Slashdot Mirror
Music Labels May Seek Higher Download Prices
punxking writes "Some of the big music labels are now clamoring to raise prices for digital music downloads. From the article: 'Music industry executives said introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks had been set low to stimulate demand for online music sales but the success of Apple's music store had prompted concern that they may now be too low.'" Relatedly, the BBC is reporting that iTunes is under investigation in Britain for charging disparities between the UK and the European continent.
This is getting ridiculous. Next article, please.
We shall see...
Can I simply ask somebody who really knows? What are the costs associated with digital distribution versus printing and distribution of physical media? Is this simply a case of music labels being greedy? Come on now. This is an industry that simply does not get it. Music sales declined through the late 90's because the music that was being promulgated on us by the music labels sucked. Big time. Throughout the entire decade of the 90's, they waited for somebody else to innovate the digital distribution of music (Napster), and waited for Apple to do it right with the iTunes Music Store, and now they want to profit on top of all of others hard work. I guess it is a business model that works, but come on now, have some respect for what you do! Are you making a profit with iTunes with the current pricing scheme? It would certainly appear to be the case, so why are you now trying to increase prices? The cost of distribution through the Apple iTMS has not changed. Apple has not changed the terms for distributing music in your contracts. Apple is not making any more money on it than previously agreed. I guess we should not really be surprised though. Remember when CDs first came out? Remember the cost of a vinyl album at the time ($7)? Remember the cost of a CD at the time($12-15)? Remember the music industries promise that CD costs would drop when they became popular? Consider especially that shelf space could hold more CD's and the distribution costs for CDs were significantly less than they were for vinyl. Consider that the costs for pressing a CD were/are significantly less than those for vinyl. I would assume that there is an order of magnitude difference in the distribution costs for Internet delivery versus physical media delivery that would make Internet delivery significantly less expensive and thus more profitable.
Here is a prediction: If the price for music increases right now for digital distribution, sales will fall and piracy will increase. Apple did the hard work of market research on what folks want to pay for music downloaded from the Internet and they concluded that
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I read this yesterday, in this item in the Apple category. Ignore the misleading "mp3" in the category: the article about just about every digital format ASIDE from mp3.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Are we the only ones to read slashdot !
The Heroine model... Nice...
Slashdot and OSDN are clamoring to raise subscription rates!
/dev/null... "How are we to justify raising subscription rates if the readers weren't getting the same old shit twice?"
In a move that the OSDN bean-counters believe will give Slashdot and OSDN more cash on hand, Slashdot.org is announcing that they are raising subscription rates to $5.25 for 1000 pages of ad-free* viewing.
More and more frequently Slashdot has been giving its readers the opportunity to read day old news AGAIN! The editors of the site claim that this is part of their overall marketing plan:
Rob Malda (aka CmdrTaco) was quoted in the NYT (vampire sucking required) as saying, "well we give you TWICE the news in two days so we thought it was only right that our subscribers pay a little bit extra!"
Zonk was quoted as saying, "well we give you TWICE the news in two days so we thought it was only right that our subscribers pay a little bit extra!"
While Slashdot does have an e-mail link on their site to allow Slashdot subscribers to report these duplicates to the "Editor on Duty" the editors have admitted in secret taped conversations (on IRC) that the email address is bunk and goes to
* - ad-free only refers to banner ads, not posts to the main page that are made to appear as "stories" when they are in all actuality advertisements (i.e. iPods)
I thought they were just talking about doing this a few days ago...Greedy bastards...sheesh!
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
cock smoking dupe
The music labels are really having fun raising prices this week!
It's old news today.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I will not pay any more. I think they're overpriced as is.
Maybe I would consider it if any of the increased margin were to go to the artist. Which is pretty unlikely.
See yesterday's news perhaps?
hopefully i won't be the 20398340958th person to point this out by the time i post, but: DUPE! http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/28/ 1738239&tid=141&tid=3
Geez, and only 48 hours too.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
All these popular artists's money bins are getting low. Any lower and they'll break their necks by diving in.
Good luck pushing Wal*Mart. They've never bowed to a supplier. If they want to sell digital music at 25-cents a track, the music industry can just take it in the rear.
They want us to download the songs with our network connections that we pay for, in lieu of them pressing CDs and printing inserts, and now we're supposed to pay MORE than you pay in a store for a CD? At $1 a track, it's already not a very good deal. For more than that, the only thing they'll be stimulating is a new resurgence in p2p.
dupe dupe dupe
they duped the URL (dupe dupe)
they duped the URL (dupe dupe)
they duped the URL...
As I walk though
Slashdot's world
Nothing can stop
These dupes of URLs...
etc. etc.
Do you want to submit this one tomorrow and make it 3 days in a row? Or should I do it?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Shit, how lacking in short-term memory can Slashdot be? This same thing was posted yesterday.
... Dupe? Perhaps they should start charging more so they can pay EDITORS to FILTER SUBMISSIONS..... oh wait....
Slashdot is under investigation for duplicate articles.
And duplicate posts.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
So, might as well post my old comment.
I wonder if this push for a price increase is to put a dampner on the existing on-line players as they did with the CARP act a few years ago regarding streaming.
The problem, as the established media companies see things, with these new electronic outlets they have problems excerting their marketing influences to pimp their latest one-hit manufactured artist.
If they can put the breaks on things until *they* control the market then this is better for them. Its not really an issue concering margins as all the big players seem to be reporting big profits.
First Dupe is getting as hard to get as First Post!
If i could safely send an amount of money, at a level i find reasonable, to artists of whom i 'might or might not' have copied music, i really think i would do it for quite a number of artists.
Oh, wait, there's legitmate places to download music online from?!!!
Primitive peoples often think that you're stealing their soul when you photograph them.
I make no guarentee of this post's relevancy to anything.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The discussions are different? In other words, one discussion might have a little more Apple bashing than the other. One discussion will have a goatse link, and the other will have a GNAA screed? In one, 89% of the posts are about whether piracy = theft. In the other, 91% of the posts are about whether piracy = theft. Yes, there really is a difference!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I would love to see one of these copies to have no posts relating to the topic but instead every single post is crying out "DUPE"
It take more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in God
Well they have to raise prices!
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.
(I'm reminded of that montage scene in Real Genius where more and more people don't show up to class and instead have tape recorders to record the lecture... eventually the professor stops coming to class and just has a tape to play to the tape recorders...)
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/28/ 1738239&tid=141&tid=3
Can we please stop this nonsense?
Reject Fear - Embrace Hope
It was as if a million slashdotters cried out DUUUPPPPEEE!!! and were suddenly modded.
What's the point? If you find those prizes too high, don't buy anything or try to find a cheaper source.
Unless the music industry starts to push new laws that require you to pay those prizes, I fail to see the problem or even newsworthiness of this.
Nice to see that there is such a thing as a free market, even when it comes to music in digital form.
The music industry loses all credibility the moment it says "Apple may become too powerful."
Oh, so now Apple is trying to take over the world?
What next? The Salvation Army?
Enough with the freaking dupes already! don't the editors READ slashdot anymore???
Buy used CDs.
Online music stores sell a lower quality format, they put DRM restrictions on it, and then they want to charge MORE than the price of a used CD?!?!?
The minor inconvenience of ripping the music to put it on your mp3 player counterbalances the inconvenience that you would have later on, when you are trying to get all of your DRMed iTunes songs to play on a new computer.
And with used CDs you don't even have to bother backing up your music because it already comes to you in physical form.
Im not a spelling nazi by any means, but I am an accuracy nazi, and the heroine model (whereby a company lures customers by appearing beautiful from a great distance and then appears ugly only AFTER their hair is used to ascend the tower wall) has little to do with this story. Perhaps you mean heroin, the popular and illegal drug whose addicts are lured by free/low cost doses and then once addicted are forced to pay an exorbitant amount.
These are the same people who are trying to say that piracy is the reason that they're not making wads of cash? Did they miss the whole supply/demand/equilibrium price part of economics class in high school (okay, some of them may have gone to college).
Let's see. We have a product that is being sold at a price point that has people drooling, there are very low distribution costs, no need for shipping or inventory maintenance, and people can buy from home. Sounds good...*too* good...let's raise the prices and kill it off.
asshats.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
The music industry thinks that because iTunes is a success, the prices must be too low. That explains why CDs sales are down. Every time people start buying them, the music industry raises prices. The music industry seems afraid of success, every time it gets close, they squash it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
It costs $15 for a 12-15 Track CD? How is $0.99/song too low? $0.99/song seems about right. Especially considering that you don't get a hard copy of the CD, you don't get a CD pamphlet, and you don't get the case. The RIAA needs to stop being so damn money hungry.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
The main "iTunes raising prices" is a dupe from yesterday, and "iTunes under investigation in the UK" is _ALSO_ a dupe from a recent article. Jesus christ, Taco, if this were a free-site and you were not getting PAID for it, I could see slacking off. But damnit, you have advertisers and subscribers. That implies a certain level of responsibility. Live up to it.
This is par the course lately.... this on top of the fake story about MS antispyware.. pathetic.
Pretty soon they will give us what we have all been waiting for... A /. article whose primary source is another /. article.
Breaking News, Slashdot is being charged for breaking the Truth in Advertising Laws. No Longer can they call themselves News for Nerds becuase recent study has found that they have no news, only dupes. Also there might be possible lawsuit about there slogan "Stuff that Matters" as clearly the last few days of news have been completely pointless.
Troll? That's hilarious! Are you kidding me?
People, economics 101... please repeat after me:
COST HAS NO BEARING ON PRICE!
Get over it. It could be completely FREE for them to offer music for download, and they could legally charge a million dollars a tune. Or it could cost them dollars per download and they offer it for only pennies... it is WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR. If they can raise it, GREAT, then they need to raise it; that's the market.
Sheesh.
Or well, I guess there's a third option to make 99-cent downloads competitive: raise the price of CDs. ;-)
The very idea that download prices are too low, is just ludicrous.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It's a shame that all these dupe posts are getting modded down. It's about time the Slashdot editors actually see what a mess Slashdot has become. They seem to post a dupe every day now.
Please, stop modding those posts down. This duplicate posting must stop.
--- witty signature
"Relatedly, the BBC is reporting that iTunes is under investigation in Britain for charging disparities between the UK and the European continent."
The European continent? That's the shelf of rock that the UK is part of... and prices there are different to the UK?
The real deal is that your money will become less worthful shortly. Especially US$.
That must be compensated. One must make the first step.
... that I don't pay for a
Maybe subscribers should get 50% off after all these dupes?
I hope Slashdot's subscription managers are better at managing accounts and avoiding duplicate charges than the editors are at avoiding duplicate posts.
Subscribe now and get twice the news for one low price!
These companies are looking for the 'sweet spot'. They are looking to milk out as much as they can so they could care less about the amount of downloads . You can compare this to other products like 'BROADBAND'. They really don't want the broad public(low + middle income) to get broadband because that would mean the price would have to be real low. They just want the top tier of buyers with the most bucks.
Anyways aren't the music companies under some government supervision since they were caught monopolizing prices ?
Here's yet another article...
...
"Some of the big music labels are now clammoring to raise prices for digital music downloads. From the article: 'Music industry executives said introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks had been set low to stimulate demand for online music sales but the success of Apple's music store had prompted concern that they may now be too low.'" Relatedly, the BBC is reporting that iTunes is under investigation in Britain for charging disparities between the UK and the European continent.
Oh.. and again, just in case you missed it the last few times
"Some of the big music labels are now clammoring to raise prices for digital music downloads. From the article: 'Music industry executives said introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks had been set low to stimulate demand for online music sales but the success of Apple's music store had prompted concern that they may now be too low.'" Relatedly, the BBC is reporting that iTunes is under investigation in Britain for charging disparities between the UK and the European continent.
You'd almost think the editors were cutting and pasting...
They just raised the rates a few days ago... and now they are already doing it again?!
Runaway inflation, I tell you.
I don't see why the Music Industry is complaining. Think of this from a business perspective. Low prices means more people will buy it (as a generalization). How can the prices be "too low" if iTunes has been extrememly successful? Exactly how much sense does that make? If the prices had been much higher, I don't think the iTunes Music Store would have seen the success it enjoys today. Look at Wal-Mart, for example. Their goal is to offer products at as low of a price as possible, and they do a decent job at that (just admit it, even if you hate Wal-Mart). Think about it. What businessman in their right mind would make this statement: "Our sales are through the roof! This must mean our prices are too low and we should raise them." WTF? Discalimer: DRTFA
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
The fact that the music industry execs still use terms like "wholesale" shows they still don't get it.
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
The article was from yesterday...
The posts are from yesterday....
I'm expecting to start waking up to "I've got you babe" at 6:00 every morning.
The upside is that I'll apparently become very adept at piano, ice scuplture, and getting into peoples pants.
Thanks, slashdot!
I remember yours, and some of the reply to it:
It's not for Britney's swimming pool, it's for that RIAA exec's pool!
Each time a dupe appears, think of it as that the editors of /. are trying to inform you of its dire importance.
That or there just isn't much to talk about anymore.
...that people who post their annoyance at the number of dupe stories are modded Redundant? You'd think there'd be a more constructive reaction to the red flag raised by such activity. It seems /. is just as guilty of ignoring and alienating users as Microsoft is accused of being.
But, I guess that's what happens when you risk the wrath of the mods.
Apparently the side-effect of the slashdot effect is a disorder whereby the creator of the effect is compelled to repeat itself randomly.
He's a subscriber to slashdot and you call the other guy an idiot?!!!!
I remember paying $.75us for a 45rpm with two songs. I'm a member of www.mymusic.com that charges $5.99 SHIPPED for a physical CD. If they can't make sufficient money at $9.99 an album with digital delivery, something is VERY wrong here. www.MP3Music.com is charging .88 a track, and I'm sure they are making money.
This seems like greed to me.
Perhaps we ought to do away with record companies. Now that bands can use 100% Digital Delivery, who needs them?
I think the bulk of the money ought to go to the writer of the song, and the performer. With the Distribution companies (Record Label and Digital Delivery Service) getting the smallest cut.
The idea is to sell quantity...
Something that seems to escape the Record Labels.
Do you have any idea how many "This is a dup" comments I read every day?
**I assume no responsibility for any failures to see the sarcasm in the above post.**
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
So downloaders still need to be sued because they're hurting the music industry. Prices on online stores need to be raised because it's so successful. I guess it all adds up... right?
You must have missed economics 102 then.
There are other things to consider in "selling" a product. What the market will bear is largely a simplistic economic viewpoint that looks at discrete periods of time. This is a model that will get companies and individuals who advocate those models in trouble with examples like bubbles. Specifically, like those that occurred in the tech markets of the late 90s and the current real estate markets in some parts of the country.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Are you fucking kidding me? Does nobody in Editorland ever read the site to see what's been posted before?
The only answer I can think of that makes sense is that the Editors know it's a button that gets us going, so they push it when they're bored.
This is getting rediculous.
Also, what has this got to do with "Your Rights Online"?
$0.02 (CDN)
You mean the irony?
Here is a prediction: If the price for music increases right now for digital distribution, sales will fall and piracy will increase.
no no.. that cant be right. there's this big pot of money called consumers and you just keep on hittin' em and hittin' em like a big ol' pinata and the money keeps pouring out!
uh.. right?
Well hell, there's always high quality corporate rock radio!
air and light and time and space
"now they want to profit on top of all of others hard work" What exactly is new about this? This is what they do, profit off of other people's work. From day one, this has been the overriding purpose of the recording industry. Pay an artist a (relatively) miniscule amount of money to create a CD, and then charge an exorbitant fee to the public, while at the same time screwing over the musician who was stupid enough to sign a contract with them in the first place.
I kind of like Walmart's discussions with the media industry a little better:
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
a) Started out "free" -- reasoning the bank didn't have to pay so many human tellers.
b) Moved to a small fee for the operator of the ATM, which is understandable.
C) Fee doubled when your bank realized it could charge you in addition to the charges of the ATM operator.
D) Mext the fees nearly doubled to an average of $1.50 each side of the transaction (minus the "free" out of network uses you get per month).
E) Finally -- we end up with bank plans where you can be charged to talk to a human teller.
If we figure out where we went wrong with banks and ATMs it might help us not repeat the same mistake.
maybe they never refreshed there browser and submited the story again by accident eh?
I really don't think Apple, Napster or the other players in the music download business did that much market research on the price. The fixed $.99 price at all of the big music download sites is just a blatant demonstration that the record labels are opposed to the free market.
Oh come on, I would expect more out of slashdot then that! We all know that the record companies are just pushing really hard to get that extra .0000001 of a cent for the artists.. it has NOTHING to do with the billions they currently make.
The editors should be warned if a link in the article matches a link in an article from within the past 4 weeks, it should show "potential dupes" and require a "this is not a dupe" validation before posting.
Maybe something with natural language processing and article summary comparisons could be done also?
http://brandonbloom.name
Of course and your absolutly right, except the part about selling something for pennies that cost dollars to make, noone would do this unless they are trying to liquidate their assets.
Anyways of course we have no reason to complain when an industry raises its prices, we should then be complaining to the people who purchase at the higher price of course. On the otherhand if there is a monopoly on the item it can be illigal to bump the price too high. One could argue weither the MPAA is a monopoly, but as its not a essential service it really isn't the governments buisness.
All in all most people here see rising music prices as a bad idea, and firmly beleive that the industry will lose money on it. But apparently the industry is willing to lose money and point to the P2Ps for blame.
it's not a dupe, it's "Classic Slashdot."
Quick! Download all 2,000,000 song cheap while you still can!
Seriously, Slashdot is getting pathetic. Their editors are complete morons. Tell a programmer for the site to let the server check if there was a similar post already, because the editors obviously can't search for a similar article before posting on their own.
I would point you to Slashdot Editor Training, where all Editors learn how to avoid dupes, perform thorough spell- and fact-checking, and (best of all) write well-crafted, bug-free code.
Yeah, right.
You see, if they make it painful enough to buy tracks online, we'll all revert back to the old model of taking it up the rear at our local record store for a 25 cent chunk of plastic. Online music sales scare the crap out of the recording industry because they become obsolete the second somebody can simply make their music available online to whomever wants to download it. If recording industry can kill online music sales early, they won't slowly fade away into obscurity as recording artists choose other venues to promote their wares. iTunes has somehow, despite the industries best intentions, (through extremely high prices for what you're actually getting), become a viable alternative to the old way of getting music. Therefore, they raise the price even higher to discourage sales. If the price is high enough, people will return to the old business model.
You gotta love it. The ding-dongs that run the music biz are going to fuck the only thing that looks like it might stem the piracy tide, over simple greed.
If the actual people who created the music were getting a bigger fraction of the price, I might not feel so much like some blood-thirsty vampire was trying to suck me dry, but as it is these turkeys deserve everything that's going to happen to them. RIAA seems hellbent, whether they know it or not, on destroying the recording industry.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Relatedly, the BBC is reporting that iTunes is under investigation in Britain for charging disparities between the UK and the European continent. In other news... Pounds are worth more then Euroes
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Instead, the RIAA suits are intent on providing an inferior product to that available freely via P2P--low bitrate, DRM-encrusted, incompatible-with-your-player garbage, and now as a bonus, it's not expensive enough yet.
Michael Robertson (of mp3.com and Linspire fame) has the right idea about DRM:
The RIAA labels should sign on with mp3tunes.com--maybe just a few artists' worth as a pilot program. I know if I could legally get popular music online without the handcuffs, I'd be all over that.
THis is just more evidence that the MPAA and Micro$oft are just out to screw the consumer vis they want us to pay more and more for their so-called "music" which is all Bri[tt]ney $Pears rubbish which they play over and over again on their network of Clearchannel radio stations thanks to payola IE LEGALIZED BRIBERY forcing everyone to download the music from the Internet using services like Kazaa and Morpheus anyway, whereas if the music industry eg the MPAA would just give music away on DRM-less MP3s at 384kbps (the MINIMUM I will accept, 314kbps AAC is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE, you can really hear the difference on top-end Sony equipment) and if they'd make the music actually WORTH LISTENING TO then they would be "getting it" and working in the new economy not the old economy. This is why personally I download all my music from dodgymp3s.ru where you pay a penny a megabyte which is much fairer because the money goes to the artists according to the website, well the bit left over after taxes and expenses and protection racket fees, rather than to the money grabbing record industry execs who spend all their money on cocaine and DVDs.
