Slashdot Mirror
EMI Experiments With DRM-free MP3's
trifster writes "Ars Technica has an article about EMI selling DRM-free MP3's through Yahoo Music's US online store. It should be noted that this trial is an attempt to increase sales and competition with online music that is not necessarilary available on iTunes."
From the article:
"Why the sudden interest in non-DRMed formats? It appears that the record labels are slowly beginning to realize that they can't have DRMed music and complete control over the online music market at the same time....
There are signs that consumers might be growing irritated by the Balkanization of the online music scene. Nielsen SoundScan reports that online music sales dropped during the second and third quarters of the year."
...for finally figuring out that controlling, say, 30% of a market with 50% piracy is better than controlling 2% of a market with 10% piracy.
"Selling a couple xian tunes w/o drm isn't going to exactly cause a wave of common sense to break out. Does anyone actually listen to this crap?"
Norah Jones has had a couple of multi-platinum albums in the past five years. She's a bona fide star. Relient K are one of those "crossover" Christian bands that have managed to release three consecutive gold albums. By the way, I found this data with about two minutes of Googling.
Per Ars Technica, these artists were picked because their audience skews older. P2P usage skews younger. The Slashdot demographic is also younger, so most people reading this see the world as one where everybody uses P2P to get their music and nobody listens to lame artists like Norah Jones, but EMI is apparently looking at the big picture.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Strangely enough, allofmp3 was selling DRM free music in multiple formats for years and look what happened to them.
Hmmm, guess it has little to do w/the sheep and more to do with the power of the conglomerates and their lawyers.
DRM free..? Well, okay... I'm listening (so to speak). But if the quality isn't 192kps and up then I'm not interested.
Personally I'd rather see a "more legal" version of allofmp3.com... Choice of format, bitrate, etc? Yes, please. I'd be very happy to part with my hard earned cash in that case.
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
"Wake up RIAA and realize that the price of music drives piracy."
Pricing drives shoplifting, auto theft, and lots of other crimes. Businesses can take this into account, but no matter what industry you're in, there's always going to be a certain percentage of people who will try to help themselves to your product for free and use pricing as a rationalization.
"People will always have an incentive to crack DRM if they can't get the music for a fair price legally."
Agreed, but for many people, "fair price" has been sliding downward so that it's below whatever price the industry sets. Remember six years ago when CDs were $20 and online tracks were $3 and hard to come by? People justified P2P usage back then because CDs were so expensive and legit online tracks were expensive and offered little selection. Today, new CD releases are south of $15 and selection of online music is plentiful at $0.99 and below. Yet this price is still not "fair." For many people, it never will be. Those people likely aren't high on the record companies' target audience... unless you're counting lawsuits.
"I imagine the music industry is scared to death of sliding music prices, even though that's where it's going to head eventually. There is some point between "overpriced" and "free" at which both consumers and most artists will be happy."
...and the industry has found that at $0.99. The iTMS has been an overwhelming success, despite the fact that everybody on Slashdot hates it because the pricing isn't "fair" and because the product is DRM-laden.
You are not going to believe this, but if online music pricing dropped to $0.80, $0.70, or even $0.50, I would not buy more. I buy all the music I want online, and $0.99 is not a burden to me. It's conceivable that I'm the only consumer on the planet for whom there's no elasticity between $0.99 and $0.50, but that's highly unlikely. Pricing theory is all about finding that point on the curve that makes the most profit, even if it means that you're limiting your potential customer base.
"Those artists who expect to become millionaires from a popular record (and who don't tour), are going to be sorely disappointed. Those artists who are happy making a decent living, and who actually produce good music, will prosper."
This sounds a lot like many arguments I hear for lower music prices which end with some form of "artists will just need to accept their new place in society." Why should they want to do that? Many people would trade fame for money, but many would not. If I offered to make you more well-known but your salary would have to drop by $20K a year, would you do it? Do you think everybody would take me up on my offer?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
The MP3 debate is near and dear to my heart and I've given it a lot of thought. So here is my 25 cents (inflation):
CD prices are not, as such, artificially inflated to an outrageous degree. However, they are IMO spending their money inefficiently.
A LOT of the money they collect for a CD has already been spent in marketing.
If we're going to point our fingers at them and say that they're bad people, we should do it because they're ramming (successfully) horrid music down people's throats.
If you listen to the music put out these days, you'd find that almost all of the songs from a given artist sound exactly alike. *cough* metalliwhiner *cough* or any of the other popular bands.
The reasoning behind this is simple: when mary-muffins goes to buy the latest CD, she is less than happy if all the music doesn't sound as good as the 1 or 2 tracks splattered across pay-for-playdio. (I don't like getting a CD for a single song and have the rest of the CD suck either.)
Mary-muffins would know good music if it hit her in the face, she is just never allowed to hear it. The current RIAA members are the gatekeepers. Remember (anyone?) mp3.com? I do.
I found over a dozen bands that never appear on the splaterworks. Small, little bands with unique sounds and really interesting songs.
CNET bought them and for some odd reason, destroyed the entire music catalog and the service. It no longer exists.
Song (as well as movie) piracy exists for a single reason, and it has little to do with money above a certain age: ease.
If I can download a song or 6, in mp3 or better, at an acceptable bitrate in which I can hear the songs before hand (lower bit rate is acceptable for that of course), and if it is as easy as getting songs from bittorrent or whatever (click and go), then I'd buy.
Otherwise, if I can get superior service, packaging, delivery, and ease of use for free... why wouldn't I?
(Spare me the legal or moral argument. I consider the RIAA to be far more reprehensible than someone infringing on their copyrights. I consider them to have sleazed their way into many of the copyrights they own in the first place. I cite http://www.jdray.com/Daviews/courtney.html/ as Courtney Love's take on the music industry and http://negativland.com/albini.html/ as Steve Albini (producer of Nirvana's "In Utero".)
Knowing that the music industry spends a LOT of money on promotion, and that live events and selling goodies (like t-shirts and whatnot) make the bands more money and promote at the same time (assuming people want to see them, unlike the ditzy shizz (those idiotic morons that maligned their country and alienated their entire clientele then wondered what the hell happened)), the music industry simply needs to change tactics.
They would earn (tons) of money, get to keep themselves as the gatekeepers, and take less risk in promotion if they followed this plan: