Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Invests In Dynamic Pricing Model For MP3s
NittanyTuring writes "Amazon recently closed a Series A financing deal with Amiestreet.com, a startup selling DRM-free MP3s with a demand-based pricing model. All music starts out free, and prices increase for popular tracks. Jeff Blackburn, Senior Vice President for Business Development, Amazon.com: 'The idea of having customers directly influence the price of songs is an interesting and novel approach to selling digital music.' What does this mean for Amazon's own intentions to sell music?"
A novel new business idea - the recording industry HATES that.
[Insert pithy quote here]
You know there will be much whining about people that bought $Song for $PriceA only to find that it fell to $PriceB.
And those that complain that $Friend bought $Song for $PriceA but now its up to $PriceC and its not fair that they have to pay more than $Friend for the exact same item
Won't higher prices mean more piracy? Or is that exactly what this system is avoiding?
By nobody buying a track (which *could* mean piracy) the track's price would come down and then people would buy it?
Wow, I think I answered my own question! This sounds pretty cool - less known music gets more exposure and more popular music gets set at a price people are willing to pay. Now, will they actually have a supply of music?
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Have you ever found yourself telling someone, "yeah, I liked that song before everyone else thought it was cool." I can see this model encouraging people to explore and download and try new stuff so that later on, when the price goes up, they can brag about how they downloaded it first, for free, before it was selling for $5 a pop.
It also might open the door for more quality indies to actually make money. People might be turned off by high prices of what the RIAA cartel marketing is pushing, and go for the cheaper indie stuff. Then again, I am probably being too optimistic, as most teenagers will pay any price for "cool"
For those who didn't, prices start a $0.00 and cap out at $0.98.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
Those who prefer to listen to non-mainstream artists would get cheaper music, while those who prefer to listen to mainstream artists would pay more for it. It almost sounds like a tax on lack of musical taste to subsidize music geeks!
I wonder if they will pay me to download Yoko Ono tracks?
I'd like to see a model like this. Ever since I installed a satellite radio receiver in my car, my musical horizons have broadened significantly. A lot of the artists I hear on some of the more obscure channels aren't indexed on iTunes or even available on illegal services like Limewire. This mostly applies to older music that is out of print, or never made it to CD.
It would be nice if there was a service like this that had just about anything ever recorded digitized and made available for download. Let the market sort out what's popular and what isn't, but give us access to EVERYTHING.
In this day and age, there is no reason why virtually every album ever recorded isn't available to buy a digital copy of.
The screw-you pricing of the airline industry and the crappy product of the corporate music industry.
Can't fail.
Who wants to start this? I'm selling options for indie band A at 35 cents a song.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
As the volumes increase, the price increases and the piracy might increase.
What is interesting is that this model possibly finds the "perfect price". So much for economic theory.
In reality, a pirate will not buy some low-cost stuff and pirate high-cost stuff according to some built-in threshold. Once they have free piracy access to music they will use that for everything they can.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
There just isn't. Because this can't possibly mean more money for them, if prices cap at 0.98. And if they didn't cap there, no one would buy the more expensive tracks from them anyway. But unless these "trail-blazing" people either forfeit all profit for themselves in order to transfer it to the recording companies, or come up with some other, novel way of incentivizing this process (theoretically, at least using a simple model, averaging 50 cents a download) which will halve their profits compared to what they get from iTunes, there is NO WAY the Big Four will go for this.
On the other hand, maybe the simple model isn't true, and maybe popular = most everything that the average buyer buys, in which case it won't look any different to the average buyer, so except for the DRM-free part (another deal-breaker for the Big Four), why should the average buyer care?
For the most part all of this bitching and moaning has nothing to do about a fair price. Lets face it, people want music, they want it for free and they want to do it legally. But like the old axiom of "fast, good, cheap. Choose 2", these three elements can never come together in a situation where it is win-win for both the listener and the musician.
Most of the time when I see people on Slashdot talk about how things are "working out" with new music distribution models they normally forget to include the musician in the equation.
I don't care what anyone thinks about this. An artist shouldn't be forced to tour to pay the rent. Is it hard to accept making a lifetime's wage for a few years of work? Sure. But on the other hand it shouldn't be asking too much for the artist to cover the cost of overhead for putting out music, keep food on his plate and make a bit extra without having to live in the back of an Econoline van.
So most of the DRM/Copyright arguments has nothing to do with creativity or a society bolstered by its art. It mostly has to deal with people being greedy and not wanting to shell out for what they've taken.
Blame the RIAA all you want, but people deserve to make a buck when they've produced something that you're willing to listen to more then once or twice.
/rant
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I'm already working on my script to download all new music the minute it hits the service -- before it becomes popular.
I can't wait for the madness that will hit once my script becomes popular in usage.
(Note, I'm not actually writing such a script, but someone will.)
Says the guy with a Red Hot Chili Peppers lyric as his sig...
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
By which you mean that your musical tastes are superior to that of the vast majority of other people.
I don't like any Brittney Spears music, I like a handful of Metallica tunes. Nonetheless I am willing to admit that if they have a million people who want to listen to their albums and Obscure Artist G has five--regardless of whether I like his music or I feel he is the modern equivalent of Mozart--they should be making more money for it. Demand isn't a perfect metric for everything, but it seems wholly appropriate here, particularly when it is each individual's decision whether or not to give a particular artist their money.
Because they have produced a good that you want. While I'm not going to go so far as the RIAA does and call it stealing, I don't see how people justify taking something without compensating the creator with specious arguments like "somebody else already paid them 10 years ago."
If it isn't worth the price according to whatever criteria you choose to apply, don't buy it. If it is, buy it. Not only does that compensate artists whose music you like, it will work to drive down music prices or eliminate poor artists if enough people agree with you.