Are you all with me? Yeah! Fight the fat cat record execs!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
It's hippocritical to beat someone down for posting a dupe when you're responding with a comment that's perhaps the biggest "dup" post on Slashdot.
The irony is not realizing that you're doing it.
In a way, it's both.
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
saddino writes "Steven Levy at Newsweek is reporting that Slashdot seems to favor certain stories for dupes. Is Slashdot receiving kickbacks to promote certain companies? Slashdot denies it, of course, and Levy had the good sense to ask a mathematician and a cryptographer who explained it's probably just humans finding patterns where there are none."
Dick #1: "Man, this piracy thing is still a major pain in the ass!"
Dick #2: "Yeah, maybe more lawsuits will stop it."
Dick #3: "Ok, on to the next agenda. We need more money."
Dick #1: "Oh, how about rasing the rates for the MP3 download services?"
Dick #3: "Capital idea! Done and Done."
Dick #2: "Great! Now, shall we get back to beating puppies to death?"
Dicks: "Huzzah!!"
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
For the vast majority of people who would be considering buying online music, anything less than a dollar is change not worth worrying about, so it is much more "disposable" than things that are priced more than a dollar. That is why retailers list things as .99 instead of 1.00.
And while I know prices can never stay the same due to inflation, I have to say that the industry deserves no more out of this than they're getting. I'm using MY bandwidth that I pay for to get their product. They're not even providing me with the method to do so, Apple is.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
How hard would it be to start a company to compete with the RIAA? Also who does the RIAA compete with, is it only independent labels? If so why hasn't anyone tried to for an entity to do battle with the RIAA and there greed lust. -Everytime I read an article about the RIAA/MPAA I want to purge myself...
"Oh no! We've sold too much music!!! Raise the price and piss people off again!" Idiots.
--- these days, what with business and stuff, you gotta get your emails...
There *are* alternatives, places bands can get their stuff hosted and get paid direct by customers willing to purchase. Don't like any of those? Do it better. /. - ???
In the (forever-in-planning) self-publishing site I'll be launching, I was considering adding a music section, only to be told: "It's being done". That means (to me) investigate what's out there and see if I can do it better. After, of course, actually establishing the main site.
Speaking of duplication, I wonder how long it will be until one of the duplicate-complaint posters gets it into their head to try to build a better
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
all over again
"On the otherhand if there is a monopoly on the item it can be illigal to bump the price too high."
It depends on why there is a monopoly, and why ther price is being bumped "too high."
The music industry IS a monopoly -- you can only buy the latest U2 CD from a single record label, and that label is free to charge whatever they want for their product. And there is nothing illegal about this. It's like Coke -- Coke is a unique product, there is only one manufacturer, and Coke can charge whatever they want for Coke.
Monopolies get into trouble when they use their market power in certain ways. If they conspire to raise prices to consumers for no reason, they can get into trouble for that. If they lower prices in order to drive out competition from the marketplace ("dumping") they can get into trouble for that. And they can get into trouble for using their market power to keep others from entering the marketplace (that's M$ for you).
"One could argue weither the MPAA is a monopoly, but as its not a essential service it really isn't the governments buisness."
Whether or not something is an essential service is not the test -- it's whether or not a company is using monopoly power (or, more accurately, market power) -- in an anticompetitive fashion to either limit competition or to drive up consumer prices. It has nothing to do with whether or not something is an essential service.
"All in all most people here see rising music prices as a bad idea, and firmly beleive that the industry will lose money on it. But apparently the industry is willing to lose money and point to the P2Ps for blame."
Probably correct.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
What rights exactly are being violated here? Sure, we want music to be cheaper, and raising its price may be a dumb idea, but that's entirely the sellers' decision. If they want to commit market suicide, they have every right to do that, regardless of how dumb a move it might be and how much we wouldn't like it.
THEM: They bought it when we said CDs cost more than LPs. Let's try it again!
Reality: In the internet generation, we are awash in media. It should be cheap as electricity or some other commodity. Just supply and demand.
Quite a painful gulf to bridge between those two perceptions.
I'm guessing this is a plan. They make apple up the prices and then bring in their own store at the original prices and make double the profit (apples half). Wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last.
I like muppets.
I suggest that the music industry outsources the work to India/China and this way we Americans can enjoy low, low prices. I can't wait to hear music being sung with a Hindi or Chinese accent. Burp!
Think of the dupe as a remake of the original "classic" post.
Moderators need a new category:
-1 Dupe Bitcher
Damn, people. It is *their* site. They can post dupes all they want. If you don't have anything positive to say about what has been posted (or already posted in the first article) move along to the next article. Damn bunch of whiny-ass, Slashdot bashin' wankers.
I've yet to see a dupe that didn't provoke good discussion in both posts and I've been reading Slashdot for quite a while.
It is a discussion site, not a professional journal. Shaddup, already.
1) Sue people for pirating music, citing copious legit sources.
... what's easier? Putting out good music that people want to buy, or putting out "music" that adds to the population of songs for which the RIAA can sue people for downloading?
2) Make said legal sources more expensive, "encouraging" people to pirate more frequently.
3) Sue more people for piracy, citing copious legit sources.
4) Profit!!
I mean, c'mon
Who doesn't like free music?
My understanding is that the case is in fact the reverse of the statement by one "industry founder" in the article that "Our music is not something to be given away to sell iPods."
In fact, Apple is lowering its price on iPods precisely with the intent of increasing sales on iTunes. That's how Apple makes money, not the other way around. The costs of distributing music online are obviously extremely low.
To be sure, the affect goes both ways, but loads of money spent on legal downloads makes it easy to make iPods cheaper. If Apple raised prices on downloads, it wouldn't do much to discourage iPod buying--the iPod is still a very neat gadget and one of the most usable MP3 players--but it would certainly encourage more pirating of music.
The music execs seem to have this all wrong.
Simply because there is no iTunes client download for Windows 9x/ME or GNU/Linux.
just not from the major labels... then again, having a big record contract doesn't make a band good, right?
I just started my free trial (50 free downloads) at emusic.com . They have a pretty large catalog of indie stuff, and it's about $0.25/song (although the payment structure is odd - $10/mo for up to 40 downloads a month).
Best of all, it's DRM free!
It seems to me that all the major record labels offer is a distribution channel and promotion (ie - top 40 radio)... but the internet takes those advantages away.
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Your correct, I was more saying that personally I don't have an issue with a company being or abusing a monopoly unless its an essential service.
The music industry fears iTunes. Imagine a time in the future where the majority of people buy music online. And also imagine in that future that iTunes still dominates.
If iTunes is the primary source of music, what stops Apple from signing artists directly and CUTTING OUT the music industry entirely?!
I'm not talking about signing new artists. I'm talking about established artists that do not need the marketing services labels provide.
The music industry has to keep iTunes in check. Because if it is too successful, the current music industry it toast.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
You weren't listenening in economics 101...
Only in a monopoly situation do cost and price become disconnected. In a competetative market the price will tend to fall towards the production cost (ocassionally below, which can (rarely) lead to price wars and subsequent mass bankcruptcy).
For a monopoly of course you don't have to have the entire market tied up, just your little corner of it.. airlines for example were onto a good thing with their exclusive contracts for routes until the lowcost airlines figured out a way around it. I would argue that the RIAA have previously been in a monopoly position in their chosen market and this is challenged by cheap distribution and the market becoming global (hence the US/EU limits on iTunes - to try to stop the two markets competing against each other. The same was tried with DVD it basically failed.).
I just read where they are saying they can raise mp3's because that would put them in line with ring tones at 1.99. Has anyone out there actually paid 2 dollars for a 15 second clip of the song? I know i sure ass HELL have not nor will I. So because we are getting ripped off for ring tones that makes it ok to do it for mp3's as well.
Seriously...
Something needs to change. and NOW!
Wal-Mart Squeezing Record Labels to Cut CD Prices
Posted by michael on Thursday October 14, @08:25AM
from the win-win-situation dept.
Raindance writes "RollingStone.com has a revealing article detailing how retail giant Wal-Mart is making loud noises about throwing its weight around in order to get significantly better bulk prices on CDs. Says one industry executive, 'This wasn't framed as a gentle negotiation, it's a line in the sand -- you don't do this, then the threat is [your product is dropped].' This is the first time a big player has attempted this sort of hardball move on the labels, and the labels may be forced to deal, as Wal-Mart sells 1 out of every 5 retail CDs. Monopoly one, meet monopoly two."
Telling quote from the linked Rolling Stone article:
Tensions are not as high now as they were last winter, but making sure Wal-Mart is happy remains one of the music industry's major priorities. That's because if Wal-Mart cut back on music, industry sales would suffer severely -- though Wal-Mart's shareholders would barely bat an eye. While Wal-Mart represents nearly twenty percent of major-label music sales, music represents only about two percent of Wal-Mart's total sales. "If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them," says another label executive. "This keeps me awake at night."
So, it seems as though Wal-Mart is playing chicken with the music labels, betting the labels will blink first. I would suppose if they can do this with physical media, they can do it with downloads as well.
supply and demand, people, supply and demand.
... like Smoosh and PUSA.
music just wants to pay artists, not labels.
I buy my CDs at Tsunami Relief Benefit shows
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
we already have discussion threads, why not apply the same thought to stories. this takes care of dupes by grouping them together making topical discussion less of a headache. this would also have the side effect of grouping related stories into common threads helping the readership gain a greater understanding of the events.
Many in the music business also expressed concern over Apple's growing clout. This stems from the fact that Apple's music store and player are not compatible with any others. One fear is that Apple will become too powerful if consumers continue to choose its digital music platform. Apple declined to comment.
"One fear"? I'd say it's the main fear. The sticking point is not Apple's proprietary technology itself as much as how market share allows Apple to assert downward pressure on per-song pricing. The music biz wants to kneecap Apple. The goal is to force Apple to open the iPod/iTMS, distribute the platform's market share among any number of companies, and so get digital distribution fully under the music industry's thumb. Cartels like chattel, not coequals.
The big question is: if Jobs refuses, will the labels start to defect from iTMS? Apple will have planned for this scenario and their response is going to be very interesting--it will tell us pointedly where the power truly lies.
..after bringing the mp3 prices up (thus bringing up the cost for sites like iTunes et al) they release their own service at a signifigantly lower cost in order to get a start up customer base... That's what I'd do if I was them..
It really makes me angry but it IS interesting! This whole itunes music broohaa just takes me back to the time when I was downloading music and had to pay REALLY high prices, It really makes me angry but it IS interesting! This whole itunes broohaa just takes me back to the time when I was downloading music and had to pay REALLY high prices, It really makes me angry but it IS interesting! This whole itunes broohaa just takes me back to the time when I was downloading music and had to pay REALLY high prices, It really makes me.......HELP....
"Your correct, I was more saying that personally I don't have an issue with a company being or abusing a monopoly unless its an essential service."
Oh, sorry If I misread the intent of your earlier post.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
P2P doesn't work to solve the problem. It only antagonizes, and what's worse, it provides the with the rope that they have used to slowly hang us- in the form of ever-restrictive laws that govern copyright and fair use. If you disagree with the price increase, don't "share" the music. Do what you'd do with any other product - just leave it. Let the RIAA wallow in its own muck until someone finally has a lightbulb moment, and "gets it".
not a word.
i'm trying to give up sigs.
"This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original..."
That's priceless.
My theory on duplicate articles: the slashdot admins think slashdot is so uninteresting because of all the dupes that they don't bother reading it. So they end up posting dupes, and the cycle continues. It's a catch-22, folks.
See what happens. If the sheeples pony up the cash, then your IP was undervalued. BONUS TIME!
If your labels profits are stagnant or start losing money then you need to do some back-pedaling.
Free enterprise, baby. And this crap isn't a life or death commodity. So go ahead and test the waters; I'm still listening to Jazz from the 60's (and NO, you jerks, I will not buy a re-issue!)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
We never hear articles about Pepsi and Coke telling retailers to raise prices. We never hear articles that automobile manufacturers conspiring to raise wholesale prices. But the music industry always seems to act in unison. If there was real competition in the music industry, this sort of crap would never happen.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
No music company is going to be so stupid as to marginalize themselves by irking WalMart. "Fine" WalMart might say, "Pull out of online sales? Fine by us, I guess we might as well stop selling all of your CD's in the stores as well".
And if they can't raise the prices for WalMart online, then how are they going to get iTunes to go along?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They say they are losing 2.4 billion a year to piracy, thats about 200,000,000 CDs that aren't getting sold due to piracy? there are only 294 million americans in the US, if you narrow that down to the "market" demographics that means people are buying 10+CDs a year and stealing 4? That can't be right?
Now they say that the prices for online music is too cheap? WHAAA?!?
One CD = average 10-14 songs
One song download = 99cents or more = $10-14 dollars for a full CD's worth of music...
So RIGHT NOW, you are paying the same exact price as if you bought 14 songs on a CD in a store(but online you can actually get 14 songs that you like instead of 3 good songs and 11 filler...) so why are online downloads not expensive enough?
Does the recording industry have no shame when it comes to pure greed?
Although the music industry might make a lot of noise, what are they going to do? The fact is that right now although they are not making a lot, iTunes is giving them a substantial revenue stream. I just don't see any major label leaving iTunes just to make a statement and give up tens of millions of dollars of juicy recurring revenue that takes almost no effort to obtain.
Furthermore if any labels do decide to leave places like iTunes, I could see an artist backlash. Sure they are stuck in contracts but an unhappy artist can still makea lot of trouble for the studio and even stage a work "slow down" where they suddenly are not as productive.
All a label can do at this point by pulling out of online distibution is further marginalize itself even faster than the rest of the industry. If you are a new artist looking for a label are you going to really consider a label that is not on iTunes if you have any options at all?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even if we differ on whether intellectual property can or should be owned in a legal or moral framework, there is no such thing as "literally" owning music. Simply because there is no such thing as figuratively owning the music. (Same applies to objects.)
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Take Harik, for example. He NEVER makes a mistake at his job. Like yesterday, when a customer ordered a Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese and he pressed the button for a Double Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese! But he read back the order to the customer and the customer corrected him. Phew! Glad he double checked that.
Taco could learn some things from Harik. You're only allowed to make mistakes when you're doing things for fun. As soon as you start doing things for work, you need to become super human. It goes beyond mere ordinary responsibility and owning up to mistakes when you make them -- you're not allowed even one fuckup. Start living up to that!
Hmm, but then you'll put trolls like Harik out of business. What's he supposed to do between shifts at McDonalds then?
Eventually this bullying will get the attention of even US anti-trust regulators. Meanwhile we can watch them dig a deeper and deeper hole for themselves.
As we all know the RIAA is a lumbering dinosaur that uses a business model that has not been updated since back in the 80s. After having a read it seems to me that the labels are just been fucking greedy. All the stuff they have said about losing money to downloading has been shot down time after time. The only way I can see this changing is by us the buyers to start demanding things change by boycotting the labels and by the artists sign to indie labels were in the long run they will get a better deal, greater control of there music or by going direct to guys like Apple to produce and sell there music on the itunes store. Fuck all the other for the most part they use WMA and that is an ass audio format
We are a captive market to these wankers and they will keep pushing us around until we flip them the bird and tell them to fuck off.
Down with the RIAA and all is stands for.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin, American author
Ssh! Those kids subsidize everyone else. Well, their overindulgent parents do. Either way, it means cheaper stuff for me!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I personally won't buy lossy formats. I don't consider them good enough quality for what I listen to. (Classical)
AllOfMP3.com offers a pretty good selection of classical, much of it lossless.
Personally, I can't tell the frickin' difference, and am glad for it. Does anyone actually get enjoyment out of being able to detect the flaws in 320kbit AAC audio?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
distinctly like a cell phone ring tone becuase (according to TFA) cell ringtones are priced 15% higher than a music download. These companies are in the wrong business! If they want to lock customers in they should really look at the cell phone industry where they can really sock it to the consumer. Idiots!
Could this be an indicator or the quality of music that these companies are forcing upon us?
Then again...how many people out of the cell phone population are actually buying ring tones at $1.15 a pop (if you ad 15% to the $1.00 music track) compared to the music purchases of the population of music player owners?
"Give me taste, give me funk, give me fury, gimme some more."
Coke is a unique product, there is only one manufacturer, and Coke can charge whatever they want for Coke.
Bad example. If Coke were five times as expensive as Pepsi, I suspect even brand loyalty would begin to buckle.
...the logic will Walmart being able to do that, is if a supplier refuses to bow to a Walmart price cut, Walmart can simply find another supplier of the goods - the original supplier has no choice but to lower prices, or lose their contract.
However, if all the major music labels were to demand a price raise, Walmart couldn't play the same card - they can't go "We'll just find another major record label", if they're all working in a cartel.
Seems rather ironic that one dodgy business practice is beaten by another...
So why can't we moderate an article Redundant?
Sig free since 2/6/2002
This makes complete sense, to them, and I am not trying to preach about conspiracy theorys.
The labels depend on big acts and big hits to make up for losses from new ventures.
With digital distribution, a large act such as Metallica, Pearl Jam, etc. could go into the studio in the morning, cut a track, and release it to the public for sale in a matter of hours. With their fan bases, they could make some serious money in a matter of hours at $0.99 a song.
No holding on to the track in wait of a complete CD, and no help from the Label.
Yes, the Label helped them have a large fan base, but it is no longer needed. The Label is now irrelevant.
I think that the Labels are dumb enough, and arrogant enough, that they honestly believe that they can stuff this digital genie back into the bottle. Raising the prices would kill digital distribution, and they know it.
Is this the last gasp of the dying Labels trying to delay their fate?
"Bad example. If Coke were five times as expensive as Pepsi, I suspect even brand loyalty would begin to buckle."
That's not the point I was trying to make -- I was trying to point out that Coke is a monopoly, but because their product is unique, they can charge whatever they want for their product, and it is not anticompetitive behavior that would cause them to run afoul of antitrust laws.
But you are right -- there may be market reasons why they can't charge whatever they want for Coke in reality -- but these reasons aren't because of antitrust regulations...
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I don't know the details, but apparently if I want to create a commercial mix disc (think "That's Music!" and the like) the copyright owners must grant a license for no more than a fee stipulated by law.
The motivation is exactly what we're seeing with online markets (trying to kill the competition through predatory licensing fees), and the obvious solution is the same thing. E.g., anyone can obtain a redistribution license for no more than 10c/song/copy. The licensee can then set their own resale price.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Of course and your absolutly right, except the part about selling something for pennies that cost dollars to make, noone would do this unless they are trying to liquidate their assets.
Its not used much anymore, but it used to be a common marketing ploy called a loss leader.
economics 101... please repeat after me: COST HAS NO BEARING ON PRICE!
When costs go up, they may go up to a point where some firms can no longer make profit at a given price/quantity point. In that case, it leaves the market. Such an "exit" affects the supply curve for a given good or its substitutes, shifting it to the left (less quantity supplied for a given price, or higher prices for a given quantity). Under a constant demand curve, this causes prices to rise. In fact, rising costs can push the supply curve to the left even without an exit threat, and econ 102 covers that as well.
The music industry IS a monopoly -- you can only buy the latest U2 CD from a single record label, and that label is free to charge whatever they want for their product. And there is nothing illegal about this. It's like Coke -- Coke is a unique product, there is only one manufacturer, and Coke can charge whatever they want for Coke.
Both the record industry and the soft drink industry operate under monopolistic competition. However, how monopolistic the market is depends on the characteristics of the industry, specifically the availability of close substitutes. For example, there is a substitute for the U2 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which is an album titled The Best of Diana Ross and the Supremes . <sarcasm>It even has the Supremes' cover of "Vertigo", titled "You Keep Me Hanging On".</sarcasm> However, the U2 and Supremes CDs are not nearly as close substitutes as Coca-Cola and Sam's Choice Cola, which is why an analyst would consider the competition in cola less monopolistic than the competition in recorded music.
Posted by Zonk on 07:27 AM March 2nd, 2005
from the they're-never-going-to-get-it dept.
punxking writes "Some of the big music labels are now clamoring to raise prices for digital music downloads. From the article: 'Music industry executives said introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks had been set low to stimulate demand for online music sales but the success of Apple's music store had prompted concern that they may now be too low.'" Relatedly, the BBC is reporting that iTunes is under investigation in Britain for charging disparities between the UK and the European continent.
I don't know the details, but apparently if I want to create a commercial mix disc (think "That's Music!" and the like) the copyright owners must grant a license for no more than a fee stipulated by law.
This 8.5c/song royalty (payable to the publishers, who split it evenly with the songwriters) works only if you hire a cover band to record all the songs. For recordings, on the other hand, the labels are free to deny you a license at any price.
You say you oppose predatory monopolism only for essential goods and services. So how is music definitely not a necessity? The human mind needs some background stimulation to keep it sane, and recorded music is currently the cheapest known way to do that.
"Too low to provide us with maximum profit."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Check out LMF and MP4 before you diss Chinese pop. Yeah a lot of pop is cheesy but if you want to hear some great rapping in Cantonese (with terrific production and phat beats), Hong Kong is where it's at. (While you're at it, pick up something from the Korean band Drunken Tiger). Word! I mean, wai!
The fact is, you can produce an album on your own and get it on iTMS
Really? Without the business infrastructure of a label, how does an independent band organize royalty payments to the songwriters and publishers of the songs it records?
use internet/viral marketing for your promotion
A lot of genres, such as slow swing of the style played on standards stations such as WXKE-FM Fort Wayne, have fans who largely don't have a computer, let alone Internet access. Besides, the major labels have the advantage that they can afford to pay(ola) the commercial FM radio stations to play their recordings to the captive audience of people riding in motor vehicles or shopping for groceries.
is to destroy the heart. I hear it's in the back, by the TVs.
While browsing slashdot
stories pass before my eyes
the same every day
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
Yes, in fact, some recordings are public domain
Which pre-1923 recordings are you talking about? Or are you talking about recordings produced by the United States Government, which aren't "popular music" and are therefore borderline-offtopic?
dupe dupe dupe
they duped the URL (dupe dupe)
they duped the URL (dupe dupe)
they duped the URL...
As I walk though
Slashdot's world
Nothing can stop
These dupes of URLs...
etc. etc.
So, you see, this is all part of some clever strategy....
everyone is comparing the cost of a CD to the cost of buying the same on iTMS. On iTMS you can buy just the tracks you want. So instead of getting maybe $6 revenue for the CD sale, they might be getting $2 or $3 for sale of just certain tracks. I can see this changing the whole dimensions of music distribution. Certain tracks might end up costing more than others. Artists might release tracks randomly and ignore the physical CD market.
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
The music industry is less than 100 years old. Their need is gone, yet believe it or not music will survive without them.
Or will it? As long as the incumbent music publishers hold copyrights on almost every possible melody, this will still create a chilling effect against production of music outside of the license-pooling in-group called the "music industry".
Just like diamonds are a new facet of love, love predated the need to pay "2 months salary" for a love rock, and love will keep going after the diamond industry.
Damn right. The diamond mining industry has about until the 2020s, when Apollo Diamond's patents on chemical vapor deposition will begin to expire, and competition will drive down the price of diamond to compete with cubic zirconia. However, unlike patents on diamond production, copyrights on popular music don't expire.
At roughly $1 per song (except at allofmp3.com or course) that translates to $12-$15 per album (services may offer discounts for full album purchases but I'm not aware of them), with all sorts of DRM. Now some may argue that if you buy a CD you don't 'own' the CD, you merely own a license but you still have the right to sell it, you can listen to it on any CD player as opposed to just the computer you used to download it and maybe a digital audio player, you can easily and legally make backup copies (only for your own purposes) and you can rip it to your HDD in a lossless format if so desired instead of being stuck with a 128k mp3/aac (or whatever iTunes is offering). You have a nicely printed CD jacket sometimes with intersting band info or lyrics.
I think the most I would pay for a downloaded song is about $.25
These guys obviously never heard of the greatest common good principle in economics. It's the point where profits are maxed out. It's also the point where you are cheap enough to make everybody afford the product and when production costs are at it's lowest. (ok, over simplified)
If I were a music business shareholder I'd be seriously concerned, about this fundamental lack of understanding of economic priciple!
If you business is obsolete, there's not much you can do about it except change your business. Anything these companies do to stop legal online distribution will not be enough to save them. The music industry needs to find a way to reinvent themselves in a way they are still useful and relevant if they want to survive.
One of the big things they do is market research. They could easily continue to invent and popularize new artists. Also, the can sell their marketing services to existing artists. They could develop a standard for online distribution and sell their music online. It is a mistake for them to refuse to adopt online distribution. Trying to force physical distribution is just going to push them into obsolescence. Things change.
.. $0.99 per track for compressed audio sans jewel case, liner notes, and physical media isn't already a raw deal compared to a 16 track CD for $12.99.
If the price goes up on iTunes, I'll go back to illegal downloads. Simple. Right now, I buy 3-4 CDs per year, and another 5 or so albums via iTunes (counting singles as part of that). I buy all my singles via iTunes. Before iTunes, if I wanted a single but not the rest of the crap on an album, I simply found it on Limewire. If necessary, I'll return there.
But since the iTMS went on-line, I haven't downloaded anything that wasn't paid for. That's revenue that the labels wouldn't have gotten from me any other way.
Multiply that attitude times a couple of million, and we're talking about a serious hurting to be placed on the recording industry if they refuse to Get It.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
IANAL but isn't this an attempt at price fixing?
I think you are missing the point here. Wal-mart sells 20% of all CDs in the US. If they were to stop selling music one can assume the record company would take around a 10% hit as those who go looking for CD's would mearly go someplace else, but those who browse are wal-mart and pick up a cd cause it is 9.99 will be a lost sale to the industry.
To walmart however CD sales account only for 2% of thier sales. If they stop selling CD's they can use the space for something else and make up most of the loss, whatever is in walmart will sell, to them it is no big deal.
They have the abilty to tell in the labels sell it to us at this price, or don't sell it to us at all. Both companies lose, but the record companies lose much bigger. Walmart doesn't need to find another supplier, CD's arn't an intregal part of their business, to the music labels CD's are their whole business.
Remember, Slashdot, thou art mortal.
its a conspiracy i tell you. against all the itunes loving shovanistic (chauvanistic? dunno, sounded good.) sheep herding p2p hating cowards that roam the itms because its kewl. /me runs to shareaza
I wouldn't pay 45 cents for an MP3. If they want to get my dollar+, they better start offering uncompressed audio tracks. Until then, I'll download mp3's for free and buy the CDs that I want.
I just want to point out that putting an ad about rotten toenails at the top of your article, which includes an an animation of the nail being ripped off the toe, really discourages readers from sticking around.
Posted by Zonk on Tuesday March 01, @02:27PM from the they're-never-going-to-get-it dept.
anyone else find this ironic?
Introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks?
Give me a break...
A typical CD has 10-14 songs and cost about 15 dollars.
With a download you don't get the disc, the cover, etc. - what kind of "wholesale" price are they talking about?
They must be talking about "WHOLE sale", before digital, when customers had to buy the WHOLE CD, even if they actually wanted only a song or two.
The "WHOLE sale" era is over. Get a grip.
So basically right now the music labels are making 100% profit on the iTMS sales and think that the prices need to go up. Why? Because they feel that the online music business is taking away from their CD sales.
Think about that for a second. There are two modes of thought. One, they are making 100% profit on a revenue stream and want to make MORE money on it because its taking away from their other revenue stream.
Two, they feel that online music sales are so good that they are priced below what the market would support and thus in their mind are losing money since they could be charging more.
Either way, this is just another example of both the greed and the ignorance of the music labels when it comes to the new marketplace.
"Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
Myself? Never arrive here I do in seeking of diversity. However, in search of repetition doth I arrive.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Just found this in my RSS feed, some might find it interesting and/or cool.
x pensive-now/
http://russ.innereyes.com/2005/03/music-is-more-e
baaaaa!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
MY SLICE OF THE PIE!!!
damn it
"not enough"
yeah, it's really offensive that these poor downtrodden record execs will only be able to snort coke off hookers once a week if they don't get yet more money.
And then there are bootlegs
Threatenable by music publishers who own the rights to underlying musical works.
public domain indie, publically released recordings, and the like.
Even if recordings are published under an extremely permissive license such as CC Attribution, that doesn't mean that the songwriters are getting their fair share.
I don't understand what you mean by Government Produced
Works of the US government go into public domain upon publication.
Given past behavior by these guys, I would not be surprised if they deliberately posted dupes just to rile people up, and then sat back and giggled about it.
Whatever happens, they definitely aren't going to answer you. You heard 'em: "whatever".
And Yet, You Still Post Here.
Irony, Thy Name Is Bonch. Unless It's Thursday, When It's Rd_Syringe. Or Sunday, When It's Overly Critical Guy.
It's a shame that all these dupe posts are getting modded down. It's about time the Slashdot editors actually see what a mess Slashdot has become. They seem to post a dupe every day now. Please, stop modding those posts down. This duplicate posting must stop.
These music bastards are so silly. Let's nip this legal music business in the bud before it flourishes.
The music labels can burn in h3|| before I start paying more. I hope Jobs can beat them into submission.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
You know, everytime I rant about the RIAA, my friends say "Oh, they're not really that stupid. I'm sure they have reasons for their business choices."
Yeah. Right.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
No, a loss leader is entirely different to product dumping.
Loss leaders are (still) used by supermarket chains to get you in the door. All those ads you see for half price margarine at Safeway are intended to get you to go to Safeway and presumably buy the rest of your groceries at the same time, at regular prices. They are trying to "lead" you to their store.
Dumping is when you sell your goods at below cost to wipe out your smaller regional competitors.
For example, in Australia there are two main liquor chains and a bunch of small independants.
When one of the dominant brands wants to open a new store in a particular suburb they will scout the area to see where the local competitors are. Having established that much they will then monitor the prices of the competitor stores and price their entire range at a point lowest than the independant locals. The prices they set are quite lower than what their other stores (in the same chain) charges for the same products. Eventually the independant local loses all its clientel, closes their doors at which point the chain liquor store returns their prices to parity with the rest of their stores.
It is unethical, immoral and illegal but they seem to get away with it amyway.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
"Large act" performers could make their "singles" available for any price they want to.
Unless the large label has an exclusive contract with large act performer, that would not allow any third party digital distribution diviation.
In this case you won't see any time soon any large act performer making quick money on the side behind the back of large label.
Large label is large for several reasons, including playing the law in perfect tune.
It's really a catch22. Hardly anyone gets big act without big label, regardless of the new digital distribution forms. The best sellers 99 cent songs are all sung by big label signed big acts.
Sure, you might be able to find equally good small act tracks, but you never heard them on FM, never seen them on MTV, and you have no idea which ones are they among the 2 million new no name acts no name tracks.
Your time is more expensive than listening them. So eventually you are going to buy the big label big act that you are familiar with.
That's the real power of big label - untill some software can find you those new small act, no label songs, which match best your taste, as described by big label big act tracks.
Any takers to write this software?
Just a random idea.
i'm sorry. $1 for a digital music file that has any sort of DRM is too much for me to pay. i've bought a few dozen songs on itunes, most of them as full albums, but after a year, i hardly think it was worth it. I would much rather pay $11.99 for an actualy CD, which i can rip to mp3 on my own. or even $9.99 (or $8.88 on mp3tunes) for an album in plain old mp3 format. which i have done on many occasions.
and i would also like to be able to buy a song, or an album, once, and only once, and be able to listen to it whenever i want. not *oh that's not licensed for phones, you have to pay again* and *you want to burn that to a cd? or gasp put it on a portable music player? the cost of the song didn't include any of those uses. are you crazy?*
Online music sales are up? We can't have that! Quick! We must jack up the price until we force a black market!
These people are such tools.
Am I the only one in the world who has had regular problems with the iTunes DRM? My wife and I have accounts. I have a mac and a PC, she has two macs. This _should_ be no problem, but over and over there are authorization troubles. I can't play song X, she can't play song Y, or it won't go on the iPod or...
:/ And it was seeming so promising.
Anyone else have these problems? I'm just about to swear off the whole iTunes thing
I think a lot of people are going to get annoyed over the next couple years when they switch computers or whatever and lose some or all of thier music collection.
And jesus, I could've downloaded the songs without DRM for free. I paid for this hassle. I guess now that I've paid for them I can go do that without guilt?
Cheers.
Did I hear that right? A buck a track is too low a price? Que? If I pay a buck a track, it's around 15 bucks for a full length CD. Hmm. And a full length CD costs me around $10-15 depending on where I buy it. So, let me get this straight. They make the same, if not more money for me simply Downloading the fucking file, no publication, no transportation of media [Or purchase/reselling of media for that matter], no burning of CD's, no inserts, jewel cases, or sticky fingers [Aside from OMFGWTFBBQILLEGAL downloads.] ... and they're not charging enough? Frankly, I don't see how they came to that state. They're getting the better deal here. We pay more money, track per track, for being able to single out what songs we want, we pay for our media, we pay for our hardware, and they get stuck with a 3MB snippit of bandwidth usage and dealing with the artist. Somehow I feel I missed a memo or something.
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$4 per cd, 2 good songs: $2 per song you're willing to listen to.
I buy all my classical music on CD from the used book store for that reason, since it's $10 a CD from Apple. But for other songs, I rarely find 4 songs on a CD worth buying.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela