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MP3 Download Prices to Rise?

Posted by Hemos on from the bad-move dept.

OBeardedOne writes "The major music labels are in talks with music download services attempting to get them to increase the price of music downloads. " Sounds like there is division in the ranks of the music companies, but something to watch.

21 of 831 comments (clear)

  1. www.allofmp3.com by zackrentwood · · Score: 5, Funny

    All of MP3 http://www.allofmp3.com/ already went from $0.01/MB to $0.02. This is old news.

    1. Re:www.allofmp3.com by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 5, Interesting
      You know what? I'm all for it... if it means they are willing to discount the less-popular stuff in exchange. Then people who want to pay four bucks a song for the latest "boy band" can do so, and I can get all my favorite fucked-up indie stuff on the cheap. It's win-win!

      Not in the long run. Paul Goldstein, a noted professor of copyright law from Stanford, pointed out something very interesting in a lecture I attended around 10 years ago. When music (or other copyrighted material, for that matter) is sold electronically (he was envisioning some kind of satellite on-demand streaming service, but the idea still applies), in a way that allows the sellers to keep track of the purchase history of individual buyers, then they could go to variable pricing that is variable per person, rather than just per song like you are imagining.

      That is, they could figure out that you like that "fucked-up indie" stuff, and so charge you $4 for it, whereas if I think it is merely OK they might only ask $0.50 from me.

      Note: Goldstein didn't say this would be a good thing. He was just pointing out the possibility that it might happen.

      There was also some speculation as to how consumers could deal with this. I don't remember if Goldstein suggested this, or if it was something that me and my friends came up with while discussing the lecture later. Consumers could purposefully purchase stuff they don't like, in order to try to screw up the profile data, to keep the music companies from knowing what their favorites are. If buying a couple $0.50 songs from a genre you hate will keep them from raising one of your favorites from $2 to $4, it would be worth it. The music companies would probably tie in the purchase prices to the data from streaming services, so heavy music buyers could subscribe to streaming services, and have their computers listen to crappy music all day to skew the data.

      Or maybe people could group together. Find someone who gets a low price on what you like, and for whom you have a low price on what he likes, and purchase for each other.

  2. prices? by MindDelay · · Score: 5, Funny

    you mean we're supposed to pay for mp3s?

    --
    Spiral out. Keep going...
  3. New record label? by tommyth · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've never heard of this "404" record label. Or are they a group representing record labels? And why is /. affiliated with them?

  4. illegal trust by cooley · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If this isn't the very reason we have anti-trust laws here in the USA, then I don't know what is.

    --
    Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
  5. Link to CNN article by Tree131 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a link to CNN article.

    1. Re:Link to CNN article by i_should_be_working · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The Financial Times, quoting unnamed music executives, said wholesale music prices, thought to be around 65 cents a song, were originally set artificially low in a bid to stimulate demand

      lol!. I guess for them it costs more than 65 cents to make a copy of a 4MB file and upload it to servers? This is utter crap. They actually expect us to believe that a digital version of a song is more expensive than it's CD version? Not that it is for us now, but if they raise prices...

  6. HERES THE LINK! by keeleysam · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/28/downloads_ price_rises/

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    Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
  7. Well they have to raise prices by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because the cost of manufacturing has...

    Er... Because they have to hire more employees to handle the purchasing load...

    Er... Because the Britney Spears needs a new swimming pool for her poodle... yeah!

    Isn't it time we just declare the RIAA a monopoly and start regulating it because, obviously, there is no competition.

    1. Re:Well they have to raise prices by Vicsun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Er... because price collusion is perfectly legal and ethical.

    2. Re:Well they have to raise prices by khallow · · Score: 5, Informative

      The correct terms are "oligopolistic collusion", "semantic games", and "oligopoly". "Monopoly" means the market is completely dominated by one supplier. In the music industry there are multiple competiting suppliers, but only a few have huge and cozy distribution chains. That's an oligopoly not a monopoly.

  8. Wow that's really gonna hurt by vapid+transit · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they raise prices they'll be even less competitive with the price of $0.00 that I currently pay per song.

  9. Link by mushupork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here's one at CNN International.

    Labels are like OPEC...there's no competitive pricing among providers, just THE price for the product.

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    Currently bidding on sig
  10. Profit Margins by yetdog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What REALLY pisses me off about this whole sham, is the fact that digital downloads are already pure profit for the labels. No packaging, distribution, or printing. Pure profit. And it's just not enough to fill their bloated CEO's coffers. Sue your customers for downloading illegally, but charge them an arm and a leg to do it the "right" way. Piss off, RIAA. You'll never see another dime from me.

  11. comparing to ringtones by Jjeff1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I read an article about this. It seems one of the reasons for the cost increase is to compete with ringtones. Ringtones are going for 2 or 3 dollars each, or you can get a subscription for 3$ a week.

    This of course is insane. 2 or 3 dollars for a ringtone out of my tiny cel phone speaker is barely even something you can call a song.

    Anyway, that's the logic behind it. Ringtones don't target people who want music. They target people who need to be hip and with the pop culture, so clearly people behind this are missing things.

  12. Re:Nope by FlopEJoe · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Never paid for it in my life, and I'm not about to start. I guess I can be proud of that."

    We're still talking about MP3s, right?

  13. HIGHER? Wrong sign on that delta, guys... by mad.frog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IMHO, the prices are too high already, at least for me.

    At a buck a track, I *might* consider buying 'em if they were losslessly encoded at at-least CD quality, and included metadata, "liner notes", etc... basically all the goods I can get at roughly the same price in a physical CD.

    But in a lossy, DRM-infested mess... why the hell would I pay the same amount?

    If they get the price down to 25 cents... or maybe even 50!... then I might consider it. Until then, it's back to the used-CD bins at Amoeba for me.

  14. follow the bandwagon or miss the concert.. by klang · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear RIAA

    For every artist you represent, there are 1.000 artists you don't. If we are not allowed to sell your music, we will start taking all unknown artists into our store and let word of mouth decide. We will do this after buying Apple Records and make deals with every lable we can get into this. See those white headsets aroud the city? Each one of those are connected to one of our customers.

    Yours faithfully,
    iTunes Music Store

    PS: we are going to sell the music of unsigned and independend artists no matter what you do, so follow the bandwagon or miss the concert.

  15. Re:Some questions... by DrSbaitso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The RIAA doesn't want any one company, be it Apple or anyone else, to get too much of the market. That would give them too much bargaining power! With a bunch of weak market shares, the RIAA can dictate its wholesale price. Now, Apple can tell them it won't pay a higher price and have the muscle to back up its threat.

    --
    beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
  16. Moral questions by gidds · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Maybe technically so, but consider this.

    Take a commodity: sugar, say. If I sell sugar, I can do so for any price I wish. I can also sell sugar of any type or condition, provided that a) it's safe for human consumption, and b) I'm honest about what's in it. I can choose to sell for a ludicrously high price, but that's okay because someone else down the road can sell for a lower price, and unless I can provide people with a genuine reason for preferring mine, they'll buy his. So it's a free market; it tends to regulate itself.

    Music isn't like that, though. If I want to buy a track from an RIAA artist (legally, in my country), then I have to buy from an RIAA-approved source. I can't go and get the same track from another source. So it's not a free market in the same sense; it's more like a cartel. Under those conditions, maybe it's not quite so just for the cartel to choose whatever price it likes?

    Music is also different in another major way, as discussed in other comments: if I steal some sugar, then not only do I get to have it, I'm depriving the original owner. But if I copy music, although I get the benefit, the original owner doesn't lose anything. So copying music is only like theft of physical objects in some ways; in others, it's different.

    These two reasons make me think that although music copying is wrong according to the law, it's not a wrong of the same type as physical theft. And maybe it's a wrong we need to reconsider.

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    1. Re:Moral questions by AndyChrist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Does the RIAA lose as much as they say. Probably not. Has music-sharing cost them money? Yes, and I challenge anybody to argue that assertion. "

      I don't know about everyone else, but I went YEARS without buying any music because I never heard anything I liked ANYWHERE. I started buying CDs after I started downloading music. Quite a few of them actually.

      Without file sharing, that's hundreds of dollars the recording industry wouldn't have seen.