Slashdot Mirror
Apple iTunes to End Flat Fee Pricing?
MdntToker writes "According the Forbes, EMI has an understanding with Apple that flat fee pricing will end within the next 12 months, and more popular songs will be priced higher than 99c, while lesser known acts will be priced lower than 99c." From the article: "Label executives have made multiple arguments for flexible pricing. They argue, for instance, that almost all retail businesses have different price points for different products. But they are particularly interested in boosting their revenue from digital music sales, which aided by the sale of mobile phone ringtones, are increasing but not quickly enough to replace the continuing drops in compact disc sales. EMI said today that digital sales, made up 4.9% of the company's sales in the last six months, up from 2.1% a year ago." We've previously reported on this story.
I take it that this will translate into the vast majority of what is downloaded being above ninety-nine cents; otherwise, I don't see why they would bother with "flexible pricing." I know this is cynical - but I suspect that this is intended to be flexible mostly in an upward direction . . .
http://www.busyweather.com/
... I go back to snail mailing money to the artists and downloading the mp3. Shrug.
Shadus
Greed is eternal
Only way more expensive...
And encumbered with DRM...
No thanks!
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Why complain ? It is their stuff, and they can price it at any level they want. You can always buy from somewhere else or refuse to buy it altogether if YOU think it is too expensive, but I'll bet you that lots of people will keep buying at the new, higher prices. Why leave money in their pockets if they are willing to give them to the record companies ?
Happy Posting.
Who cares if something you don't buy is priced 99 cents or 99 dollars?
According to Slashdot, popular music sucks. As a result, non-sucky music will cost less than it does today. This is good.
For more information, click here.
I wonder if 'flexible pricing' will allow them to adjust prices 'on the fly' - let's say 10,000 users download Song A priced 99c and software automatically then adjusts the price to say 1$ 29c or similar price.
Then again, there is no end to corporate greed so I'm expecting to see this in action.
Shouldn't B-sides actually be cheaper than the hits? New material more expensive than oldies? People have been justifiably complaining for years of having to buy whole albums just to get one or two songs they want, and now they don't have to.
Do you think you'll have to pay more or less than $0.99 for your favorite throwback band.
Personally, I relish the though of all the kids that must have the latest/greatest junk out of the studios paying buku dollars in order to subsidize me buying up older stuff I used to love in College
=-)
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
"Believes"?
It's a story if you have someone say that he "knows" Mr Jobs will do something, or - better yet - if Mr Jobs actually says he's doing something.
But if a record company executive says it, and he has a vested interest in having it happen, and perhaps almost a desperate need for it to happen, well, I don't think his word or judgement is necessarily good.
Record company executives have, from what I've noticed, little reputation for integrity. Until I hear this from Mr Jobs' mouth, or a slick press release and video from Apple about its inevitability, I'm not going to believe it.
D
Yeah, and I'm sure their opinion is 100% pure and unbisased. This could very well be a ploy to pressure Apple into complying. Also, even if it is true, Steve Jobs will send them packing for pre-announcing it.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
...but never going to happen --- suddenly all music track sales priced over 99cents drop by 50%. Of course the industry would just respond by doubling the prices to keep profit levels up...
It seems that they will end their flat fee sometime within the next 12 months . This gives them plenty of time to decide on pricing and get public opinion on the issue.
If there were a major backlash, I wouldn't be surprised if they back off the decision.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
What a label boss "believes" doesn't translate to "Jobs will do it" for me. I'll wait for word from Apple before calling Jobs out on his previous spine.
...So the most easily pirated material (the popular stuff) is going to be more expensive, while the harder to find stuff (the less popular songs) will be cheaper? Either they're changing their business model more drastically than ever before in their history to expand the appeal of smaller artists...or they're just in it for the short run to prove that digital downloads don't work...
Let the prices change. If someone wants to price their music competitively, let them price their music cheaper. If someone thinks that the latest Britney Spears/Eminem/Metallica album is worth more for a digital file than a CD, then let them get ripped off to their heart's content.
Apple often seems to be on the side of the RIAA over our side, but that's because our side is OUR side and that makes any compromise be less than what we want. I really would welcome price changes in both directions; independant artists being more competitive, and big fat companies ripping off diehard fans more than usual. Go Apple.
+$25 loaded onto my account, wooo!
if anyone's heard of it: > .99 .99 .99
a few songs:
nothing:
-- lol pwned
As part of the deal, Sony has agreed to include malicious code that will open gaping security holes on your devices with the higher-priced downloads.
i got ball this is my adress 108 20 37 av corona come n do it iam give u the sidekick so I can hit you wit it
The great thing about iTunes was it priced songs as the public really feels songs should be priced.
Now that prices will go up, piracy will once again rise. And they'll blame it on the p2p networks and ask for more DRM and copyright control legislation, when in fact it will be their own greed that will be ruining their business.
When will the greedy record companies learn?
-- There's only one replacement for displacement.....
Buying music online should be less expensive than buying the equivelant CD, since you're not getting as much value when you buy online (see: DRM), and the manufacturers aren't paying for packaging and shipping. If they push the prices up to where all the tracks on a given CD cost more than just buying the CD, you'd have to be an idiot to download from an online store.
Within that framework though, I don't see any reason not to have flexible pricing. Most of the music I listen to is older, less popular stuff anyway, so I'd probably benefit (if I actually used iTunes in the first place). I hope Krokus, Vixen, White Sister, Rough Cutt, Faster Pussycat, etc. songs go down to about a quarter each... I might actually start buying online then.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Since I think that most popular music sucks, I don't think this will affect me too much. I'll just keep downloading songs from obscure groups, and paying my $.99.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
This is good news to me. I do not buy the 'crap' that most people consider good. I can't remember when the last time I purchased a CD or record (yes, I still buy vinyl) for some pop-trendy crap, or the newest Hip-Hop clown.
Most of what I buy is either underground, b-side material, or otherwise 'lesser-known' artists anyway, and that is the stuff that will be cheaper than $.99.
Brad
The reason people complained before is that the record company exec was insisting that Apple raise prices but not lower any prices, which is just foolish. You can let the market help you set pricing to maximize profit, but you can't have it both ways. If you just raise prices that's not letting the market decide, and you'll lose money from people who would pay $.49 for a less popular song but not $.99.
It makes sense to me that the one good song on an album would go for more than the rest. The record companies are ticked that they're losing revenue that they used to get; it used to be you had to buy an entire $12-$16 album to get the one non-sucky song. Perhaps $.99 is too low for that song, if people are willing to pay more, as evidenced by the fact that they used to spend MUCH more.
There will be the inevitable replies to this about how you can get it all for free on P2P, but Apple has demonstrated that people will pay for music if it's convenient. Now they get to fine-tune the pricing model.
Personally, I look forward to it. If the latest top 40 goes up, and the older and obscure stuff that I want goes down, I win, at the expense of the rubes paying $2.49 for whatever is hot today.
No matter which way you cut it, the moment you introduce a variable into the equation it's going to raise the costs. Assuming even the copyright holders were not bastards, which they are... you gotta employ people to keep track of the market value of tracks and makes bookkeeping more tedius. 99c each would actually encourage artists to actually produce songs worth paying for as opposed to the system of one or two singles and a bunch of filler crap which no one would pay for, but switching to variable pricing they can continue with one or two singles and a bunch of fillers that no bugger would buy anyway.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
As buyers can we also be sellers? As the popularity of songs change we can be in the so call "market" making and losing money. Imagine buying 1000 copies of an unknown song only to resell them later for profit when a commercial or movie uses the song making it popular.
If they are going to use demand for a product to determine pricing, they should also be required to factor in supply. The supply is infinite, so then the price should be practically nothing!
If most stuff is priced below .99, that would be fine with me. My music store purchases are mostly backlist music that I can't find in stores.
It's important to complain, as that provides them with feedback on their decision. Everyone is better off if there is dialogue between the two parties.
If enough people voice their opposition, then perhaps Apple will realize that it is not in their best interests to switch to such a scheme. Thus everyone is potentially better off if Apple listens and responds accordingly. Customers can then continue to purchase the songs they want, rather than to boycott. Apple can continue to receive revenue from such customers, rather than having the customers go elsewhere.
Notice that the same thing happened recently with regards to Novell/SuSE and their switch from KDE to GNOME. They announced the switch, and many customers complained. The customers let them know that KDE was still wanted. And what did Novell do? They agreed to keep offering KDE.
It's better to work out such problems before involving money.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
If the price does go up as much as they want, the balance of economics shifts back to making it more worthwhile to buy the CD and rip it myself to AAC format. I only buy music from the iTunes music store at the moment because of the convenience factor, but it's only just inexpensive enough to make the lower quality AAC tracks. I use iTunes to find new music I might not otherwise hear - but I'm betting the new music will be the more expensive tracks. It's a shame to see themselves pricing people back to ripping their own, or the pirate networks again.
This works well for me: If the most popular songs, and generally suckiest, are the most expensive, a quick sort from lowest price to highest will yield the best songs. What's not to like?
Some record exec says he *thinks* Apple will introduce variable pricing, and suddenly all the news sites report that Apple will do it. The record companies have been after Apple to introduce variable pricing for some time. Is it any surprise that they think they'll get their way?
Apple provides a viable way for record labels to transition from media-based distribution to an on-line model, and the labels in turn slap Apple in the face and say they're not making enough money.
Jobs was absolutely right to publicly go on record saying this behaviour is "greedy". The arrogant fat cats who run the music industry will, in the end, price themselves into extinction.
There is value in a unified pricing model that consumers find attractive. I believe the increased volume would make up for the few extra cents a song they're wanting to charge.
Read between the lines.
From the article:
/. seems to be slipping...
"Today EMI Group boss Alain Levy said at press conference today that he believed Jobs would introduce multiple price points for iTunes music within the next year."
This does not say that "...EMI has an understanding with Apple that flat fee pricing will end within the next 12 months..." as the story claims.
Why was this story allowed to be posted this way?
The actual Forbes story is talking about how the labels want to take advantage of the consumers while Steve Jobs does not want to change the pricing structure. He's fought against it from the beginning and there has been nothing reported to support that the labels have won the fight yet.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... he'd say "You want variable pricing? You got it! You can charge anything you want, but the cap is still 99 cents!"
Meh.
I like ITMS - a lot. But if songs start rising in price I will simply use AllOfMP3.com any time I consider a price to be unreasonable, possibly dropping ITMS altogether if variable pricing gets too crazy.
What I see happening is the EMI song sales on ITMS start dropping substantially.
What I would do if I were Apple is tell EMI they would be happy to drop thier music altogether. Apple can only do that to a certain extent of course as ITMS wouldn't hold up well with no major label support (or, perhaps it will would with indie stuff? Hard to say) but record companies are getting a fair amount of money out of ITMS and I think being cut out cold might have a few exec heads rolling at the loss of many milllions in recurring revenue, and probably some arsists chafing to drop the label. Record labels can only afford so much heat and if new acts wont sign with you because you're not on ITMS then it could affect the bottom line substantially.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_(emotion)
I'm seriously starting to think that companies like Sony BMG are doing a little creative book-keeping to come up with losses in order to justify their actions, perhaps somebody with a little more knowledge on the inner workings of multi-national corporation accounting and financing could weigh in, or provide a link.
Live according to the Categorical Imperative. If the Categorical Imperative tells you not to live by it... ignore it
At least, if I weren't in New Zealand, where you can't buy anything from itunes.
Is this what is referred to as an "invalid markup?"
Am I the only person that still buys music from a record store?
I never buy from iTMS anyway. I refuse to buy DRM'd tracks. Let them charge $99, it doesn't matter.
sulli
RTFJ.
I have the solution for you and it consists of a few simple steps:
1. Stop producing crap artists with guaranteed star power and invest long-term in less popular but more qualified artists that you are currently rejecting
2. Divorce yourself from the ClearChannel monopoly in the United States. It's not helping matters since they aren't exactly a hotbed of diversity in programming
3. Continue to offer your music on CD as well as non-DRMed cross-platform media files and watch your profits soar higher than you ever imagined even if there are people "sharing" the music
Once you wake up and smell reality, you might see that P2P isn't your worst enemy. It's your current "talent" and the people signing them. That is all.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Apple : No, we shouldnt raise the price, you're greedy bastards and this will just cause more piracy
Entertainment Overlords : $$$$$$$$$ (drooling)
Apple : ?
Entertainment Overlords : We own all the music .. we could just pull it from your store if you dont cooperate ..$$$$$$!!!!
Apple : Yes master
Isnt dealing with monopolies fun?
The world's 14 year olds can pay $2 for the latest 50 Cent "song", and I'll pay 50 cents for real music.
Yeah, but is anything really going to happen?
From what TFA says, this is based on what one music industry exec thinks Steve Jobs might do. Now, if it was something the exec had heard that Jobs was going to do, that might be something.
This looks to me like nothing more than wishful thinking. And Slashdot jumps in with a sensationalist headline proclaiming certitude, never one to let a little thing like reality (or sanity) get in the way of a nice flamewar...
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
They won't ever learn the lesson you want them to (and by "you" I mean the public, not you specifically), because it doesn't allow them to continue their current lifestyle / business practices.
They aren't motivated to learn the lessons, and therefore they never will.
Until someone comes along and hands them their collective lunches - killing big record labels in the process - by rendering them obsolete as a middleman between artist and audience by reinventing THAT relationship, they have no reason to learn the lesson, and EVERY reason to fight it tooth and nail every step of the way.
This isn't about "common sense" or "morality", it's about business.
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
I'm guessing that with the increase in "popular" music people will say f'it and just download the cheaper, still .99 cents music, and the popular artists will cry foul since they won't be popular for much longer ;)
Come on, record labels get your heads out of your butts and think of a new business model! There is no frick'n reason to raise prices on a product you don't host, sell multiple times and only out of pocket expenses are to support the artist on tour. How about that you don't sign those artists for mil $ contracts have people pay $150 for tickets and $75 for t-shirts.
To be frank, music artists, sports stars and movie celebs should be making the same wage as the rest of us working stiffs for the area they live in, that way the price to make, produce, and distribute entertainment costs could be reduced instead of paying these outrageous sums of cash for each picture, effects, arena's etc.......... Same goes for the ceo of the companies and their companies they should be making "reasonable profits" not oodles and oodles of cash just because they inflate the "worth" of their product.
sheesh.
the bad:
now I have to check the price of every song before I buy it to make sure it's not been deemed "worth" $2.99 or whatever.
the presumed good:
much of the music I'm interested in will drop to $0.79 because it is far from "popular".
yeah right.
MORTAR COMBAT!
The audience for digital music buys it because they get the songs for 99 cents and can buy one or two at a time; not because it is digital. I don't see the more popular songs making the labels any more money. CD sales will continue to drop because the majority of purchasers are looking for bargains; not hits. Those that look for 'hits' are going to continue to watch VH1 and BET and trade copies either analog or digital. I know that in my 30s I'm not really the market for what they're doing; but everyone I know just copies their existing collections and download podcasts.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Oh, wait ...
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I've never been a fan of purchasing music that had DRM, but it seemed to be worth the trade off in some cases. iTunes provided a way to get all those songs where I wanted one or two songs from an artist or particular CD but didn't want to pay $10 to $20 for a whole CD just to get those songs. The trade off was lower sound quality and the loss of freedom when it comes to player choice/burn rights (I make a LOT of mix discs for my work commute, and like to update frequently due to a very wide range of musical tastes.) At $0.99 this seemed to be a fair trade off, but now I worry that most of the prices will increase.
While I do like a lot of obscure or less popular music (certainly not much that ever shows up on charts) I agree with others who have said that lower prices seem highly unlikely. As others have already posted, I also agree that this will likely cause some increase in piracy and (in my case) fewer music purchases.
While my new CD purchases will likely remain stable at a low 5 or 6 a year, the $100 to $200 a year I have been spending on digital music each year will probably drop to almost nothing. Alas, just more money for O'Reilly purchases I guess...
You can have my cynical agnosticism when you pry it from my cold, dead logic.
Everyone sets their own "do not exceed" price limit. 99 cents would be a logical point for most people. When they can't sell anything above 99 cents, the market has effectively limited the price. Meanwhile, the prices have dropped for some of the older stuff, so once again, the music industry shoots itself in the foot. They will have no problem getting people to accept a decrease.
If nobody has the self-discipline to set a limit, then the music companies truly deserves more money because people are willing to pay.
This happens all the time in the grocery industry. 2-liter bottles of soda are sold from $0.69 to $1.39. When the price is under $1.00, the stuff is sold in great quantity, above $1.00 and it mostly sits there. Try as they might, the retailers find it nearly impossible to make the price to stick above $1.00. Music and soda are NOT staple items; you can live just fine without them.
Wait, this record company exec released information about iTunes Music Store and Apple wasn't available for comment? I don't think Jobs like being put on the spot like that. If a deal has been struck and EMI jumped the gun, will they be punished like ATI for "leaking"?
I don't think I purchased any "high-demand" song on iTunes. I mean come on, do we really listen to Brittany Spears or whoever record companies are trying to shove down our throats.
They were all stuck in an arduous meeting trying to determine the pricing of every song for each of these albums:
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Soundtrack) - Bee Gees and other Various Artists
The Endless Dream - Yanni & John Tesh
Osmond Family Christmas Album - The Osmonds
Lord of the Dance - Ronan Hardiman & Michael Flatley
All or Nothing - Milli Vanilli
Middle of Nowhere - Hanson
see: http://listsofbests.com/list/64/
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
for me, $.99 isn't bad, it is easier than searching for songs for 1/2 hour. now, they can go screw themselves. i will not pay over that, it should be 1/2 that price.
Apple makes what, $0.29 out of $0.99, the artist gets maybe $0.10. That means that the record labels get $0.60 for doing jack-crap. In truth, I support variable pricing. The record labels should forego some of their pennies and let the oldies retail for $0.50.
Users will be more willing to use digital downloads now, since the whole debacle over "malicious code" infected CDs from Sony. So, the industry might have to come to terms with their pricing just to keep consumers.
How will they determine initial popularity? Will they wait to see how sales go and slide the price up as the popularity increases, and, alternately, slide the price down as a song fails to sell?
I want to know what happened to just leaving the pricing competitive and it then depending on the song's popularity and the fact that they are selling a lot more copies to make a lot more money. It seems to me that's how it's always worked in the past.
I think the new generations of musicians will learn to avoid the big companies and just put the music out independently. They make more money, we pay less, and the big companies can kiss our collective asses.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
yes it is. slow, bloated, unfriendly.
i'm sorry, i had to say it.
i reinstalled it today to found out that apple hasn't improved anything during the last months, it just sucks.
i just need a decent admin tool for my ipod please!
How much of a discount do the labels put on those CDs?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Well, the non-sucky music will cost less until word gets out that it is:
Then two things will happen:
Once the inexpensive, non-sucky music becomes expensive and popular, it will transform, as if by magic, into 'sucky' music. You read it here first. ;)
-- .sig is sour
This
Other then the blatent illegality of allofmp3.com as far as US users is concerned, then yeah. it is pretty much the saem model.
I walk into my local big-chain record store to buy CDs, and lo! The newest stuff is often on sale! I can buy the newest CD for $16... or 2 for $30. But I go looking for a band from a few years ago, and I've seen prices as high as $40 for an old album.
Now, to me, this makes sense. It's supply and demand. New hot CD, lots of people buying, money can be made at $16. Older band, only a few CDs sold a year, price has to increase.
Why would iTunes go against that simple formula? Shouldn't the less-known/rarer music be more expensive and the popular stuff cheaper?
I know, I'm crazy-thinking.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
I really could care less if prices are no longer uniform. If I don't think the song is worth it, I just wont pay for it (if you get my drift).
All I want is for the DRM rights to be uniform song to song. I don't want to have to guess how many burns a song gets.
You're just a fucking dimwitted retard.
This has zilch to do with the RIAA you dumbfuck.
Get off your anti-RIAA highhorse and get a clue you fucknut!
Flat fees were nice, but now they want to gouge us!
This is it. Come check out my site!
It just means people wont use the iTunes music store anymore, IF at all that, since Jobs has been on record saying this is NOT going to happen and this is one of the assholes trying to get it to happen who is saying it will now and not Apple.
Who cares if iTunes is too expensive now, all I will endup doing now is finding the obscure tracks (which is all I ever downloaded anyway and not the rubbish they play on the radio) and rip CDs again which i can probbably buy cheaper now. All it does in the end is make the RIAA look even MORE foolish.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Hmm...
I'm just going to have to chalk this one up to the fact that "they" are going to be taxing poor musical taste. Meanwhile, everything -I- like will now be cheaper, which is sort of like the recording industry thanking me for liking music with a bit more than an interesting bass rif...
Thank you Recording Industry!
From the article: "Label executives have made multiple arguments for flexible pricing. They argue, for instance, that almost all retail businesses have different price points for different products." Who decides the price points, however? Who decides which albums/songs are popular vs. less popular? Would Apple decide, or the music companies? Is it "according to traffic on iTunes" -- e.g. when more people buy it, the price goes up, like a stock -- or "measured by radio play or CD sales or Billboard ranking", or "what the record companies are declaring as popular"? What's the reference???
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
1) Start signing bands on a 50/49 cent split. (OMG...can you imagine it, artists getting more money than the label for a change)
2) File a lawsuit on behalf of the artists...that said artists only negotiated "analog" recording distribution rights. That none of the old contracts covered digital distribution. And that all of the artists retain the rights to their digital distribution, including the right to negotiate a digital distribution contract.
(Think about it, a) the common people would support it as I would buy a lot more music at $0.99/song if I knew the artists actually benefited. b) think of how many artists would support such a move? big names too like "Paul McCartney"... As many artists were screwed over big time. Even big name artists saw very small percentages of their songs. This would allow Paul McCartney to regain ownership of his music (for digital distribution only). RIAA would still retain the analog rights (but we all know that's a dying medium). And with RIAA pushing so much legislation distinguishing the difference between Analog and Digital (DMCA) there may in deed be enough cause for a court to decide in Apple's favor especially if 90% of the artists and consumers are in favor of it as well.
RIAA would find themselves the owner of an extinct business model. Left with a rotting carcass...
- The Saj
Here a comma, There a comma, Everywhere a ...Comma, Comma!
My other sig is funny.
And do I make that check out to "50 Cent" or "Fiddy Cent"?
Uhhh... I thought it was a given that people knew iPods could play MP3s. Of course they can. Try finding MP3s from online music stores though, that was my point. It is vendor lock-in because you have one store to buy music from (legally). That it shooting yourself in the foot when you buy one. I'm with you that it makes the RIAA look foolish.
1) The title of this seems to indicate that it is definitely happening. This is a greedy record label exec who is claiming this. OF COURSE he wants higher prices. This "article" has been around on blogs for days now and everyone seems to declare this as if it already taking place.
2) Higher price = I jump ship and stop buying. $0.99 is the boundary. More than that and it's worth either buying and ripping the CD or just going back to filesharing. The record labels just can't stand to get all this free money for doing nothing. They really are trying hard to screw up digital downloads.
--- witty signature
I have to say that I do not even like to hear the entertainment cartel's product, so I do not download "their music." With that said, the cartels ought to look at the practical implications of their price gouging. Many people with whom I talk online say that they would buy their music if it was priced around 20 or 30 cents for an unencumbered mp3. 20 to 30 cents a track is a lot better than 0 cents per track. Bandwidth and hosting is also way cheaper than CD's and CD presses + artwork, etc. The music industry really ought to consider this type of pricing, it will make them more money than gouging. Nowdays, people have a choice, and they are not choosing online stores or the traditional brick and mortar stores either.
The music industry needs to attract people to "legitimate" downloads, and using a reasonable price is the best way to do it.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
if there going to pay £3.00 GBP for a ringtone (only 30secs of a song they already own) then they'll pay for higher priced songs. Fortunately these people also accept the sh!t music that is shoveled to them at present. The cooler and classic stuff will remain cheap and now fortunately it's easier to find... p2p and digital music will generate a load of new talented artists that the labels will suck dry... and still they don't get it this darn interweb thing. it's sad, but a fool and his money are easily parted... ...it's true cos I used to own a Sony Network Walkman.
The law of supply and demand in action, I guess... It would be a shame for them to run out of the more popular songs, so they price them higher to keep the demand lower, right?
Wow, only 4.9%? I would have thought that number would be a lot higher.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Steve Jobs is quoted as saying the opposite and further than music companies are "greedy" for wanting this price flexibility.
I for one welcome flexible pricing because I think there is some music I would buy for less than $0.99 that I have not bought because of its current price. Pay more an a dollar for a single? That would have to be some great music, I doubt I would do it. Everyone has their price. mine feels like a dollar.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
from the under-pressure-is-not-just-a-queen-song dept.
True, true. David Bowie also has a part.
Whatever the new pricing model is going to be, it's not going to flexible enough. I'm going to buy everything that's good--oops, i mean "lesser known"-- where it's still cheapest and most rewarding: Straight from the musician's themselves, at shows.
It's a non-story anyway. From TFA:
"Today EMI Group boss Alain Levy said at press conference today that he believed Jobs would introduce multiple price points for iTunes music within the next year."
So one guy says with no control over the situation tells Forbes magazine that he thinks Jobs will make this happen, and it gets reported on Slashdot as fact.
For fuck's sake, not even the various Mac rumor sites have run with this one yet. When did MacSlash become MacWildGossip?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
...that lays the golden eggs? What a bunch of morons!
The iTMS achieved its status as the most popular online music store by being easy to understand: You get the same rights for every song, and every song is the same price. That's called being customer-friendly. Contrast that with the stores where songs are all different prices, and some can't be burned to CD, etc.-- they're all also-rans, killing each other for the small sliver of the market not controlled by the iTMS.
When the prices go up from 0.99 and that psychological barrier is broken by a nonzero digit left of the decimal point, sales will go down as people balk at song prices and go back to p2p for their music. And does anyone think the record companies will really lower the prices on anything people would actually buy? Haven't they demonstrated that they have no stomach for charging x when they could be charging x+1?
When will these jackals learn? <shaking head in disgust>
~Philly
I have an iPod and I am not locked in. Buying any DRM music locks you in. Just cause you have an IPOD does not mean you have to buy DRM music.
Rule is dont buy music with DRM on it in the first place. Most of my music that I have is from CDs that I rip. The others is from live concerts from free legal sites.
An iPod is actually a pretty decent player, I have had 2 other hardware based players, a Creative Nomad, and an iRiver. The iPod has a much better UI and much better 3rd party support than either of the other 2 I have had.
Is my economic sense correct? Or has my community college economics class lead me astray?
From the headline:
"BMI has an understanding with Apple that flat fee pricing will end within the next 12 months, and more popular songs will be priced higher than 99c, while lesser known acts will be priced lower than 99c."
So no, prices on more popular music will be jacked up. There is no curve, only greed.
You cant buy stock in P2P networks.. I wonder if Limewire will see a surge in downloads of their pro product if prices skyrocket on music downloads.. I can see people opting to pay a one time fee.
... what did you expect, something profound?
I was talking with a guy that works at the iTMS today and he said that there are no plans for that, and Steve's still strongly opposed.
It's all based on size of the download file... which I guess to more tuned to the cost of their business.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Of course supply and demand is supposed to make the price of things which are in short supply go up, and the price of things in greater supply go down, but tell me, are the electrons used to encode popular songs in shorter supply than the electrons used to encode less popular songs?
If the RIAA wants to change the pricing scheme, do you think that it's going to save most people money? The consumers (for the most part) will be stuck with the bill. Than again, it could be a blessing if you buy music that was A) Popular years ago or B) Made by lesser known bands.
Anyone for Open Source music?
If the record companies only wanted to discount some titles, not increase prices, they are free to do that right now: just offer rebates on songs bought on i-tunes. e.g. buy any ten of these super-saver songs and we'll give you one free itunes purchase.
So clearly this is not about discounting. What it is about it increasing the cost of singles for pop-artists.
I'm not opposed to them asking for a price they want per se, but at least they could state this more honestly and stop couching it as greater consumer benefit.
What is really going on here is they are afraid of the "hit single" that sells the album problem. That's scarey territory for them because marketing a whole suite of songs rather than pushing just one in the public attention is a lot harder EVEN IF all the songs were equally good. It's even more scarey to them when there really is only one good song on the album. So this really rocks the status quo.
Here's what I'd propose as a possible compromise. allow them to bundle songs. suppose you have a hit brittaney singles song. Instead of charging more for that one, release it only as a virtual EP: you have to buy four other "lower value" songs with it for $5. But require that the average price on any bundle is still $1 per song.
Sure that's not as desirable to me as buying exactly what I want for the lowest price. But c'mon lets compromise. There is merit that some songs are worth more than others. THere is merit that uniform pricing really the sales liquid and consumer freindly. We can have something that approximates both. Itunes already has example of this, where certain songs only are available with album purchases. Here we need only generalize the concept album to ala carte selections across artists.
The problem with this idea is not that consumers won't like it, but that to the music compaines thisis not about flexibility but about raising prices.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Much cheaper. Also I have to agree I won't beleive it till I hear it from Jobs.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
i've gone back to P2P
fuck 'em and let the laws of a competitive marketplace sort em out.
I have arguments for pricing to go both ways.
y Id=4258547
Shocking.
Argument 1 - The price should be variable by size of the file. It costs more bandwidth to download a longer file. $0.99 for a 4 minute song is a rip off though. We all know that is not almost a dollar of bandwidth.
Argument 2 - The price should be variable based on the cost of the recording. Cost of recording is coming down, especially with the advent of non linear editing jumping to a new level in recording. BFD and drumagog as drum replacers are ubiquitous across all spectrums of the recording industry. D.I.Y. to professional. Pitch correction saves time in the studio trying to hit the take. Software interfaces literally lets bands record a song by copying and pasting a bar over and over. No need to hit the take straight through. I don't agree with these as a musician or when I'm engineering but it would be naive to say that they aren't used on 99% of the recordings you hear on iTunes or that EMI wants to sell.
Argument 3 - The price should reflect the quality. As was stated in the story, all industries have flexible pricing. When you go into HEB to buy cereal you have Hill Country Fair Fruit Os or Kellogg's Fruit Loops. I can tell you which is pricier, the brand name. So which is brand name and which is independent label, Fruit Os or Fruit Loops. I see the major label as being generic, sometimes Hill County Fair makes a better tasting cereal just like the major labels do sometimes. But I highly doubt the majors would take any one seriously if they told them that the song was of low quality price it cheaply.
Don't forget, some bands just copy themselves. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
"If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy." Doesn't sound like he's in favour to me. See the current Ars Technica article for the quote (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051117-559 1.html) or google it for wider coverage, none of which suggests that Apple would even consider the idea.
By 'they, I mean the Record Labels, of course.
Point 1: Steve Jobs has publicly stated on several occasions that he opposes tiered pricing. Why? Because it's inconvenient and there's no legitimate reason other to line Record Labels pockets.
Point 2: It's been established that Record Labels are greedy, litigious and extremely unethical in their negotiations with their business partners (artists, brick-and-mortar retail stores)
Now, I have to rant on this because, as an independent musician, I've done more than my fair share of research. Right now, digital downloads are almost pure profit. There's no manufacturing and distribution costs and the price of a full album through a digital download is very close to what retail cost is for a physical product. What Apple has done is provide all the record labels a solution they could not come up with themselves to the problem of making money off of digital versions of their product using the internet. And what made it such a hit was the convenience involved, convenience designed by Apple to legitimately purchase music.
And what thanks and gratitude does Apple get from the labels? None. The only reason the labels think they can get more money is because cell phone providers have established that people are willing to pay $2.50 for a ringtone, which isn't even a full version of a song. What they fail to assess is that average cell phone users have no convenient method otherwise of obtaining those ringtones whereas typical computer users have several different methods of obtaining desired music other than legitimate or even Label endorsed channels.
Now, I'm a techie so when I upgraded my cell phone to one that could play audio ringtones, I got the software that interfaces with my phone so that I can create my own ringtones on my computer and upload them to my phone. That way, my phone can ring with my favorite Bon Jovi or System of a Down song that I own without me getting ripped off at $2.50 a pop. Even as an astute technical person, I found installing the software and getting it to interface with my phone was kind of a pain. But once a convenient alternative method of getting ringtones becomes available that the average cell phone user can figure out and follow, the ringtone market will bottom out. The only reason it hasn't done so yet is because cell phones are not computers and therefore their software interface is designed to be feature limited, providing only the options the user purchases. Computers don't have this limitation.
I am 15 years old, and I listen to "real" music that will probably cost less if this announcement is true.
We don't all listen to cookiecutter pop crap, you know...
There really isn't a need for the RIAA. Artists could sell directly through the internet. The only thing they lack is marketing, and venture capital. Technology could eventually eliminate the RIAA all together. Currently, we find out about acts mostly through radio and television. I learn about new acts almost exclusively through driving with the radio on and some I learn about through iTunes. If apple made it easy to listen before you buy, they could sell alot more. I don't like buying albums or tracks I haven't heard, I've been burned too many times.
As satellite radio becomes more prevelant there is an opening there for a change in the guard. The radio payola scams, could be a thing of the past there. Also more & more ipods are being connected in cars to stereos etc. Mine is, I even use it to DJ at a local pub, though I may start using an iBook for that, it's easier. My Tivo is connected to my wireless network, a Tivo streamcast channel devouted to the best in independent artists would be great, they already have an Entertainment Magazine feature. MTV is becoming more and more traditional TV and less Music Television. A new cable channel devoted to independent acts sponsored by Apple & Pixar studios could create new markets. Pixar studios could use independent artists in their movie sound tracks. And market them just like those you see be promoted by television shows like smallville etc. Apple needs to get more control of the content, with that and the iPod and iTunes, they could have Sony et al singing the blues about the good old days when they had the market clout.
Since we are back on this discussion of the cost of music, I am hoping someone who might be in the know will be able to answer a question or two. I have, over the past two years, begun to by most all my music (with a few rare exceptions) at used stores and as such have gotten albums that are in good shape and several years old for almost 1/2 or 1/4 as much as they are selling for in stores (even after they have been out for 5+ years).
So now to my question. Do these stores that sell used CDs, DVDs, etc. have to pay anything back to the **AA or do they actual make all their money on the items they sell without having to cut money back to the big corporations? I have always worked on the assumption that they don't pay money back, but it seems with how the RIAA keeps pressing Apple to adjust the prices on iTunes that they wouldn't pester these places too...
So does anyone in the know have the information I seek?
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Retail space is expensive. Server space is cheap.
Only a small percentage of published music ever reaches the level of "hit album" that qualifies it for sale in big-box retail stores. Stores have only a limited amount of space they can store CDs in, so they choose to carry the ones that sell the most copies. They are more willing to buy 400 copies of Green Day's "American Idiot" because they know they can sell them all in a month than they are to buy one copy each of 400 unknown experimental jazz albums that might not sell at all (and keep taking up shelf/warehouse space indefinitely). Because the store's cost is higher for the unknows, they have to charge more for them than for the popular stuff to recover their costs. An online distributor (like iTunes) only has to store one copy of each song, so it's storage costs are the same whether a song sells one copy or 100,000. That means they're free to sell both the popular music and the less-known stuff for whatever people are willing to pay for them. If that means they can gouge Green Day fans for an extra two bucks and have to dump Dexter Squeekenwhistle And His All-Clarinet Orchestra for 35 cents, that's what will happen.
0 1 - just my two bits
If you had, you would know that when you flex something, you simply raise it:
CEO of Warner Bros:
"Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more. I don't want to give anyone the impression that $0.99 is a thing of the past," he said.
As a person who has studied composition at University under the absolute best in the field, sang and played in numerous bands, and has more popular and unpopular songs floating around in my head than your average music nerd, I find that a little closed-minded. Music has many purposes and every time a form comes along that doesn't match with people's previous notion (whether it be the 2-6 chord simplicity that is rock, or the rigidly constrained tonality of Mozart), it "isn't music". I'd say 50 Cent is exceptionally successful: he creates music with the intention of it being popular and danceable. If he were trying to create symphonic works and created what he does, then he might deserve some mocking, but most people rag on rock/rap/funk/pop/classical not because it doesn't achieve what it aims for, but because it doesn't aim for what they'd like it to.
That being said, I'll agree that a price disparity makes a certain degree of sense, economically, and would in the end benefit my pocketbook.
Just wish it wasn't tied to DRM..
Nothing personal, but at $0.99, iTMS was a good deal. I doubt it will be after this. You can count us (me and my wife) out. It was nice while it lasted.
No matter where you go... there you are.
How long until the RIAA tries to add the "Sony virus" into their iTunes tracks?
By allowing this software to secretly install on your computer you hereby argee to immediately and permanantly transfer ownership of your computer and all software and data contained within to the Recording Industry Cartel of America. You also agree that all price "flexibility"(we mean price hikes) is retrocative and will contact our service center(collection agency goons) at 1-866-BEND-OVER to report all your past purchases and agree to receive a bill for an additional $1.50 for each piece of "Intellectual Property" leased at 99c under the old rates. And you can't view the EULA until after the program installs and there isn't a "NO" option.
The Simpsons reference:
Homer: Uh, Milhouse saw the elephant twice and rode him once, right?
Mrs. Van Houten: Yes, but we paid you $4.
Homer: Well, that was under our old price structure. Under our new price structure, your bill comes to a total of $700. Now, you've already paid me $4, so that's just $696 more that you owe me.
Mr. Van Houten: Get off our property.
Homer: So much for that idea
I wouldn't put the idea past the greedy folks at the RIAA. I think it's time for Jobs to use the "G" word again.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
that Steve Jobs is going to buy me a pony.
Who are the idiots buying all these ringtones? At first it's a feature we have to practically hack phones to be able to use, and now it's a multibillion dollar business. They can't rely on cashing in on the idiocy of teenagers forever... I for one have never bought a ringtone and never will.
This is my United States of whatever.
which aided by the sale of mobile phone ringtones,
Who are the morons paying money for ringtones, anyway? This has to be one of the most trivial wastes of money I've ever heard of. Are people being entertained by ringtones? Do they just sit there enjoying the music before they answer the phone? Who was the first person to think, "hey, people will pay money to change the noise their phone makes when someone calls them?"
[/smallrant]
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I'm sure Steve Jobs puts it differently.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
which makes it the right of a company to make a profit. They're losing CD sales due to technological innovation (music downloads), and the companies much beloved "free market" will determine the price point for those goods. Apple apparently guessed right when it went for 99 cents; competitors however are now pricing songs for less. So, I'm guessing IF Apple agrees to let the price float, it will most likely end up dropping. I also believe the labels are making a mistake - because for lots of people, raising the price will quickly make a "popular" act less popular.
1: It's d@mn foolish to have said this publically without reason to know it's true, so chances are quite reasonable that this is a leak from behind the scenes negotiations.
2: Popular new releases will be priced higher than back catalog stuff.
3: Promises (i.e. spin) will be made that the average price of music is still $.99.
4: Further promises will be made that high priced music will drop in price over time as new songs arrive in the top price bracket.
5: These promises will not be kept.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
actually there are a number of small stores that use MP3s to sell and not wmv.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I am sure the conversations between Apple and Music EXECs where something along these lines:
.99 is working just fine, its an excellent price point sure the less popular stuff we are probably way over charging for, but its made up for by the fact we undercharge for the more popular stuff so money gets made on volume...you can look at it the other way too and the model looks just as good.
.99 its an effective sweet spot price point, we will stick with that, besides we control 85% of the online distorbution model we must be doing something right.
.99 is what the consumer will pay, they are tired of $18 for a CD with two good songs on it, they would rather pay $1.98 to get those two good songs, or $18 to get 18 good songs. Your trying to achive price parity we see it you want the same cash for that CD without selling the end user the physical media. Nice cost savings for you, no raw materials cost, no shipping, no brick and mortar, You must really think those users are idiots.
.99
.79 on that Metallica song from 1990, that .20 is coming out of your share not ours.
Execs: You need to allow a flexible pricing model where more popular stuff costs more so we can all make more money
Apple: No we don't
Execs: We don't care about the less popular stuff from the bands with actual talent, never did, those acts could drop off the face of the earth for all we care, charge whatever you want for that stuff, here is a list of the artists we care about and have the payola going to promote them even though we all know they suck, oh wait crap *sleep* When I snap my fingers you will akwake and not remember I ever mentioned anything about payola *snap*
Apple: huh, wa...oh yeah, no we are sticking with
Execs: We'll stop selling our stuff through iTunes, then where will you be?
Apple: Eh, whatever you'll be back...we control 85% of the market and sell the most popular player.
Execs: Oh yeah we wanted to talk to you about that we want a cut of the iPod hardware sales too, its only fair.
Apple: Na, You don't seem to understand you need us as I've pointed out we basically own this market yes you make the widget we are the only effective way of getting the widget to the customer
Execs: We'll take our toys and go home, without the music you have no store....
Apple: Without our STORE you have NO STORE
Execs: so there see we need each other so lets talk about that pricing
Apple: no really you don't seem to understand
Execs: (TO self) Oh shit they are on to us.
Apple: No really I think we are going to stick with
Execs: I think you don't understand, we really are going to take our ball and go home, ALL of us where will your store be if none of us provide the music to sell in it. NONE. Other stores will work with us on it, sure the players they support are not as good, the store isn't the best model, but hell they will charge whatever we tell them to charge just to get their hands on the product...
Apple: Well you don't have to go that far, maybe we can work "something" out.
Execs: Well thats more reasonable, perhaps we can work "Something" out.
Apple: (TO Self) umm humm you just keep thinking that, sure we'll agree to your "Flexible" pricing...BUT just wait until you see the terms, and when the sales slump on the first couple of releases under this plan, because TRUST me they will, we will make sure of it...
Execs: So we have a deal
Apple: Sure Sure we'll phase it in like the next year
Execs: Excellent!
Apple: (To Self) Umm humm more like 2-3, never, perhaps a token release here or there for a higher price, actually you have played right into our hands, yeah we'll rasie the prices on a few things, but wait until you see the price drops on the back catalog...Volume, its all about Volume, and didn't you notice that clause in the agreement that says we always get the same wholesale cost and keep the same amount of the profits per purchase no matter what, when the price goes down to
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Everyone seems to be missing the point that if the RIAA forces Apple to change it's pricing--that's price fixing. The record labels can't tell Apple what they (Apple) can charge for their (Apple's) goods and services. The record labels can only tell Apple what they (the record labels) will charge them (Apple) for their (the record label's) goods and services.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Well, they are going to lose money on me, I don't like 'popular' music.
How about Apple, instead of playing the RIAAs little bitch, they do something new.
Completely new.
Have bands and artists to publis their own work on iTMS. Perhaps set up a separate company that handles marketing the actual music published on iTMS. Etc...
This would obviously take a lot of time, as bands have contracts and such to stick with. But I thik over time, it could be the new medium for all music distribution. And Apple could start it.
Digital sales go from 0% to 2.1% to 4.9% in about 2 years... yup, it's time to kill this golden goose.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Actually, the labels get $0.60 for selling the only song on the CD worth owning, while foregoing (along with the record shop) $14.99 for a CD that costs them well <$1.00 to produce.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
All I want is that tiny, missing 1%. I'll make millions with it!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
My issue is with price - I feel personally there is a certain limit which I am not willing to pay. I am generally loathe to use something where I feel the artist does not get paid, but beyond a certian price point ($1 is really close to that for as it is) I feel like use of AllOfMP3.com is civil disobediance.
If I feel like the music industry is moving backward, then I see nothing wrong with people reverting to outright piracy either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who would have thought it would cut into the record cartels' profit when they can't overcharge for "Distribution"... Bastards
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
The crap songs I don't buy will subsidize my purchases! JOBS IS GENIUS
I don't think he was mocking 50 cent. He was mocking the people who listen to it. Hell, if I could make millions by making popular crap I wouldn't even think twice. There is nothing wrong with making money of suckers. The only thing that is wrong is being the sucker.
Actually computers do -- right after you've inserted your latest Sony-BMG "music" CD.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That way, less popular artists can make better money, even when they're overshadowed by the more popular artists?? At least there won't be as many "starving artists," and they'll have a better income, plus more incentive to keep making music.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It's not the idiocy of the teenagers. It's the idiocy of their parents who have forgotten how to say "No."
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I am totally with you on the problem of the artist getting nothing from AllOfMP3.com. I find that distasteful myself.
So then AllofMP3.com is basically outright piracy (which is why I do not use it now). However it is a form of piracy that:
1) Cannot get you the size of fines that use of P2P gets you (making for a relativley risk-free form of civil disobedence), and more importantly
2) Provides a monetary and numerical record of demand for cheap online music. The discrepancy between AllOfMP3 sales and sales figures elsewhere across the globe can eventually be used to make a compelling case for the lowering of song prices at home based on pure mathematics of consumer demand(which may work where common sense has failed).
So while I would feel bad about not giving artists money (I might try to buy T-shirts or other fan merchandse) I would at least feel like I was doing something useful at the same time.
Note that I use the term "Piracy" carefully; I do not consider P2P piracy, as others have noted edlessly that is infringement. But in the case of AllOfMP3 I am knowingly giving money to someone else when I know the artist will not see any measureable amount from it. When money starts changing hands I think things go from infringement to piracy. Ironically while it is worse in my mind to pirate than infringe, the laws as they are now make the piracy basically legal while infringement is not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Saying anything bad about Bill Gates on /. is Insightful +1.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It has plenty to do with the RIAA.
Try a little research first before you make assumptions, or shut the hell up.
...because he will be putting the screws to Jobs. Jobs isn't gonna sell at 99 cents when EMI is charging him 99 cents. Get it?
I'd be thrilled to see flexible pricing come to iTMS, because those higher price gouges would probably be attached to big-record, payola releases that I don't care for anyways, while smaller artists free of a corporate umbrella are able to charge less. As a result these "popular" songs I have no interest in sky rocket in price, while I can download songs from iTunes impressive smaller-labels catalog with hardly a worry towards price. The lower prices for other, lesser known tracks might actually convince other people to try them! Well, in a perfect world anyways.
yeah but can I pay 50 cents for 50 Cent?
Ornette Coleman - Present and accounted for
I don't know which store you're looking at, but the ITMS has a ton of Ornette Coleman (21 albums) & Rasahn Roland Kirk (10 albums).
-- Terry
Do the math. 30GB holds 7,500 songs. That means it's hold $7,500 worth of music. I can buy a used car for that. The 60 GB holds 15,000 or $15,000 in music "value". That's insane.
Songs should be a nickle. A dime tops!
r
You may be in the middle of a curve where decreasing prices will increase volume, but due to the finite nature of N, there may not be sufficient demand to recoup the difference.
In other words, you gave money away.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Maybe they're trying to create a panic so people will buy music like crazy before the price hike for their favorite (more popular) songs.
I'm willing to give a band a ton of money if we get albums like Third Stage every 7 years. I'm not willing to give them a ton of money to get crap.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I think the ITMS is a great way for kids to get the music they want and I'm glad that at least there are avenues to get the music legally. For me, I think the best way to pay for music is the same way I pay for television and internet connectivity. I subscribe to Rhapsody which, though not perfect, is a great tool for me. I can listen to all my music at work, at home, at my friends houses...basically anywhere I can get on the internet for one monthly fee. People have no problem paying this way for cable television and for internet connectivity and I see the future of music distribution being subscription services. Granted my media bills are astronomical and sometimes hard to believe but I consume a great deal of media so I feel like it's money well spent. I can even fill my ipod with music which I have payed for by recording the songs while they're playing in much the same way that I can record my cable or radio to tape. Just my $.02.
As much as I think this is a tremendous mistake and pure greed I have to shrug of the economic impact it will have on me. The music I listen to is unpopular, at least according to iTunes "What other's bought" links.
My musical tastes typically roam from classical to new age - written by composers who are either dead and/or performed by folks most people wouldn't care to see nude; so the popularity tax influenced by hype for 'famous' people won't hit me!
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Really? And legal? Which ones?
if the songs go up, people will just download it from else where for free, thus the music industry will loose money
That only helps prove his point. The smaller the cost of goods is, the smaller the reduction is net profit per unit with a price reduction.
Wrong tense... slipped
I for one am glad that the article about digg was posted as I now have somewhere else to go besides newster and technocrat to get interesting articles. I find I don't spend much time on slashdot anymore...Slashdot: It was a fun ride while it lasted! Farewell...
I
But what's most important to notice is this: a variable pricing scheme as described in TFA could seriously hurt Apple's sales. While I have no data to support this claim, I'm sure that Apple makes most of its money from popular songs. However, remember that when an album is new and popular, the retail price is usually lower to boost first-week sales. I doubt that this same policy would apply to the iTunes Music Store. Thus, if the price is higher at the iTunes Music Store, a full album could very well end up being more expensive than the retail CD.
We live in an impatient world, and this has at least two implications: people won't wait for the price to come down and will buy the CD at retail, or people will pay more for the instant gratification of the iTunes Music Store. I think the former is more likely, because in reality you would be getting more (a real CD) for less. People love a bargain.
So if you're the kind of person who buys popular music when it first comes out, which many if not most of the iTunes Music Store's customers are, chances are good that you will never have cause to buy an album from the iTunes Music Store again. Plus, suppose that when an album is no longer "new and hot" that Apple is permitted to lower the price. By that time, people have lost interest that Apple could lower the price substantially and they still wouldn't sell many copies -- everyone who wants it already has it.
There's also a psychology at work here. $.99 seems a lot smaller than $1.00, even though for all intents and purposes there's no real difference. That's why you rarely buy anything in a store that is an even dollar amount because $39.99 looks a lot smaller than $40.00. Suppose Apple starts selling at $1.19 for a popular track. That's only $.20 more and 20% higher than $.99, but gosh, $1.19 looks huge compared to $.99. That $1 mark makes a big difference in terms of the perceived cost of a song.
In the long run, I don't see how this can be anything but bad for Apple. And, the more the record labels try to screw people over with high prices, the more people are perfectly content to screw over the record label by downloading illegally. So it may even end up being worse for them. What it boils down to is this: one way or another, people will download music. Whether it happens legally or not is entirely in the hands of the record companies.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
and the hit songs as much as $1.99.
Oh I am quite sure there will be titles below 99 cents but I bet no one will want to listen to them and should they start they won't be less than 99 cents anymore.
Jobs should simply refuse access to iTunes for the media execs who want to reach into our pockets after colluding on CD pricing for so long
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The problem with this argument is that it equates different artists' music with quality. If you have three electronic radios, they will be more expensive depending on quality and features. Music, however, is perceived differently by everyone. I might enjoy a song priced at 50c a lot more than you enjoy a song you download for $1.50. To set the pricing this way attempts to enforce the idea that the music of one artist is "better" than the music of another artist.
On the bright side, this could encourage more downloads of songs that less people would have listened to previously and boost listeners for that artist. More likely though, it will simply chip into the profits of those still trying to make a name for themselves, and have no effect on the success of those artists more people are already listening to.
Read My Blog - Building Online Businesses
Everything said about Apple Computer on third party websites are just rumors and gossip. Apple Computer is in control. So just ignore this article.
get off dads computer and go wack off like all the other 15 year olds
I guess from EMI's point of view, if Apple wants to continue offering their content (and let's not delude ourselves, they do own it) after the contract is re-negoited (which I "believe" is due to happen next year for the US) they can tell Apple how they are going to price the content.
Then it becomes an issue of Apple either accepting that they need to pay EMI more than the 70c per track they do now and either absorbing this cost (if they are recouping the money from iPod sales it may be an option) or passing it on to the consumer, which would lead to the variable pricing scheme.
If Apple choses not to accept this plan and EMI bow out of the iTunes store the question becomes where is EMI going to get their digital sales from. In Australia Sony/BMG is not a partner in iTunes. we also don't have 99c per track, but the price I guess falls to dollar values and we pay $1.69. Now Sony/BMG have teamed up with Telstra (our tele-communication overlords) and their broadband provider, Bigpond to give us Bigpond Music. A quick browse around gave me Madonna - Like a Prayer at $1.89 and most other songs seem to follow that same pricing scheme. so it is not that Sony/BMG wanted a variable pricing scheme, they want more money.
The iTunes advantage is that it a central place for people to visit and buy digital music. EMI and other record companies now face the choice of either setting up their own digital music distribution with any pricing scheme they wish, or negoiate with Apple and remain part of this centeralised store. Sony/BMG has already decided to bow out in Japan and Australia, it would be interesting to see what happens in 6 months time when Sony/BMG have a look at the sales figures, but I guess we will have to wait. As will the other record companies. If Sony/BMG make a go of this an turn a tidy profit I "Guarantee" other companies will follow suit. if Sony do not do as well as they might have with iTunes then Apple will have a bit of clout and may be able to dictate some pricing structure to the record companies
But we will have to wait either way to see where this leads. EMI at the moment is spouting crap to pressure Apple to see things their way
Leg Godt
I think you have pretty much proven this guy's point.
Pricing on CDs of the latest, greatest music tend to be lower than those of ancient, moldy recordings. So, it looks like past practice based on consumer shopping patterns should dictate that new music from the most popular artists should cost LESS than 99 cents a song on iTunes.
OK, so assume that RIAA member company Three Initial Recording (TIR) have a lock-in recording contract with the hottest band around, the Hong Kong Cavaliers. TIR makes a fistful of buckaroos from every one of HKC CDs they sell. But music from iTunes is a really close substitute, if not a superior replacement; changes in prices of one will affect the sales of the other pretty easily. Raising prices so as not to undercut sales makes sense to TIR.
The problem is, there are other substitutable choices besides CD and iTunes. TIR considers DRM-Rootkitted music disks: consumers don't like those much, but most are easily confused sheep, so the substitutibility is fairly good until ingenious folk at Sysinternals notice. Maybe they try it, maybe not.
There's live concert performances... but that's not a good substitute for most working stiffs who want to listen to the band at any given time of day, and the HKC can only do so many concerts; TIR can live with that.
There's music from other bands; although some folk feel there is no alternative to the HKC's unique sound, others are just as happy listening to Electric Mayhem, who are signed with another RIAA member. Well, it's within the cartel. But the band Disaster Area tends to have a wide overlap in the fan base, and they've not only working with an independent studio, they took pot shots with a sniper rifle at the last TIR contract rep who tried to persuade them to join up. Hmm...
And really, any form of entertainment might be a substitute; cheap, safe, designer hallucinogens might leave everyone just sitting around giggling at their fingers, but the War on Drugs makes most people stay away. Movies are another alternative, but the MPAA has enough overlap and common interest that they're not likely to be a deliberate threat. Books... well, nobody reads those any more. Video games are a growing problem, but they look to be gelling into a cartel pretty soon.
But that leaves the big one: there's pirate copies of the music, in all of their many forms. Recorded live in concert while in the audience. Sketchy dealers on NY sidewalks selling counterfeit CDs. Music ripped to MP3/Ogg/FOO format and traveling over the internet by FTP, HTTP, NNTP, KaZaa, BitTorrent, and the six surviving Gopher sites. Yes, it's illegal... but cheaper, all the way down to free. The extra costs are only to the pirate's self respect (which there's less to lose of each time they give in) and if they get caught. And almost EVERYBODY is doing it.
Some flexibility in pricing might help both Apple and the RIAA, especially if they put more of the long tail up on iTunes (which would probably be the best way to grow revenue), with opportunities for having sales, and making a litte more on the megahits. (Yeah, bands with gold albums probably ought to be going for $1.25 IMHO). But my back-of-the-hand guess is that if the average price (weighted by number of sales) of iTunes song starts rising, there will be more "sales" really lost to piracy, as opposed to the RIAA claimed losses. And with those short-term real losses come longer term erosion to the foundation social mores (EG: piracy=theft=bad) that the music industry is reliant on. And that is something TIR and the other RIAA members aren't factoring in on their economics.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
There is a monopoly on that particular recording of the song. However you are free to find another recording that is priced more to your liking. Or you could also find another artist who writes and plays similar songs that will fill your need at the right price.
Name three rock bands who were never signed by labels and make a living that way sufficient to quit their day jobs.
Name three rock bands who made more than a meager living from recorded music even 50 years ago. Name any musician who made any money at all off of recorded music 100 years ago.
The music industry has been in tremendous flux and continues to see rapid change. The "status quo" you describe as devil's advocate is still only a few decades old. IMO it's not crazy at all to think that at some point in the next 10-20 years bands will find success without going through major record labels. In fact to answer your challenge I can think of two nationally famous acts right off the top of my head: Fugazi and Ani DiFranco. I bet there are dozens more who are not super rich, but as you say were able to "quit their day jobs."
Of course Fugazi and Ani Difranco made it work by starting their own labels. But the cost of doing so will only go continue to go down as recording, distribution and promotion move digital and online. At some point it becomes mass-affordable to "start your own label."
By analogy: name three opinion columnists who never were never signed by any newspaper and make a living that way sufficient to quit their day jobs. Or course now they are called bloggers.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I have read before that artists from major labels on ITMS get around .10 of the $.99 sale price from the song which (while still low) is a much higher percentage than CD sales.
You are right that artists get only a small percentage of CD sales, but the cost is high enough that they generally get something. MP3 costs are very low as it is and I still firmly believe not as much makes it back to the artist as they claim from even a very low amount.
I actually do think the AllOfMP3.com cost are too low to really support artists, something in the middle would be my preferred point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This will only serve to increase market share of those services where for a flat monthly fee, you get to download what ever you want.
Bad move Apple. Steve Jobs must be calling the shots again.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...who "test drive" the music from our friends then just go buy the damn stuff that doesn't suck, sometimes waiting for it to no longer be hot and subsequently discounted.
s'wut i sed.
Go into any place that sells CDs. You will find that lesser known acts, and imports, costs more than $15. While the more popular CDs run for $10-$12 (and you usually get a bonus DVD to boot).
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
For example this one. Granted, the stores that sell MP3s *legally* sell mainly indie music.
On the other hand this may bring a wave of indie bands getting a fairer share by bypassing the big labels. If they succeed, mainstream bands may discover that tying themselves to the big labels may not be as good as they thought, and perhaps they'll figure out how to nullify their contracts.
Well, soz to dissapoint all the bosses of the music industry at RIAA HQ (on the dark side of the mountain, past the lake of running acid, the erupting volcanos and the syrens with a bad voice known as atomic kittens), but Jobs has already laughed this one out
not going to happen
sorry
NO I'M NOT! MWA HA HA HA! JOB'S RULES!
It usually comes out on these articles: www.emusic.com
At $10/40 songs, you get non-DRM encumbered MP3s. I've been a member since it was unlimited (I knew *that* wasn't sustainable).
For the record, I use iTunes, but not iTunes Music Store (except for free gifts). I don't pay anything to use the iTunes player. I don't own an iPod.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Actually, there is an interesting point in this, in that there's a distinct limit on the amount of advertising space available to promote music. In addition to physical space (page layout, banners, etc.), there's also a limit to the number of eyeballs (page views) available to see them.
So while the number of copies that can be delivered is effectively unlimited, there is a distinct limit to the amount of music that can be promoted at any point in time.
So if you're buying banners and ad space to promote newer music, that music does, in effect, "cost" more.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
The labels were recently found guilty of price fixing, remember? Don't you think they should be just a little hesitant to, at the same time, start telling Jobs he has to increase his prices?
Apple is more interested in radically changing the music industry as it exists now, than simply joining it as another big player. They see what's happening to periodical print publishing--it is being democratized. Rather than creating a new digital publishing overlord, personal computing and networking have simply laid the barriers to publishing so low that anyone with a computer and Internet connection can enter the marketplace and start competing.
Look at Apple's strategy--they sell computers that excel at recording music. The computers come with decent mixing software--GarageBand. Plus they sell to the top-end of the market to, solidifying their legitimacy. Then they create an online marketplace for music where all bands are treated the same in the search and indexing.
It's like Web sites and blogs all over again. Steve Jobs' deepest hope is that in a few years the barriers to recording, promoting, and selling music are as low as they are for print publishing now. Then anyone can be a "label"--and Apple gets their cut, hopefully at both the personal hardware (Macs) and the network (iTunes) layers.
Apple would have a "tax" on digital music creation and sales...sound familiar? Microsoft followed the same logic with Windows--make it easy to participate, easy to grow, and take a cut from every participant.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You know, not all popular, well-known, or new music is bad, and not all unpopular, old, or obscure music is good.
So was Napster.
I actually bought MORE music once I could hear a few songs pro bono. You konw, for the car CD player.
s'wut i sed.
This will make me sign up. So, if there are a lot of people out there like me, then this is a good move.
.99 is too much to pay for one song for most of the music that is offered. New, popular songs in high demand should go for more and people will pay for it.
I've been holding out on going this route for buying music because I thought that
I really hope though that there pricing algorithm is reasonable; maybe with hi/low caps built in. A really old song that is not being downloaded much should be able to go as low as 0.25. A really popular new song being downloaded frequently should not go over $2 or $3.
s'wut i sed.
function GetPrice($song) //first time? //increment price by one penny per song d/l in past hour. capped.
{
$total_downloads = GetTotalDownloads($song);
if ($total_downloads == 0)
{
$price = 1.00;
return $price;
}
$price = 0.10;
$num_downloads = GetNumDownloadsInPastHour($song);
$price += $num_downloads;
if ($price > $k_CAP) {$price = $k_CAP;}
return $price;
}
Ringtones seem to be big business these days. Why do people buy them? Don't these phones allow you to upload your own mp3 ringtone?
I for one welcome our analog-copy overdubs.
Who cares about digital perfection? I listen mostly to roots-era blues, which was recorded on ~78 rpm wax discs, and popularized over low-wattage AM radio stations with an audio bandwidth of less than 6 kHz and all the dynamic range of a baseball bat, fer chrissakes.
Give me one $1.49 song, and a really nice D-to-A-to-D re-recorder to strip out the DRM horseshit, and I'll be the RIAA's daddy.
In other news, the music industry is still complaining that sales of vinyl records are at an all time low -- [insert sarcasm] obviously due to the fact that people have been known to download music from the Internet...
Yes Emusic is excellent.
I first joined nearly a year ago as a "vote" for non-DRMed music but now I find I am almost exclusively sourcing music from there. They have a huge range of artists and some good editorial content and recommendations. All DRM free. I was amazed how many of the high ranking albums on metacritic.com can be found on emusic.
No you won't get britney, madonna or robbie williams, but that's not a bad thing!
Summary: "But they are particularly interested in boosting their revenue from digital music sales, which...are increasing but not quickly enough to replace the continuing drops in compact disc sales."
That's funny..
http://www.emigroup.com/news/pr285.html 16th November 2005 - EMI Group delivered a strong increase in both revenues and profits in the first half, with both divisions outperforming the market
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4420780.stm Wednesday, 9 November 2005 - With a number of major new music releases due from Sony BMG in the run up to Christmas, Bertelsmann said it expected profits to continue rising during 2005.
Sounds like they're on the verge of bankruptcy to me. Maybe we can convince Congress to subsidize the recording industry so our whole economy doesn't collapse, resulting in a great depression that will make 1929 seem like a fiesta by comparison.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
since itunes has a large marketshare of the legit mp3 market, they now have some power behind them, now what itunes should do is ask those labels that want multiple price points to pay for their service, since, well, they havn't gone through the cost of developing a network and product like apple have. so i'd say for it to sell on itunes they should pay per album (or song).
just a thought
Who's Robbie Williams? (nevermind, I don't care)
Just noticed they picked up Discord. Rock on!
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
If you don't know who he is then I suspect you don't want to either...
Easy:
Your turn... give me three examples of RIAA members who have stopped taking their customers to court.
I would gladly take 6 times the profit on one third of the sales. BTW, Death Cab for Cutie?? Who the hell is that? I guess the RIAA didn't pimp 'em hard enough, because I have no idea who you are talking about. Must be something you picked up on MTV or the radio cleverly hidden among the commercials for beer and stridex. I'd say it takes more effort to 'find' good music through those channels than it does on a website.
Payola is illegal. So is price fixing. Hell, most of what the record labels 'do' for a band is shady at best.
Yeah, and Brad Sucks does it all with a desktop computer. Your overhead is useless to an entire generation of new musicians.
Do you work for a RIAA member or something? It's music. People have been making it since the stone ages. Why do you think that it's all of a sudden impossible for someone to create, market, and distribute it without a management team? Indies have the internet. The RIAA is toast.
I live in Nashville, I'm an audio engineer, and have a degree in the recording industry. I know many music industry attorneys and I've seen and read many large artist-label contracts.
Generally, all contracts for the last 5-7 years have a digitial distribution clause in it. For those that were written prior to the "digital age", most of them have a clause which says something to the effect of "this agreement covers future and unnamed methods of distribution, including media, broadcast, methods of transmission, and any other unforseeable future technologies".
That pretty much circumvents that. The RIAA may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but they are not complete idiots either.
Libertas in infinitum
...hey I got an insightful...well thats not quite what I was going for...it was intended as satire, HUMOR. I sppose that many might think I hit the nail on the head though and if so thats fine too.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
"We've previously reported on this story"
so why are we reporting on it again...
Kenny Sabarese
www.kennysabarese.com
Huh. Interesting. I'm in an odd position because while I support the banning of "emergency contraceptives" as they don't actually work as a contraceptive, but as an anti-implantation method (yes, I know that when the Pill was introduced, the drug companies lobbied to have the official definition of contraception changed so that they didn't have to market the Pill as a potential abortifacent), I don't agree with how Target is handling this. Either outright ban the item because you don't feel it's right to sell it, or put in allowances to prevent someone with moral opposition to this medicine from being forced to run the pharmacy desk. *wry grin* Then again, that latter case probably wouldn't work as pharmacists probably make more money and therefore we have discrimination in job duties due to religious beliefs. *sigh* And really, the case could be carried to just about anything rather than just this drug. I admire Target for stating their reason for this rather than prevaricating about low supply or the like. My cynic sense tells me that this could just be a PR move given that it's not horribly consistent from store to store or phramacist to pharmacist. Meh... this is what comes of trying to mix morality and capitalism; they're not exactly easily miscible.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I'm pro choice. I don't think people should be forced to assist in abortion if they consider it immoral and I don't think that people should be forced to have children they don't want to have. I stopped supporting planned parenthood over this issue. If the pro choice community argues that right to lifers should be forced to assist in abortions (or even in birth control) than I don't really see any difference between our position and the pro-life one.
Because artist could go straight to iTunes and charge less per song and still get more money. Like $.69 per song or something.
They can do that with albums right now, but I wonder how many people would buy a $>7 album on impulse versus a $1 song/single in the meantime.