very small price to the consumer, the next price hike to 22 cents (22???).
Same thing here. Instead of going up to a nice round number like 1.50, they choose a number right smack dab in the middle. While the price may be temporarily lower now, we can expect that the next price increase will happen faster than if they just brought the cost up to a nice round number.
Something tells me that the marketing department is at work here. Nothing else could be so evil.
I have been pwned because my
I'd recommend reading the Register's take on the story rather than the Post's: it has more facts right and doesn't have a flashing Howard Stern advert. Anyway, Steve Jobs also mentioned the issue in a recent iTunes conference call- here's what he said (credit goes to www.macrumors.com):
"But in any event, most of the albums on iTunes are priced at $9.99 and below and, no, they're not creeping up. There's always a few that are a little higher than you can go in and pull out, but they're very, very competitive and we see in the future the prices of the albums coming down, not going up, because that's what it's going to take to sell more albums and it's in everybody's best interest to do so."
So, it's definitely a label vs apple thing. Anyone know who would get the extra money from the price hike, and in what proportions?
p.s. The journalism in the Washington Post is just "great". I quote,
"Apple's willingness to allow some singles to be priced higher than 99 cents indicates the company feels empowered by its current success in the download market and sees a chance to boost profits from the sales of digital music."
Where'd they get this information, you may ask? Did they perhaps pull it out of thin air? Immediately preceeding this, "Spokespersons for the major record companies declined to comment. A spokesperson for iTunes was not available for comment."
Nice.
"The Wall Street Journal carries a story today on the higher prices customers are starting to face from online music stores. Apple, for example, is charging $17 for N.E.R.D.'s new 12-track Fly or Die album, while Napster charges $14--both higher than the $13.50 Amazon is selling the physical CD for. All five major record labels are also reportedly discussing ways to raise the price of single downloads, from increasing the price anywhere from $1.25 to $2.50, to bundling hot singles with less desirable tracks or charging more for singles of tracks that have not yet been released in stores."
From what I've read Apple only gets 10 cents from each track sold and RIAA get 70 cents.
Apple created a service where people that people would be happy to pay for because it finally offered music at a decent price.
So what does the RIAA do? They try to kill it by forcing Apple to increase the price until it is as expensive as a CD.
Basically destroys the whole purpose of the service, doesn't it?
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
As more people realize that iTunes is a viable option to the $18 cd, it will push the RIAA and its demon member companies to lower it's prices.
Now if they raise the price, the RIAA can hold onto its CD monopoly for a little while longer.
While my initial assumption is that Apple is probably happy to make a tiny profit on the iTMS in order to drive sales of its cash cow iPod, my guess is that a price hike might have been on their sales roadmap.
Sorry to use a cliche, but...
1. Offer songs for $.99 to get people hooked on buying online
2. Increase price of song by $.26
3. Wait until people get used to that, then increase price of song to $2.00
4. Profit!
My gut tells me that this is not going to happen, as Apple has plenty of money in the bank to run the store at its current price point. Speaking as someone who works in an establishment that has priced itself out of interest for almost all of our local demographic, I sure hope that if they raise the prices, they know what they're doing.
MG
On a somewhat related side note, I am running for Congress in Nebraska. Conservative? Yes, I am. But, pro-technology, anti-RIAA/MPAA/DMCA? Darn right! Want real change? Vote Ringsmuth for Congress May 11 in Nebraska. That is the only way things will happen. If elected, I will do everything in my power to bring down these cartels.
The article seems to imply that the record labels were the ones who were asking for the higher prices, but it doesn't offer any particular evidence for that inference. In fact, the whole article seems very short on evidence, even in the form of quotes from their unnamed sources.
I suspect that the reporters found out that the price is going up, but have no real clue what happened in the negotiations.
Isn't it possible that Apple wanted to increase their profit margins just as much as the record labels did?
So now, as retailers drive up the price, it's now going to be cheaper to by your non-DRM CD from Target or Wal*Mart or wherever than to get a DRM restricted album from iTunes et al? I'm sorry, I don't get it.
/. all the time.
Cheaper promotion + Cheaper distribution + Cheaper Capital costs is supposed to equal Lower Prices (tm).
In order for online distribution to succeed, there has to be some sort of critical mass of consumers -- without them, the business won't be profitable, and it's locked in a death spiral of having to raise prices and losing more customers.
At some point, the music industry just might have to accept that its no longer profitable to run business in this way. Music has been around a lot longer than the recording industry, and will be around a lot longer than when the industry disappears. The sooner they get that lesson through their heads, the sooner we can stop having the exact same discussions on
The download biz is finally taking off after eyars of trying and you want to raise prices? This strikes me as profoundly stupid but then again the RIAA isn't exactly a brain trust.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
So instead of whining about how some big major-label Universal album (where the artist hardly gets paid anyway) is DRM'd or expensive, be an independent thinker and go try some of the smaller services.
Emusic
Website for Mac, Windows, Linux where members can download up to 40 tracks per month of high-quality MP3 files. Has been around for YEARS doing both 99-cent downloads, and all-you-can-eat downloads for paid members. Has great catalog of indie label music - company is currently reforming.
AudioLunchbox
One of the first all-independent music download sites. Tracks retail for 99 and albums retail for $9.99. ALB pays out 59 per song and $5.90 per album.
NetMusic
Digital download and streaming service. We get 65 cents per downloaded song. Entire-album downloads usually retail at $9.99.
Emepe3.com
Website that primarily targets Latin America, USA and Spain. Tracks sell for 99 cents. We get 65 cents. Entire-album downloads are usually $9.99.
Etherstream
Website that offers a la carte downloads. Tracks sell for 99 cents. We get 65 cents. Entire-album downloads are usually $9.99.
Music4Cents
Retails independent music at very reasonable prices. Pays 55 cents per download. Sells independent music - they will sell CD Baby songs at $.69.
QTRnote
Artist gets about $.64.
TriaSite
TriaSite retails independent music downloads. Pays $.65 per download
Puretracks
Canada-only service that offers $.99 downloads. Website is currently available to Candian residents only. Puretracks is acting both as an online download retailer and a back-end service provider for other retailers. Downloads cost $.99 per track - artist gets about $.59 per track.
CatchMusic
Download site focusing on independent music. CatchMusic sells a la carte downloads at $1 each. Songs retail at $1 - artist gets about $.55 per song.
Viztas Digital Marketplace
Viztas Digital Marketplace will sell all kinds of digital media - not just music. Tracks retail for 99 and albums retail for $9.99. Vistaz pays out 60 per song and $6.10 per album. Viztas has not yet launched.
DiscLogic
A la carte downloads. Tracks sell for 99 cents. We get 65 cents. Entire-album downloads are usually $9.99.
"Support only the artists that allow the free taping and distribution of their music!"
Should how do I stop liking good music? It's not all crap in the industry, and the independents have a long way to go (even those with talent usually don't have decent production). Should I boycott Led Zeppelin now? I only buy used CDs, but since I actually like good music I can't just pretend that everything I own is "bad" because the execs are greedy.
G
This affects me not in the littlest way because, as a filthy Canadian, I am not allowed to download anything from the iTunes store. We'll just have to keep getting our music the old fashioned way...
planet texture maps and more
Yes I am, you smug little turd. I pay for my music, my videos, my software, my books, whathave you. I know that the artists involved are often getting ripped off by their record labels. But that doesn't mean I am going to screw them even furter.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Exactly, what do the music labels think they are going to get out of this? How about killing the legal download market? $10.00 is in my opinion too high, because if I really like something, I'll buy the CD rather than a copy of lesser sound quality. Talk about extortion.
Hopefully, Apple will try to essentially become a label in the future, eliminating the trash that markets the likes of Britany. Friends of mine simply buy the CD, burn it in whatever way they choose, and sell it used. I'm going to start doing this, but I mentioned that I would also copy the CD cover with the receipt so that down the road when the likes of Valenti come a knockin' with the FBI, I have proof of my purchase.
Well, a price hike sucks. But stepping back to look at the big picture, I have to say that we are in the middle of a huge step in the right direction. As Apple continues its pursuit of Playfair, I'm sure everyone has noticed a subtle paradigm shift not just in the tone of people here on Slashdot but in the technical community at large.
When the MPAA sued 2600 for linking to some source code, a lot of technical people got very upset. How could source code be banned? It's free speech, isn't it? While many flavors of speech (from fire in a crowded theater to bomb-making instructions) have been illegal for years, this was the first time that dangerous technical speech was being regulated. And for many, this meant the onset of Chicken Little histrionics.
But the digital crowbar that spawned a million T-shirts only hurt the movie industry. Technical people were slow to empathize with the enrichment of Scientologists like Tom Cruise. And the "tyranny of the majority" was definitely hampering the effectiveness of the DMCA, halting the prosection of reverse engineers like Skylarov and spreading decryption software like DeCSS across the globe.
With the advent of PlayFair, however, the shoe is now on the other foot. Geeks are walking a mile in Rosen's shoes, and they are not happy. For the first time, the technical community has something to lose because an encryption scheme is under attack: iTunes may be going away, with geeks standing to lose everything from TMBG to Devo to Whitney Houston (all for 99c+ a song!) just because some software developer decided to piss in the public pool.
And the paradigm shift is now very evident. In place of Slashdot stories decrying the "MPAA witchhunt", we now have highly moderated comments in support of Apple for taking the fight to their attackers using the DMCA. And why not? After all it is much easier to understand the Israeli use of helicopter assassination after you've lived through your first bombing at a West Bank disco.
I think that this paradigm shift represents a crucial "turning of the majority" in favor of accepting the DMCA. Once groups like EFF get on board I think the final stone will be in place for Microsoft to release a cheap "convergence device" that will allow pay-per-use movies, games, music and all other digital media on trusted hardware all across the globe. And the consumer will benefit.
I mean, which of us wouldn't defend Lode Runner for 99c a game?
This is potentially great for independent artists -- offering downloads at $.99 or $.90 per song now will make you seem competetive. And all you have to do is make sure you don't suck (at least, less than stuff on the radio).
Tweet, tweet.
And it's not just dumb because they're making the price higher, but they're making the EASILY COPYABLE audio CD format competetive again!
I mean what the crap? On one hand they're trying to secure their intellectual property, and on the other they're deterring people from a format that secures their intellectual property with out-of-whack pricing?
Dumbasses! This is a strategic blunder, how do they not see it? In a weird turn of the tables, I'm mad about it because they're so obviously proliferating a problem they're trying to solve.
I should be happy, because it means the long life of easily "shareable" audio CDs, but somehow I'm not..
-- The unsig...
Exec 1: (flushes golden toilet) The number of people using illegal P2P has gone down since iTunes was opened.
Exec 2: We can still sue them right?
Exec 1: No, they paid for the music.
Exec 2: WHAT!?!!?!??! Not sue people!!! but how can we offend our customer while alienating them at the same time????
Exec 1: Raise Prices?
Exec 2: You are a genius, CD sales will skyrocket!! We can control what they listen to again!!!! Now if you excuse me I need to use the john
Exec 1: Its out of TP, use this (hand him stack of $100s)
I get the feeling that Apple really didn't want this to happen. Raising the prices reduces the "deal" of downloading the album. As others have pointed out, why pay 16 bucks for an encrypted, DRM'd copy of an album that you have restricted rights to; when for 18 dollars you can have a CD that you can do what ever to. Steve Jobs and Co. probably only agreed to this out of fear of losing the rights to distribute music. While selling music online helps the RIAA, it does not do so enough for Apple to really leverage their position on the pricing. From the vantage point of Apple, they need the RIAA more than the RIAA needs them.
Slashdot...it's like Fox news, but without the biased sl...or maybe not.
If Sony will sell throught their own channel for $0.99, but requires Apple to go to $1.29, that sound like a FTC investigation waiting to happen.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
Alright here's a conspiracy theory. Sony could be the reason behind the hike. New player enters a market dominated by apple and apple's price per song increases? I bet sony would remain at 99c and isn't sony a major music label? Also Ipods were the main target of apple not pusing songs so i guess they won't care much now.
Frankly if I'm going to have to pay as much (or more) than the new physical CD costs, well, f-it. I'll go buy the CD. I'll have the actual media then and also be able to rip it and distribute it to as many computers as I wish.
...and RIAA secretly knows this... might they be simply trying to pressure Apple into raising their prices in order to have them eventually fail the iTunes business?
Either RIAA is absolutely blinded by greed (a distinct possibility) or they might just be blinded by their lust for power/control. Consider this: if people think like I do and don't want to pay as much for the restricted-ethereal-copy as they do for the free-as-a-bird physical media
At that point the RIAA could point to iTunes and say, "Hey, people and Congress, the people don't want legal stuff! Let us make evil non redbook-standard CD's that are laden with DRM! Protect our braindead ancient way of doing business!"
I recently bought two (my first two) songs on iTunes and enjoyed the experience. But it's pushing it to ask me to spend 10-12 right now to get all the files that made up the original CD. If it goes up to $14-17, not a chance. I'll buy a used CD or I'll get it from Gnutella or I'll just listen to the damn radio. $.99/song is the LIMIT, not the start. Otherwise, I want the physical media and the dead tree art.
Exocet Industries - Taking over the world, one computer at a
really, the best route for anyone wanting to listen to music is to stick to more independent material--there's enough good stuff out there to last you several lifetimes.
that way, when you buy a song from Magnatune, Bleep, or Audiolunchbox, you WON'T be:
1.) sending your cash to the RIAA
2.) attributing to the success of a service that fronts the RIAA, supporting the operation of tyrannous record labels with your cash
3.) supporting propietary DRM
4.) locking yourself into using iTunes or an iPod as your portable player
by opting for other services that aren't iTunes/Walmart/Sony/Rhapsody/etc.., you WILL be:
1.) sending more cash to the musicians you like
2.) attributing to the success of a service that better represents and compensates the musicians you like, without restricting how you listen to your music
3.) free to listen to your music however you want, whether it be with winamp or foobar, linux or whatever OS you use, ipod or rio karma
Tell them how you feel.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
They're digging their own graves. Let them.
sulli
RTFJ.
....not paying the artists....
only buy songs from the artists who are selling their songs directly to their fans, like George Michael and... aw shit, forget it.
Isn't Sony in the RIAA too? Isn't that like some sort of conflict of interest?
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I have found Magnatune to be very good. Not a massive selection, but at least they are all of good quality. No "dork-in-the-basement-with-a-keyboard" like some other free music sites have. Some of these are really good. "Brad Sucks" is interesting, "Rocket City Riot" and "The Napolean Blown Aparts" are good ol' rock-n-roll. I am sure there is more there, I just haven't gotten through it all yet.
Check it out.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Isnt' this obviously illegal? In America price-setting cartels were outlawed after the era of oil, steel, and railroad monopolies. The i-tunes customers should contact the justice department. What is this russia?
RIAA wants to hike prices? Fine. Let them.
It's real simple. iTMS just had a record sales week with 3.3M songs sold. They are averaging something like 2.5M songs per week. Let the RIAA hike the price. Let's watch the numbers.
If consumers don't have a problem with the price hike, sales will be unaffected. If consumers don't like it, sales will drop. If sales drop by more than 26%, the RIAA starts loosing money. If that happens, they'll be forced to restore the $0.99 pricing.
You can't blame them for hiking their prices, if the market will yield a profit by doing so. As buyers of music, we all get to vote on whether the price increase is reasonable. If we collectively say we won't pay $1.25/song, they will be forced to either drop prices or lose money.
Fucking idiots. They deserve whatever they get,.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Sony's (one of the Big 5 record labels) Sony Connect music download service launched 5/5/2004. The price point is $.99 for singles and $9.99 for albums.
The same week we get reports that the Big 5 has successfully managed to pressure Apple to raise their prices.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill RIAA
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
I would like to see a business justification for raising the prices 26 per cent, showing increased short-term costs in allowing apple to rip and post these things, or increased costs in referring the appropriate royalties to the artists involved.
I bet I don't see one.
Becaue I bet that this is just another fscking ripoff of the public, and they are trying to take control again by shutting down the economic benefits of online sales.
I do not at this time maintain that they are trying to get some quick cash to pay off a court order that they start paying long-term old back royalties to artists exceeding 50 million dollars, royalty money owed by contract to artists, that was conveniently held back because they "could not find" artists of the demure stature of madonna.
these bastards lie with every breath, have no direct impetus to reward the artist community that makes and fills their rice bowl, and doesn't give one half a shit about the public they sell to.
RIAA, in short, is a band of thugs.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
RIAA is just like every other corperation trying to censor something they can't control. They can't control the flow of data, and if they look through ISP logs to find .mp3's which were traded around, I'll encode/encrypt them in any format/algorithm to get around it. Screw the RIAA. I'd rather pay $.50 for a song and have 45 of that 50 cents go to the artist.
Record labels/enforcers are going to be out of a job when musicians learn how to set up their own, much cheaper, rate of selling their songs to the public.
Record companies will be a thing of the past. And you won't need millions of capital to start up a mainstream band/get signed. You just need access to a web and a method to get the music to the fans. This is why I liked mp3.com. If they could incorperate that into a donation method, or sampleing method then have the artist themselves sell the song on it, while making a small, 1-3% contribution to the site for offering the service, both parties would be inevitably rich and the record companies would be SOL.
The RIAA loves the new Napster, or at least, part of it. For those who aren't quite familiar with how the service works, users pay a monthly fee to subscribe to Napster. Then, based on the preferences of the copyright holder, users can either stream or download tracks for a one-time fee. Once the fee is paid, the user can listen to the song as many times as they want, but only downloaded songs can be loaded onto mp3 players, etc. for use away from the computer.
The rub, of course, is that if a subscriber stop paying Napster a monthly subscription fee, she loses access to the music streams she's already paid for. It's brilliant, because in the end, the consumer gets nothing for their dollar but instant gratification. No file, no archived recording, just the experience of having heard Outkast encouraging them to "shake it like a Polaroid picture" to file away in their memory.
The RIAA adores this. It makes them happy like dogs rolling in some particularly nasty filth. They look out and see the incredible use statistics counting the users of p2p and iTunes, and they start multiplying subscription fees on top of those numbers. It's the best deal possible for them, because they manage to make money by selling us no real assets.
But iTunes style stores, where users are given individual copies of songs to keep and own, and use in perpetuity for a one-time fee? The RIAA hates this. It makes them sad, like a pet owner discovering that his dog has rolled in some particularly nasty filth. Instead of a recurring revenue stream that's locked into continuing to pay for the RIAA's existing products for life, each consumer instead is a fair deal. They get songs for a low one-time fee, they're able to get their music a la carte without having to buy dozens of filler tracks, and they're still offered the instant gratification that is the only real selling point the streaming model has to offer. The RIAA, in turn, is forced to continue producing new product at a high enough quality that they can continue to sell it to customers.
Once you understand this, it's easy to see what the RIAA is doing: They're trying to shut down iTunes.
By raising the cost of songs to $1.25, they're breaking the magic $1 price point. Anything under a buck, well hell, that's just a candy bar. Why not buy it? But $1.25, that's a 20oz. bottle of soda, a purchase that must be considered a little more carefully. They've broken the psychological barrier to impulse purchases that $.99 magically hovers below.
By raising the price of full albums on iTunes to be equivalent to the cost of a physical CD bought in the store, the RIAA looks on the surface like they're creating a financial incentive to go and buy the album at a music store. But we all know that's not how this will work out.
What will happen is that iTunes' sales will drop, but they won't be met with a commeasurate increase in sales at music stores. The RIAA knows that people accustomed to the iTunes Music Store will return to illegal acquisition of music via filesharing before they'll go to the store and buy it.
In fact, they're counting on it, because once the iTunes music store is dead, they can say, "See? We tried, we put our best foot forward, but it just didn't work. These pirates aren't interested in paying." Then the lawyers can go to town, until there is no technological nor legal recourse available to escape their stranglehold on recorded music.
It's not only evil, it's fucking brilliant.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
If the record companies want an increase, why don't they show us where all the money is going? If they're not just lining their own CEO's and VP's pockets with extra cash, maybe the general populace would be a lot more receptive.
I want to see the breakdown of the $0.99 song and of the $1.29 song
$0.05 - Artist
$0.10 - Production
$0.10 - Advertising
$0.05 - Distributor (apple, sony, etc that distribute the actual content to the consumer)
$0.69 - Crappy executives that are earning about 69x more than they are actually worth.
I want to know what the fixed and variable portions of the price breakdown are.
Once industries learn that the consumer is not a babbling idiot I think the world will get a lot nicer. Treat me like a logical person. Look I understand that if I love Artist X, and everyone downloads artist X's music for free, and Artist X doesn't see a profit, Artist X is probably not going to make any more albums for me to enjoy.It *IS* that simple.
The revolution I seek is not for FREE things, but it is to appropriately compensate those doing the work and cut out the fat cats of the RIAA and execs that just live off the fat of the land. I'm not here to shaft the artist at all, I'm here to shaft the leeches that are parasites clinging to and feeding off of the actual artists. The artist deserves money, the producers, the sound workers, all deserve to get compensated for their work, but I'd venture to say that most of the other costs are not really value adding to the product we receive.
Love me, hate me. I want a world when you get what you deserve.
Aren't cartels illegal in the US. Can we ban together and Sue the bastards for being the cartels they are.
Evolution or ID?
Last time I checked (one minute ago) N.E.R.D's Fly or Die album was on sale for $13.99. That's 14 bucks for twelve songs, two whom you can only get by purchasing the entire album. Washington Post are, as Al Franken would say, "LIIIAAAAAARS!"
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
From Mac News Network:
Jobs today said that Apple has the largest online music catalog in the world, touting over 700,000 songs from over 450 independent labels as well as the big Five.
I've also read that Apple offered the SAME EXACT TERMS to indies that the Big Five get.
Full article here:
http://www.macnn.com/news.php?id=24469
Life is short: void the warranty.
From our coverage at Ars, it's not entirely clear that these reports are true. Just a week ago Jobs said that all of these rumors were false.
Let's raise the prices of legal downloadable music so people will stop downloading it illegally.
Brilliant.
I work for a DRM company who talks to some of these giants (and Apple), and TimeWarner execs say that they aren't making any money off of selling songs at 99cents a pop because the credit card transaction fees eat up a lot of this.
What they need to do is sell tokens to make this really work.
I would argue that independents have VASTLY more talent and VASTLY better production. A good majority of production you hear on major labels is auto-tuned to the point that the vocals on the recording don't necessarily represent the musicians actual voice. I don't know how you can argue that production is somehow 'worse' on smaller labels. Equipment and software is cheaper than it's ever been and I think it's leveling the playing field to the point that a good indie album sounds just as good if not better than a higher production major label release. Not to mention, old Zeppelin albums had crap production. But really, why are you still buying their albums? Are they still releasing them?!
This should be prevented by anti-trust laws. The FCC doesn't allow the RIAA to jerk radio stations around with these kind of royalty-pricing shennagins, so why can they do it to Apple?
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
It's one of those sounds-too-good-to-be-true deals:
Pay only for bandwidth (resonable $$ too)
Choose your encoding format
Choose your encoding bitrate
I think the unlisted "feature" here is likely 'Fund the Russian mafia' but it's hard to tell from the site alone how legitimate it is, what their real distribution rights are, and if artists are even recieving money from them.
Any slashdotters have experiences or insight on this service? I know someone must because we /.'d it in about 10 minutes after the article went up.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
On iTunes, Napster (the irony), Wal*Mart, et al, the artist gets the share the record company is conractually abliged to pay them. Whether that's 1 cent a song or 50 cents a song. Whatever pittance it might be, they do get payed.
AllOfMP3 and other grey market Russian MP3 sites do not pay them anything at all. Maybe, just maybe they got a few pennies from the sale of the CDs that these companies bought to master their catalogs, but I really doubt that as well.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Just supply and demand, folks. I don't think many people here would be interested in what goes for $1.25, anyway.
If prices across the board get raised to $1.25, on the other hand, you've got reason to cry "bait and switch." But that's not what this article is saying.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Dear Apple,
I am writing you due to the story that I read at the New York Post that you are considering raising the price for songs and albums at the iTunes Music Store (http://www.nypost.com/business/20309.htm). Let me first explain that I am what I would consider your average or target user. I own both a 10 gig and 40 gig iPod, both multiple pcs with iTunes and a G4 running OS/X. I bought my original 10 gig iPod *because* of the music store. I bought my 40 gig iPod yesterday because I ran out of room on the 10 gig and frankly iTunes doesn't make dealing with deselecting large amounts of music to be copied to the iPod easy. I have also purchased somewhere between five and ten albums at the music store, and even purchased an EP today. Granted that's not a huge amount but by my tally, I've spent over $1,000 on your music related offerings all together. I am also an Apple stock holder.
My point in this email is to let you know that I will discontinue use of the Music Store should you raise the rates. The 0.99 price point and the $10 or under album prices is *what is appealing* despite the numerous disadvantages including only being able to download once. If I'm going to pay more than $10 for an album I will go to the store and buy it. That way I get the original artwork, album notes, and something tangible that I don't have to burn to cd to have a backup of. I also expect your sales volume to decrease steadily if you should raise the rates.
From my perspective the music industry wants it both ways, a steady price for the consumption of music, regardless of production costs. Lets just assume that the price of CD's in the market today is not a product of collusion and price fixing. There are tangible costs beyond that of the artists, producers, and engineers. There is the cost to duplicate the media, provide the jewel case, the artwork, inserts, packaging, shipping, and distribution. Ideally iTunes Music Store provides a way for the fans to get what they want cheaper, and for the Music Industry to get more return on their money because of the lack of cost associated with the distribution of the content. Apple conceivably wins in this scenario also because of the overall brand imagine enhancement which entices iTunes Music Store users to buy iPods, macs, and OS/X upgrades.
I hope that my letter is not falling on deaf ears, and Apple doesn't forget what made the iPod and iTunes Music store offering popular in the first place.
Respectfully,
Gavin M. Roy
File trading has been happening before iTunes and online music stores, and file trading will continue to happen after. By forcing people to purchase CD's at stores (through increased online purchases) the RIAA is paying extra for CD's, CD cases, CD covers, shipping, storage, building costs, man power, etc... So they want MORE money for doing LESS work. They are a bunch of jerk offs (as well know). Shouldn't there be a collusion/price fixing/anti trust suit against these guys for their actions?
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Anybody know of a band that broke-out with real sales & popularity on the net or via mp3 alone?
A band named Fugazi basically flipped off the whole industry and went completely indy. They didn't get rich, but they are beloved my many GenX like myself.
I know the old mp3.com didn't go anywhere trying to push artists that weren't on a label, but I never thought that model worked very well. The model that was interesting was the band website, with all the songs online and you could donate. Shareware mp3s.
If radio Paradise can pull in about $110k/yr in domations (he'll need more this year) - I wonder if some bands could make it this way.
I download stuff from Finnish techno, stufffrom Japanese speed metal bands, the market for free music that is global, authored and distributed by the bands themselves exist - but it hasn't been a revolution like I thought it would be 5 years ago. There are still corporate conglomerates like the production company that does the American and World Idol gig. They invade the pre-teen mind with that shit, and pre-empt any attempt to look into the independant music scene.
Solution:
a: Check the local library for your CD. If it's not there...go to step B.
b: Buy used CD's
c: When you are done "listening" to your used CD(s), donate them to their local library.
Pretty soon the Library will have a decent collection for everybody!
And so, laughing maniacally, the music industry snatches the gun from Apple and begins frantically shooting the stumps at the ends of its legs.
You take 0.99 and subtract the line items:
0.99-(0.70 + 0.20 + 0.10) = -0.01
That mean that the artist OWES someone $0.01 for each song sold.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
The small amount of music I've downloaded from Napster has actually GENERATED sales for the music labels from me. When the Napster of old was still alive & kickin', I could actually download & listen to music which wasn't spoonfed to me over the corporate radio waves. I discovered great music that I would never have been given a chance to hear otherwise. I'm not one who wishes to leave the artists high & dry. At the time I downloaded the music for free from Napster, I could not afford to pay for the music. However, when the time came that i COULD afford it, I gladly handed over my cash so I could support the artists of MY choice. It's just too bad that most of the dollar goes to the record label cartels, who get rich by legally robbing the very people who keep them alive. Now those cartels are demanding a minimum 26 cent raise in price for legitimate music downloads?! I've purchased a good deal of music from the ITMS, and plan on purchasing more in the future. However, this will NOT be the case if the price is raised. I will NOT spend more than .99 cents for a single track of music, especially when there is no physical storage supplied (such as a CD, tape, or 8-track). I will not support an industry whose greed is unchecked, leaves skilled and talented people broke & in ruins on a regular basis, and continues to subject people to cheap crap passed off as the best of the best.
It's all about greed. How is it that RIAA wants $1.25 a compressed DRM song in the US but you can legally download an uncompressed no-DRM song from Russian for just $0.01 per MB?!? That means ~$0.35 per song. And if you decide to go for the compressed equivalent of what you find on the iTMS, you're talking about $0.04!! The same thing happens with the movie industry and DVD region codes. A legally purchased DVD that costs $20 in the US typically costs $2 elsewhere.
If markets are going to normalize across borders in this new globalized "Internet age" where big businesses send our jobs overseas, they better accept that we are also going to send our dollars overseas too. That's if their lucky. I'm willing to bet that a lot of people are going to feel cheated by this new development and are going to go right back to the P2Ps that RIAA has worked so hard to get us to stop using.
It's a pretty cheap service, but some doubts were brought up whether Americans could legally use the service.
... knowing full well that the law and the courts consistently say otherwise.
Those doubts are quickly allayed here. allofmp3.com is perfectly legal under US law. The RIAA doesn't like it, and will tell you otherwise, but they are being no more honest than the MPAA is when it flashes those FBI warnings at the beginning of each DVD telling you you have no right to make a backup copy for personal use
The short explaination for those too lazy to follow the above link.
1) Under US law, anyone may import any music so long as they are licensed to do so under the copyright laws of their own country. If you buy a mailorder CD from Canada and the company is licensed by either the artist or the CIAA member company, it is legal to import the CD. If you buy a mailorder CD from the US and the US seller is licensed by the artist (or the RIAA member company), it is legal. Under Russian copyright law, which the US is bound by treaty to respect, allofmp3.com has a license to distribute all copyrighted music from the Russian equivelent of the RIAA, known as ROMS.
The RIAA may hate the fact that you can buy $0.99 iTunes songs in whatever unencumbered format you like for around $0.04 per song, but the law throughout the developed world, including the USA, is quite clear that this is a perfectly legal service to use, yes, even in Once But No Longer Free America.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If you need to have a song from the majors, then download it off the net for free. Period. Downhill Battle has some suggestions for staying below the RIAA lawsuit radar when running your P2P client. But better yet, just stop listening to RIAA music and get involved in the indie scene. Make it a change in your mindset, to eschew the marketing hype and think for yourself.
I don't know a whole lot about the apple music store, as I don't download any of my tunes these days... but do they also re-sell independent musicians music?
Basically, If I actually had the skill to write good music, produced my own tracks and wanted to sell them for $0.99 on their site, would there be a way?
If so, maybe apple should consider a way to promote those artists a little more then the well known ones that are $0.26 more expensive.
Anyway...
On Arrakis: early worm gets the bird. Magister mundi sum!
...is because non-RIAA bands can get "shelf space" right next to theirs, with previews so you can listen to, not only see an unknown name. I think they've started to see what iTMS would become, should it become successful (i.e. make a dent in physical CD sales, not biggest online shop).
The RIAA is working very hard to keep their customers "in the dark" about other bands. Sure, the odd person may go "indie" but they don't want a mass of people to make something "indie" into "mainstream". I.e. take the "impressionable teenager that listens to what other teenagers listen to" market.
After all, I'm sure there's more than enough music out there for me to listen to it 24/7 for the rest of my life without hearing anything twice, most of them non-RIAA (a lot of crappy ones too, but many good I'm sure). The iTMS could show it all.
It's not the distribution channel they fear. It's the exposure to all sorts of music you can get through the iTMS. Imagine word-of-mouth going around "Check you band X on iTMS, they're really good". With instant previews, instant satisfaction, instant spreading the word, instant fame.
Suddenly a band that never would have reached "critical mass" without the RIAA before, could make it big. Get your music up on iTMS, hit the "hip" people, the trendsetters, and you don't need a huge record contract, retail stores or a media blitz to make people hear and buy your song.
You've got no problem with a million people suddenly wanting your song, no scale-up problems, no production delays, no distribution bottlenecks. Nothing. World-wide (well, not yet but iTMS will get there).
That is why the RIAA will hold the online stores in a chokehold. Killing them would make them seem bad "they won't deliver what the customers want", too loose could shatter their hold on the market. Expect the DRM to become more and more anal.
Then blame the consumer for not wanting it. "We tried to sell it online". It's perfect. They get to keep their profitable CD sales, the consumers look like the bad guys and Apple the "friendly" that really only wants to sell iPods. Which btw is quite happy as long as they're the biggest *online* shop, making most people buy iPods.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wait a fucking minute here. We've got 5 big media conglomerates coming together to discuss how to artificially increase the cost of their products. Exactly how is this not conspiracy and extortion? How does these actions allow for competitive market forces to drive the cost of their product to the peak price points according to the law of supply and demand? Why the fuck aren't these criminals in fucking jail where they fucking belong? Fucking anti-competitive un-American terrorist bastard dickheads. These scumbag assholes can fucking rot in hell.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
AllOfMP3 and other grey market Russian MP3 sites do not pay them anything at all. Maybe, just maybe they got a few pennies from the sale of the CDs that these companies bought to master their catalogs, but I really doubt that as well.
Not true. allofmp3.com pays royalties to ROMS. ROMS keeps a small fee to cover costs, and pays the rest as royalties to the artists. As to whether the artists get more royalties from a $0.04 cent allofmp3.com ogg or mp3 file, or an iTunes $0.99 (soon to be $1.25?) song is an interesting question. I would suspect it is quite likely the do not. Either way, the artist does get royalties, the service is legal, and the recording industry of America that has been systematically screwing artists and citizens alike for the last century is left completely out of the (profit) loop.
Which IMHO is an excellent thing.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Apple is the most successful of the online retailers. Without Apple, essentially ALL downloading would be free P2P. If Apple says, "We will pay what we choose to pay. If you don't like it, we won't distribute your product.", what can the recording companies do about it? Their only real alternative is to lose even more money. Somehow I doubt the I-Tunes users are going to flock to competitors, certainly not the competitors who pay royalties.
Apple must have known about the sleazy tactics of the recording industry before going into this business, surely they would have had a plan to deal with problems like this.
Downloadable music has exactly no appeal to me. If I can't buy the raw bits, there's no point to it. Fifteen years from now, is there going to be a new compression format? Of course. My old CDs can be re-ripped and re-compressed.
My car player only does MP3, but AAC is a way better format. I can create both, and I can create the possible quality of MP3 for that environment.
Raw bits let me create unprotected digital files and use them any way I want, and this is exactly what God intended us to do with information, dammit.
iTunes -- Who Cares.
This price hike was expected. In the business world this sort of action is like more "leveling the playing field," than a "bate and switch". Tt is often possible to get coperate subsidies for new technology and such. iTunes has basically been under a year long price subsidy by the record companies. This gave them a selling advantage over CDs. However, it is not in the recordcompanies interests to stomp out its major revenue sources over night. In this case they are only adding a new one.
Now that apple has a customer base they revoked the startup subsidies. This is common business (and political) practices. It may seem evil but it is really cold business sense. They (record companies) are politically spread pretty thin right now. As a result, thet can't afford to appear to "play sides" with any one medium.
Technology is changing so fast that they really don't have a clue what to do to keep their business model. So for a while expect to see them promote nothing that really changes until WE decide that one course or another is required to stay in business. Their coffers are quite large and after all they had their best year ever so They can and will wait this transition out.
*sort of like the race between the turtle and the hair.... I know the race has started but wonder which one I am, it is not at all clear yet.....
Yes, CDBaby is an a great company. My group, Dancing Baptists, is with them and they've distributed us to Itunes, Napster, Tower Records, and many others. We get a full half of our sales. For every 99 cent song we sell on Itunes, we get about 50 cents. Moreover, we sell 7.99 CDs on CD Baby's store, and we get $4.99 each. A wonderful service. Soundclick.com is also a great neo-MP3 like site, probably the most active, and does not steal the rights to our music.
The reason why iTunes has been so successful is because of Jobs's ability to cajole all of the labels to participate. As soon as he indicated that he wanted to compete with them, this cooperation would instantly disappear, and iTunes would become yet another service with a tiny library. Too tiny to be interesting.
A much better solution would be for Apple to drop the one-price fits all aspect of the store. Simplicity is good, but frankly, some songs are simply worth more than others.
In fact, if he wanted to subtly discourage overcharging by the labels, he could increase his margins on the higher end stuff. In other words: 99 cents a regular song, 4 dollars for a "premium" song. And if Labels found that these "premium" songs tended to get pirated in the P2Ps more, well, they always have the option to price them at the more reasonable lower tier.
The price for albums and songs just doesn't make any sense to me at all. A movie, like LOTR, might cost $100 million to make, and yet the DVD will come out - with TONS of EXTRAS - for about the same or less than the cost of most newly released albums (I saw Return of the King offered for $19.95 at my movie store, while the new Foo Fighters was $18.99 at Borders). Yet, what does it cost to produce an album? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it isn't anything even close to $100 million. Furthermore, a DVD released today for $20 will cost only about $10 just a few months after the initial release. Meanwhile, the Beatles White Album still costs something like $30 a full 20-some YEARS after it was released. One could argue that most of a movie's revenue is generated in theaters, and that albums don't have that same kind of outlet (concerts are significant added costs to bands & labels, while movie theater distribution probably doesn't cost movie makers much extra). But still, there are thousands of radio stations paying royalties and the cost of making an album is dramatically less than that of making movies.
This is the New York Post, folks, the same paper (and same reporter) who a couple of months ago claimed that Microsoft was trying to buy AOL from Time Warner -- a story that went nowhere and was picked up by no other major news organization.
I'll believe this when I see it.
http://www.macminute.com/2004/04/28/itunescall
Jobs specifically quotes that songs are staying at the $.99 level... This was addressed last week out of the fact that this story about the RIAA is 2 weeks old...
And BTW, if you complain about the new pricing structure for iTunes... The terrorists will win...
He wrote that:Thanks for stating this in a way that does not make it obvious there are still unlimited burns of any song...and also a big thanks for not mentioning the loosening of the restriction of # of PCs & Macs music can be shared on.
In addition, Timmy shared that:The implication is that iTunes was not something people were interested in.
There are other examples of his FUD statements, such as covering Sony's new service without the mention of their restrictions (if you own a MiniDisc player or MemoryStick music device raise your hand).
And finally, this gem:Got a source for that one Jimmy? Steve Jobs was just quoted refuting such a statment.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I for one would love to see a fight between Wal-Mart and the RIAA. The RIAA can force Apple to raise prices because Apple is comparatively small. Wal-Mart, IIRC, is selling for $0.88 / track, and Wal-Mart is the world's biggest corporation. I'd love to see a fight between those two.
Then again, we may wind up with a market flooded with cheap Chinese music.
I think the only reason Sony wants the price on iTMS up, is so that they can be cheaper, then they will go out and advertise they are the cheapest.
An excerpt from the title track:
They're trying to get people used to paying CD prices for downloaded music so they can phase out CD sales all together, thereby significantly curtailing the trade in mp3s, reducing their distribution costs to nil, and gradually moving people to a pay-per-use model for content consumption. It's the Entertainment Industry's Holy Grail. The IRS taught us long ago you don't hit people up for a ton of money up front, you take it from them bit by bit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Has anyone else noticed that the NY Post article has an element of libel to it? They cleary state that an album by N.E.R.D. costs $16.99 on the iTMS, when it only costs $13.99, last time I checked. It seems that whoever wrote this article didn't take the time to verify simple facts. Can the rest of it be trusted? It seems unlikely to me that 10 after saying that single prices will not rise, Apple would raise them.
RIAA members make money by casting nets throughout the distribution networks they control utterly through means of their cartel.
New methods of distribution are a grave threat (literally) to their necessity, which in both business and nature is a swift road to extinction - unless those streams either emerge under strict controls, or are addressable through business or legal tactics.
Internet music distribution is a bear of a problem to these people. There is no specific competitor to be bought out or sued, or specific technology to buy into; the fight against Napster underscored this point clearly.
Furthermore, their entire livelihood - marketing and distribution of music - has morphed over the past decade into obsolesence. "Push" marketing - the only kind RIAA members know about - never fails to fail on the net, and "distribution management" is something that software can handle with far less overhead than RIAA is demanding from artists in meatspace.
RIAA supporting music downloads is like Bush campaigning for Kerry. If legal music downloads take off, RIAA dies. It isn't any more complex than that. The net undermines all of their profit schemes.
Notice how popular legal music downloads are getting? If they get too popular, who'll need RIAA? RIAA has been pushing against illegal alternatives, so they can't very well opt out without validating most every argument put against them as to their motive. So what other option do they have to curb the burgeoning frenzy? If legal downloads make overall music sales go up, what reason will they have to petition Congress or judges?
IMO they're trying to make downloads so unattractive an option that most people either go back to illegal downloads or CD buying. In the case that it fails to stop legal downloads or increase CD sales, they still make a lot of money. It's a no-lose plan.
Yeah, actually. It means I can legally purchase music per-cut, rather than spending money on tracks I don't want. It's fun and convenient. I'm filling the holes in my library, and I don't worry about a Dear John from the RIAA.
That doesn't mean I like the idea of a rate hike. But pricing is a separate issue from the bigger question of whether or not labels and artists have the right to expect payment for their work.
I'd possibly pay $1.25 a cut, but it would likely cut down on the number of transactions I make. I buy few albums through iTunes. $16.99 is too much, given that one might find a new CD cheaper than that price. Better to shop around and be able to rip a superior copy if I want the whole album.
It would be great if Apple begins to offer iTunes downloads in their new lossless codec. Would make me feel better about a price increase.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
They're trying to get people used to paying CD prices for downloaded music so they can phase out CD sales all together, thereby significantly curtailing the trade in mp3s, reducing their distribution costs to nil, and gradually moving people to a pay-per-use model for content consumption. It's the Entertainment Industry's Holy Grail.
And when distribution costs are nil, what incentive will there be for any content producer to go through an XXAA member to get their art on the market?
When distro costs are nil, what's to stop minor-league competitors from jumping in and offering less-restrictive competition that would be more attractive to consumers and therefore producers?
Distribution is RIAA's raison d'être. Monopoly control over it is the only reason any producers put up with the majority fees on sale, the content manipulation and other bullshit. When they lose that, the house of cards comes down, DRM or no DRM.
By forcing Apple to raise its prices to be compatible with store bought CDs the RIAA plans to kill its competition and piracy.
If downloading music costs the same as a store bought CD ( or more ) most people will let the record companies do the work and give them a nice
"store bought" package.
End of legal downloadable music.
Additionally, by temporarily allowing legal downloadable music to flourish ( in combination with their lawsuits for illegal downloading ) they have moved many people away and out of the habit of stealing music over the internet.
If more people start stealing music over the internet again the RIAA can play martyr with an improved public image. "Hey, we let legal downloads happen and these people insist on stealing anyway".
Steve
Good Now we no how to push You're buttons
The best way to combat the RIAA is through iTunes' new iMix feature. Create indie mixes and rate indie mixes so that people will easily be able to identify good music that doesn't benefit the RIAA.
Here are a few:
indie goodies
Another Gallery of Rogues
I'm fairly certain all of the music on these are indie. If not, let me know. But, more importantly, respond to this message with links to other indie-only iMixes!
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Its not really a record label, rather its the umbrella organisation for both the Beatles non-musical business interests and today it controls their image, name, trademarks etc (if not their songs, which were held by Northern Songs (L&Mc) and Harrisongs (GH)).
I've very much McCartney and Starr would sell control of their image to Apple, nor would Yoko Ono or the estate of George Harrison be willing to part with rights to their portrayl either.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Apple on Friday denied a report that the computer maker was planning to raise prices for songs bought on its popular iTunes online music store, according to Reuters. "'These rumors aren't true," said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Sequeira. 'We have multiyear agreements with the labels and our prices remain 99 cents a track.' Apple's statement came after the New York Post reported on Friday, citing one unnamed source, that music fans may have to start paying more for some songs on Apple's music store following contract renegotiations with the record labels ahead of the one-year anniversary of the store.
- MacNN
The article was from the NY Post not the Washington Post, and the Washington Post has a left wing slant though it is a really good newspaper. Maybe you are thinking of the Washington Times?
Prices are only going up on more popular tracks.
SPAM
What would you, Mr. Coward, consider "fair"? Seriously, I am very curious. Cheaper prices? Better interactivity? Better selection? Exposure to artists outside of Britney, et al?
This is not meant to be flippant... what would your ideal music download site look like?
I have yet to pay for a single song on-line. It's rediculous. Look at the facts: 1) It's limited to the number of times you can copy it (thus breaking the benefit of digital media). I replace my computer once per year, so that means the songs I'd buy have at best a five year experation date. 2) They cost as much as CDs (and with this price hike they cost more). So I get 5 years of a song, no cover art, no good back-up options, and I pay more? The music lables are killing themselves and I sit back and laugh. Issue "remaster" after "remaster" and then flop like dying fish with SACD and DVD-Audio (which would be even more re-issues). THe record labels could make MORE money by using on-line distribution at a lower price point. Make the songs cheap enough (say $0.50 each?) and people will buy them. Remove copy protection and, sure, people will share them with their friends but that is how music has been for decades. Who never dubbed a cassette in the 70's or 80's for a friend? Who never burned off a CD in the 90's? Trading music small-scale allows people to be exposed to music they would not be otherwise, and then those people may buy OTHER tracks. By avoiding the profit-sharing distribution method of shipping CDs to Best Buy, and reducing the cost by not having to press CDs, pay photographers and artists for cover art, etc. the record labels can save butt-loads of cash. Reduce the cost per song, make even more money. But no, they'd rather do stupid crap like this. I'm glad to see their monopolistic tactics are working about as well as shooting themselves in the foot. I, meanwhile, laugh heartily and visit my locally owned used CD store reguarly.
Apple has denied that there will be any price increase, and furthermore, they are in multi-year contracts with the different record labels such that the price is locked at $0.99 for at least a couple more years.
Good News you don't have to die.
dont forget we also heard about the McDonalds Billion Song Gveaway from the upstanding NY Post. Not to mention that in the past year we also heard that Apple was about to buy Universal Music. I call BS on this.
e to the pi i plus one equals zero
There are some songs on allofmp3.com that aren't available on iTunes, so it's very tempting... but...
Is there any reason I should think that Museekster.com has any credibility? IP law is a convoluted mess right now, and this guy doesn't exactly sound like a lawyer. I also couldn't help but notice the disclaimer on the site:
Pretty standard fare given our lawsuit-crazed society, I suppose, but still...
That allofmp3.com offers Beatles and Metallica albums seems troublesome, too, and I'm not sure that the explanation put forth by Museekster.com holds water:
Uh... okaaay...
I'd like to believe this is all nice and legal, but the cynic in me can't make the leap. (Damn!)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
BiggerIsBetter (682164) sez: "Isn't Sony in the RIAA too? Isn't that like some sort of conflict of interest?"
Not the way Sony sees it. Sony sees funny.
Back in the early 80's, Sony was one of the companies that wanted a "tax" on cassette tapes, to make up for the money they "lost" (more accurately, failed to make) due to people taping albums.
They wanted me to pay more for my Sony tape that I used in my Sony tape deck to record my Sony albums by Sony artists. They saw nothing wrong with this. Luckily, others did.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
If the music labels want to start whining about the non-musician "owners" not getting paid, I think they won't get much sympathy. We can all see the benefit of paying artists to continue producing art, but paying parasites like Hillary Rossen [2] isn't somehting that most people think is important. She wants money, let her start singing. Otherwise, screw her and every member of the RIAA, they've screwed us often enough.
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[1] Just as an example. I'd support more punk bands if more of 'em had bagpipes...
[2] The president of the RIAA, who wrote a fascinating piece about how the poor RIAA isn't making much money off $16 CD's. Read it here.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
The brackets around $0.01 mean it's negative- which explains why $0.99-$1.00=($0.01). Usually you use angle brackets but that basically means the artists owe $0.01.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
1. There is already lots of pirating because people think that the store prices for CDs are too high.
2. My guess is that the slope of the demand curve for purchased online music is really high and quite nonlinear; my guess is that any price increase will dramatically lower the demand for purchased music (because it's just as simple to download a clandestine copy) while lowering prices will increase demand at some more measured pace. (This is opposed to gasoline, where huge changes in price have little effect on demand, at least in the current range of prices. In the US.)
These observations lead me to believe that folks need to do some updated thinking about economic theory and products/services which have basically no implementation cost. There has to be a reason for someone to pay for something, and when you have (effectively) instantaneously delivery of digital content at potentially zero price, it's quite difficult to build a business distributing music (I would argue there is still a lot of room to create music - the RIAA has never been in the business of creating music though, which is why they are upset. Their entire business model of music distribution is falling apart).
Anyway, I suppose that if they raised prices they would quickly find out that demand would plummet. In this instance, what would happen is that they would probably kill iTunes rather than rake in more money; my guess is that even if they forced *every* provider to raise prices they'd just lose volume. (This is because if there is any one provider with a lower cost, the lack of barriers on the internet would quickly shift all business to the lowest-cost source. The one hiccup here is, of course, the iPod, which definitely complicates the analysis.)
That's about all for today on this, I think...I'm sure I didn't cover every facet, but we're still in the early stages of the Intellectual Property Revolution.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
I can't see your argument here. The musician produced the music. I send the musician money. Any side deals involving the rights to the music don't actualy affect the fact that the musician got money from me for his music. How is this not doing any good?
If you want to buy a house you can't just find an empty one, send the builders (construction workers, not contractors, construction firms etc) money if the house is actually owned by a bank. Sure, you paid the creators of the house but they have most likely already been paid for that work.
Music is often the same way. A lot of music is created as a work for hire. The musician gets an advance to create some music. The advance goes to pay for the production, and then the artist keeps whatever is left. The label then keeps money from the sales of that music to recover the cost of the advance and any other funds they have laid out. The label then profits if the revenue from that music is greater than the initial outlay of cash. Now the issue isn't nearly that simple and there are royalty payments and other things to consider. Yes, many labels don't pay fairly when it comes to royalties, and don't accurately report the earnings so they don't have to make royalty payments. This is an issue that needs to be resolved between the artists and the labels. When an artist transfers ownership of music to a label they have been paid for the work. Just as the builders of the house have already been conpensated for doing their jobs.
Sure, the analogy isn't perfect, but intellectual propery is considered to be exactly that under our laws, property. Sending an artist money might help the artist that is getting screwed by their label, but then they shouldn't have agreed to a contract that screwed them. The only way to get the labels out of the loop so they can't screw artists or consumers is to get the artists to stop giving away ownership of their art. Then we can pay the artists directly and show that we don't need the labels and if they want to survive they need to change their business plans. That's why just sending money to the artists doesn't do any good. It puts a few bucks in the artists pocket, opens you up to liability for basically admitting to copyright infringment (unless you don't specify why you are giving the artist money of course), and fails to actually effect any change on the system.
I call bullshit!
ROMS is the equal to our (In Norway) TONO. They collect money from radiostations, TV channels, concert venues, restaurants, bus companies, pubs, inf fact every place that dares to play a record they bought.
TONO is a reedy organisation, that even demand that commercial websites pay 11 cents PER CLICK! for ANY music played, even if that makes most web-enabled music event go in instant red. Result: No-one plays music in web video, and TONO gets NO mney.
A good friend of mine pays to be a member of TONO. Their band have been played a lot in radio, but so far the fee has been greater than the earnings.
Enteties like ROMS and TONO exists for ONE purpose only, to earn enough to keep it self alive, along with a portion to the already-lots-earning artists and record companies.
Pricing for new music should be high, older stuff could be much lower. If older stuff would be priced less (in any format), I'd buy a ton of music, but right now I don't bother.
This is a great idea. Something that would work great is something I saw in a video arcade once. The games were modified coin-ops so that you swiped a card, which you could put money on at the counter. Each game varied in price, in such a way that the price was based upon the frequency of play. So the older games were cheaper because people didn't play them as often, but if you started playing it a lot, the price might increase 1 or 2 cents per play. It made sure the price was right for every game.
Apple should do something similar. The price of a track would start at a predetermined amount. As more people purchased the track, the price would slowly increase based on some formula. The price would eventually level off at a fair price. The other great thing is that lesser known tracks would drop in price and more people would be willing to buy them. So how about it Steve? Are you going to hire me now?
In regard to the record companies wanting a price hike, here's my theory. Raise prices, kill all the online stores and hire a few developers to replicate what has been done already. When you're a monopolist, you think like one.
- The record industry already has an antitrust exemption that allows record companies to jointly negotiate royalty rates for digital distribution. Late last year, the music industry convinced Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to insert language into the EnFORCE Act (Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003) that would extend that exemption to "physical product configurations" such as CDs. That bill is still in committee.
That's legalized price fixing, courtesy our good buddy Orin Hatch. With Apple in the middle, they're losing their grip on distribution and they know it. That's why they are asking the industry for a "standard format" of copy restricted music. They want to know what format their portable player should support, and what brand of file to include on their double sided crypto disks.Read the Register article that is linked from the musketeer article (it says that it is not legal in western countries), and yes, this is forbiden in the us 17 USC 106 may be an informative read for you.
You've assumed that it is not already in the current contract between Apple and the various RCs (recording companies). What if there's a clause that allows for a retroactive price increase if, say, the original royality fee structure was incorrectly calcutated? You and I know that if the RIAA/RCs used this (posssible) clause it's just to make some more money, not to correct a mistake. IMO it would also piss Jobs off and he is truly one man you don't want to piss off. For Jobs "job one" is protecting the name of Apple. It's his child. A retro price increase would most likely kill off iTunes in a week.
In addition, iTunes doesn't phone home each play, only for the first authorization so they can't really lock you out of your collection of songs you've bought. The iTunes Music Store is a STORE, not a subscription service. Just like Apple killed off streaming out of your subnet (active in iTunes 4.0, dead in 4.1 and they didn't say they were killing it off) so could apple require all music to be reauthorized. Again, Job's loves Apple and I don't see him doing this unless under agreement.
My attitude to iTunes is simple: I continue to buy music and I will continue to burn all my music on music cds and back up my AACs. If (unlikely but possible) they do the above I'll just stop using them, enjoy what I have and continue downloading GD and Phish concerts (which are legal to download and share for noncommercial purposes).
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST