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Would You Pay 5 Cents For a Song?
irikar writes "An academic at McGill University has a simple plan to stop the plague of unauthorized music downloads on the Internet. But it entails changing the entire music industry as we know it, and Apple Computers, which may have the power to make the change, is listening."
Yet, Pearlman went further. He said that since this plan puts the onus on a massive Internet presence to distribute all the music in the world, why not have such computer companies as Apple and such major Internet companies as Yahoo simply buy up the world's four major record labels? Pearlman was careful to add, though, that he doesn't see his plan killing off demand for CDs.
.05/download we could make 10x as much if we sell them for .50/download and 20x as much if we sell them for .99/download.
And somehow this isn't a pie-in-the-sky idea? Oh give me a break! So what? Apple, Yahoo, Google, Foo buy up the companies and what happens? Their bean-counters decide that well if we can make billions selling songs for
Pearlman said that Pfohl misunderstood the idea. Then again, another record-industry type, casually speaking to Pearlman after the talk, had perhaps the most succinct counter suggestion. Why not charge 10 cents, instead of 5, and double the revenue?
Thank you so very much for proving my point.
It would also obliterate musicians' choices on how their music could be sold by conscripting them into a 5-cents-a-song system. And it would destroy record companies' incentive to invest in new acts, Pfohl said.
Somehow I doubt that most of the musicians that are under the current cartel's contracts care how their music is distributed as long as they get paid. Those that don't give a shit already allow their music to be distributed for free on the Internet.
Let's stop with the whining and bitching about the artists you sleazy fuckers and start talking from your own business perspective. Everyone and their grandmothers know that you don't give one iota of a shit about the musicians unless they are filling your ever greedier pockets with money that you can throw at more shitty musicians and sympathetic lawmakers that will kowtow to your bullshit. Someday you will lose but I'm certain that this plan won't do it to you...
It amazes me that no one looks at the successful bands that have been distributing their music for free for years and says, "hmm, why is this still working for them and we are continuing to put out class acts like Ashlee Lipsynchson and we are hemorrhaging money?"
Some of the more recent big bands that allow their music to be distributed include Wilco and Los Lonely Boys. Wilco won the best alternative album this year. Hmm and yet they allow me to download their shows. Guess what RIAA? I would buy their album ANY DAY over someone like Ashlee who lip synchs her live crap and refuses to let us hear it for nothing. I mean, it's not even her doing anything why shouldn't it be free?
Just a FYI Apple, no matter how cheap something is it is NEVER as cheap as free. Free will always win out.
Yes, I would pay 5 cents a song and I currently do thanks to some kind Russians. =)
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
When the record companies sell what i want to hear. everything i pulled off of napster back in the day was 80's rock and metal stuff that has been discontinued. For god sake guys, put your back catalogues on line, (or even press a cd or two on demand) and then we'll talk. :(
In addition, a 1 per cent sales tax would be placed on Internet services and new computers -- two industries that many argue have profited enormously from rampant file-sharing, but haven't had to compensate artists.
This is the same scheme that we have today on blank CDs and the like and it is total BS to apply it to computers. I have no idea why anyone outside the entertainment business thinks that it's OK to put a music-stealing tax on every computer, or DRM on every computer when not every computer is even considered for such use. What about the company that buys 10,000 computers per year and because some 12 year old is "stealing" music they have to pay an additional tax and further have to have their computers crippled with DRM?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Apple should simply be charging 5 cents instead of 99 cents a song, he said.
The issue is not what Apple is charging, but what the record companies are charging Apple. As I understand it, Apple Computer Inc. is making essentially nothing on the sale of each song, but rather are using song sales to drive sales of iPod and thus Macintosh computers and Apple software. I am sure that Apple would be more than happy to participate in a 5 cents/song pricing scheme, but it is the record industry that is going to be the hard ones to convince. I do not understand how the recording industry can say it would destroy record companies' incentive to invest in new acts when the potential for much greater revenues can be had with increased volume and lower prices. What they are missing is that new music is what is going to be transiently valuable, but that pre-existing libraries of music are a commodity and should economically be treated as such according to all economic theories I am aware of. This means low prices and high volume.
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"Just a FYI Apple, no matter how cheap something is it is NEVER as cheap as free. Free will always win out."
Until there's nothing left to be free. Then free loses badly.
No, no and fucking no! I refuse to finance any industry which I don't have anything to do with.
When I buy computers for my business, I don't buy them for anything music-related, so I see NO reason to pay a tax, or levy or whatever the fuck they want to call it to support any music-related thing.
I'm tired of corporations and government thinking society exists for the sole purpose of ensure their profit.
AC comments get piped to
I used to buy a very few CDs and download most. With the rise of iTMS I buy more. At £.05 (dollar prices are almost always translated directly to pounds for things like music, grr) I'd probably buy most of my songs. But not all. Some just aren't worth that much. I don't think they're ever going to eliminate "piracy" completely, except by cutting prices to zero.
I am trolling
To a certain extent, he's somewhat right. It would substantially lower the bar and you'd have far more impulse buys (and drunk song-buying binges wouldn't hurt as much. Fear the drunken one-click shopping spree!)
However, I am not such a big fan of his idea of taxing PCs. However, the last line of the article is THE MOST INFORMATIVE OF ALL:
These guys don't even get *OLD ESTABLISHED CONCEPTS* let alone "new fangled concepts." Pearlman's response is that if you double the price, you cut the sales by more than half, so you actually DECREASE your revenue.
They just don't get it. [I'm not saying Pearlman is necessarily right with the
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
When first reading the article, my instinct was to not go along with the notion charging for downloaded music, even only $.05 a song. Especially with DRM, etc., always on the sideline poised to come in and wrap you around the axle anytime to you try to play the song (in the proper spirit of fair use)... (I'm STILL upset about one of my recent CD's purchased not playing on my car CD player.... took it in, they would only exchange it... and, sure enough, the exchanged CD failed to play in exactly the same places in exactly the same way... had to demo this to the store personnel before they would agree to a refund.)
But, maybe they have something there... certainly when: "..., The recording industry is against Pearlman's plan. ..., ", I've got to think
it may be something that could work.
Mr. Pearlman seems to understand economics pretty well, but not IT. Here's the breakdown of an ITunes purchase of $0.99:
Label(s): $0.55
Apple: $0.34
Artist(s): $0.10
Now, let's chop that down to $0.05 instead of $0.99. Let's break it down this way:
Label: $0.03
Apple: $0.02
Artist: $0.1
So, when a customer goes to ITunes, they'll surf through several (large)-database-driven webpages to find the songs they want. They'll make a purchase against their already-paid-for credit through ITunes (of probably $10 increments), then download the 5MB song.
So, Apple now has to run power-hungry servers with a large staff of IT guys making sure they're patched and running correctly. They gotta hit customers' credit cards and give probably 5-10% back to the credit card company.
All of this... for $0.02 per song?!?
His model makes sense, but maybe for $0.25 per song... there's no chance Apple would make money by giving up that much bandwidth.
just my $0.02.
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"...Pearlman was careful to add, though, that he doesn't see his plan killing off demand for CDs."
*BLANK* CDs maybe.
i mean $.05 x 13 songs = $.65
factor in $.25 for a blank CD and voila, that's still under a dollar. Unless they plan on *severely* reducing the price of retail CDs, I don't quite see that working out.
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The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
Much like the scheme presented in the article, please remember that the "free" file sharing networks requires a broad base of participants to make them run. The utility of the "free" networks improves or deteriorates based on the numbers of people engaged in the activity of sharing freely:
even at US$.99, I would bet there has been an affect on the quality/quantity/availability of music on the "free" sharing networks. Presumably, that would deteriorate further if "legitimate" online services appealed to an even broader audience (as some or all of that broader audience would likely participate less in the "free" networks).
I heard many, many different variations. And most of them were sung in the style of Doris Day's version (giddy and happy and making me want to slap the singer). There were some versions that came close, but I couldn't decide whether that was what I wanted or not. Ultimately at the $1 price per song I didn't download any of my "candidates" since I didn't hear enough to convince me before the sale that that was the type I was looking for. Had the price been $0.05 per song I probably would have downloaded most of the candidates and not given the price much thought.
While this wouldn't help sell the big name artists at all, it would get the casual music listener like me. Whether there are enough of my type around is a completely different question and one that I can't begin to answer.
(As an aside, I never found the right version of Que Sera, Sera and in general that isn't the type of music I listen to. Just something that struck a nerve at that particular moment.)
I tried to read the article. I really did. But when I got to the end of the second paragraph, my natural aversion to incredibly bad writing kicked in and my mouse-hand clicked the window's close box without my conscious intent.
Peering out from under his de rigueur cap, music-industry veteran Sandy Pearlman, a former producer of the Clash and now a visiting scholar at McGill, spoke with a kind of nervous glee while describing his idea at the Canadian Music Week conference in Toronto last week.
Awful, vapid writing? You're soaking in it.
They get like maybe 1$ per cd. They've always made money from touring. The rule has been the record companies get the money from the sales and the artist gets the money from touring.
Now the greedy record companies want a piece of artists touring money as well. The folks killing music right now are the record labels not the downloaders.
This is a great idea, a band could pay thier own studio costs, put the music directly up for download and then who needs the record companies??
I don't mind right now paying $.88 a song, I do have a problem that very little of that actully goes to the musicans.
People need to face the facts record labels are as relevent in the digital age as say manufacturers of long bows, chain maille armour and broadswords.
The people I'm referring to are of course the folks working at the record label. In this age of oursourceing, downsizing and cost cutting there is no room left for record labels that suck up 90% of the cash from music sales and then complain that they don't get enough.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
No, maybe YOU want information for free. Some of us recognize that various industry evilness aside, there are artists out there who deserve something in return for their creative work.
They get like maybe 1$ per cd.
If only that were true. Artists generally make $.05-$.12 a CD. If you want more info about the industry and contracts, etc., I highly recommend This Business of Music. It's chock full of interesting details like formulas used to determine artist royalties. For instance, did you know the labels still take money for R&D costs on the "new technology" of the Compact Disc? Or that many still take out $$ to cover "breakage", which is a hold over from distribution of albums on vinyl?
Oy.
Despite conventional wisdom, I've discovered you can blame a guy for trying. It's called "attempted murder".
Your argument pretty much justifies the things that I have been saying for years. Most bands don't make hardly any money off CD sales in the first place, they make their money through live shows and merch. So, I never understood why all these big bands/performers complained so much about us downloading their songs...
;) I always "try before I buy" with my music these days. If you make good music, you have nothing to lose. If you are a no talent, one hit wonder pop star, then you don't deserve to be in the music industry in the first place. My current favorite band, Celldweller, has no record label and distributes the majority of their music from the web.
But, then you also have to take into consideration musicians who only produce studio work and never play live. There are quite a few people, especially in electronica, who only record music and never set foot on a stage.
I say a mixture is in order. Release all your songs online in a lossy format, with a slightly sub par bitrate, and allow them to be distributed freely (96k mp3 or even better, a Q0(~64k) Ogg). Then charge people for the "full quality" CDs or Lossless (FLAC,etc) files. I wouldn't mind paying $1 for each song if I got to download a "decent", full length version of it for free and try it out for a while first. And of course, no DRM encumbered formats would be used
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
The point is that the RIAA aren't a monopoly any more. They are competing with "free" downloads.
The other points are that "free" downloads are not free. You need to spend time searching for songs, wading through the crap, learning new tools as the RIAA fight the old ones, and there is a risk of getting caught, etc.
The final point of the article is that legal music distributors can regain the advantage if they offer a cheap, quality service as a competition to the eDonkeys of the world.
Hence there is competition going on, and as long as the RIAA doesn't understand it at that level, the situation will not improve for them.
Please explain to me why that was wrong.
Simple, because you thought for yourself, instead of relying on the state's definition of right and wrong. Next thing you know, you'll decide that you don't need the government telling you what substances you can put into your body or what constitutes obscenity. What happens when everybody starts thinking for himself or herself, substituting their own judgment for that of career politicians?
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
Well, I don't know about you, but my perception is that the music industry is way over to the right of the "sweet spot" on the sales-against-price graph. I hardly ever buy CDs these days, because I hardly ever see them for a price I'm willing to pay.
When Mute Records released a sizeable chunk of their back-catalog for under $10, I sent in a $150 order--as opposed to a $0 order while the prices were $15 and up.
As I wrote to a record store owner who was wondering how he could stay in business: I could easily put together a list of ten CDs I'd buy tomorrow if they were $10 or less. But they're not, so I spend $0 and wait for a sale.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak