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Music Industry Set To Introduce the "Ringle"
mrneutron2003 writes "The RIAA has officially backed a move by the recording industry to reintroduce the CD single. Populated with three songs and a ringtone, this brilliantly clueless idea is to be marketed as a 'ringle,' complete with an even more clueless retail price of $6-7 per CD. Apart from the fact the industry hasn't agreed on how the ringtone is to be redeemed (Sony BMG, the initial proponent of the idea, is the exception here), the pricing puts it way out of line with legitimate digital music downloads." At $7, retailers would enjoy a profit margin they haven't seen since the days of cassette tapes and vinyl.
Here's a question I'd love to ask the music industry:
How many times must I buy the same music in order to "legally" hear it on any music-playing device I own? (No, I will not tell you what devices they are, nor what formats they can play.)
Do you like Japanese imports?
Midi ringtones are outrageously priced..real tones even more so. The price isn't THAT inflated compared to what we already spend.
cb_is_cool knows where his towel is.
That's what's wrong with that.
Wow, and you are getting a ringtone as well. That's a $3 value absolutely free!
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
So it makes sense that I have to go to a store and buy the CD even though they're providing the ringtone as a digital download?
http://blog.heavensdomain.net
... They are the 3 songs you like. Isn't that the whole point of downloading songs? Getting only the ones you want? This combines the worst of both worlds - high price and no consumer choice. Well, no choice other than not buying them. Which seems in line with the rest of the music industry in general.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
One thing hanging over the 'maybe new, maybe not' idea that didn't factor in twenty years ago, is the 'green' factor.
What is the carbon footprint of three songs on a packaged CD versus three songs purchased over the internet? And to bring it into even sharper focus, the CD packaged songs will end up on a player just like the downloads.
Game over, man...
Brilliant! Finaly, the solution to piracy! Increase the profit margin, how didn't they think of it earlier? ...wait...what???
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Uh, right . . .
Thanks for that little gem, which helps prove there's not much danger of that ever happening.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
The summary says three songs and a ringtone, but the article reads, two songs and a ring tone. Which is it?
"Ringle, ringle, coins how they jingle," Scrooge's lustful song of money and greed.
Quite appropriate name considering...
Well - there's nothing wrong with them trying to sell people stuff. Just because we won't buy it doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it a failed attempt. I'm also starting to wonder why the heck the editors are allowing through these "news" pieces where even the summary is calling people clueless? I mean - "news for nerds" - let US decide what is clueless. News isn't supposed to be so damn slanted, I mean slashed.
...speaking as someone named Ray Ingles.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Do people really only tend to like a handful of songs from an album? This ball gets kicked around quite a bit here, but I have to say I honestly have no idea what people are referring to. I can only think of cases where I've liked most or all of an album, or disliked everything from beginning to end.
I'm going to invent the Pirated ringtone single
I'll call it a Pringle
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
The first thing that is wrong is that anybody would ever want a ringtone. You'd have to pay ME, AND remove the ringtone before I'd even consider your offer of a crappy pop-single with an even crappier "remix" and a third filler to go along with the ringtone that only idiots want. Then there's the whole issue of, WHO USES CD'S ANYMORE????
I, for one, really do stil want to buy plastic discs. It's just that I can traipse over to any major shop, and get a used or sale copy of the full album for less than they'd like me to spend on three songs.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
My bet is that people will avoid buying these in droves simply because they can't find a CD slot on their cellphones. Imagine the customer support calls?
New Music!
The price could be fine, but are the three songs of value ?
1) HotSingle (Radio edit)
2) HotSingle (Explicit)
3) HotSingle (Extended dub mix)
4) Free* ringtone
*actually costs freedom, requires personal contact information to redeem.
I am single,
If I buy a ringle,
With me will women mingle ?
or will it be an iPod haiku - ( scene: chic sees guy with iPod )
My Gawd,
An iPod,
Must have a big rod.
WTF ARE THESE IDIOTS THINKING??? That I'm going to spend over NINETY THOUSAND DOLLARS to load up my 160gig iPod?
They must be doing some mighty fine crack, because THAT is pure unadulterated BULLSHIT if they think I'm going to spend even 1/2 of one percent of $80,000 loading up my 160gig iPod, and it certainly isn't going to be spend on ringles...
Good god. What a bunch of losers. Left curve of the IQ bell chart. Morons. Mafiosi. Dead enders. Feh.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Or, browse a bit in my local used CD store and perhaps pick up an entire CD that I'm interested in, bring it home, rip it, and use it for whatever I want.
They want their marketing and manufacturing excuse back. 6-7 dollars? Don't you think that's a little steep?
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
This pretty much is the usual from the music industry. Badly thought out plan that has no chance at all of succeeding spearheaded by some management guy that lives in a fantasy world of catch phases. I will bet that this will be dead before first quarter 2008.
No thank you, RIAA. I'll just take songs I currently own (either ripped from my purchases CDs or bought from AmieStreet.com) and use Audacity to cut/re-encode them. Then I'll use BitPIM to transfer the files to my phone for use as ringtones.
;-) Well, it's the end of a long day and I'm not feeling witty, so I'll leave that to anyone replying to my post.)
Cost for the music: Free (raiding old CD collection) or Free to 98 cents (AmieStreet.com)
Cost for the ringtone: Free.
(Expected a "priceless" joke here, didn't you?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Wasn't it us lot that said SMS messaging would never take off, I mean 160characters for 10p or so?
Giving the consumer a product which gives them what they think they need will be an amazing moneyspinner.
liqbase
If you don't want it, don't buy it. Same with full-length CDs. No, only wanting one song from a CD does not justify illicit downloads anymore than it justifies stealing a physical CD.
With all the options available--CD singles, CD albums, greatest hits collections, "That's What I Call Crap for Your Ears" mixes, online shops with single song downloads, etc.--it is not reasonable to complain that there is no way for you to purchase the music you want.
(FWIW, I have little empathy on the issue perhaps due to out of the many 100s of CDs, cassette tapes, LPs, and 78s I've purchased over the years, in only 1 case did it turn out that the 1 song that prompted the purchase was the only song on the album I liked. Maybe it means I like a better class of musician who is able to come up with more than 1 catchy tune at a time. Maybe it means I have lower standards. Whatever.)
People who balk at paying 99 cents for a song someone how end up paying many times that for just a piece of that same song as a ring tone, so using ring tones to move songs makes sense. The only issue I have is with the name. The thought of someone talking about 'ringles' on their 'blog' makes me want to hit someone in the 'face' with a 'shovel'.
Is the first release a re-issue of him singing "Photograph?" Or are they going back to his days with The Bingles?
Oh, well. Barbara Bach is still moderately attractive, anyways.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Sure, this seems stupid, but consider some consumer behavior I've seen recently:
- A household where every family member has a Mac and an iPod. Family members often buy the same song instead of using sharing because it is "too difficult".
- A household where working computers are thrown out on a yearly basis and replaced with new ones because that's "easier".
- A household where computers with sensitive records are just left out on the curb.
Different households, all fairly affluent, all in the NYC area. So while ringles may be stupid to the Slashdot crowd, they'll sell to the people that are even dumber than the record execs.
While advertised based on the songs they hold... basically 4mb = 1 song. You will notice that the iPod database becomes bloated and the iPod becomes more and more unresponsive and slow when you get past 12,000 to 15,000 songs. It haven't tried it, but I believe the iPod would cease to function usefully if loaded with a full 40,000 songs (it would probably still function to the extent that you can't sue Apple, as they make no guarantee of usability when loaded to the advertised maximum).
I imagine the only reason Apple is adding more space is almost exclusively for TV, movie, and music video content.
For the Record Companies.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Lose market share because customers don't perceive value.
Remove even more value from the product and raise the margin.
Profit !!!!
Who says this business thing is hard!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
FTA:
Each ringle is expected to contain three songs -- one hit and maybe one remix and an older track -- and one ringtone, on a CD with a slip-sleeve cover. The idea is that if consumers in the digital age can download any tracks they want individually, why not let them buy singles in the store as well? It also enables stores to get involved in the ringtone phenomenon.
Wow. Only the recording industry and the government can write contradictions like that and not see the logical fallacy.
Apparently, the industry understands that consumers want their tracks individually, and wants consumers to get their individual tracks from retail outlets. So to facilitate this, they package the individual track with 2 other unwanted songs and a ringtone. Then they double the price of downloading the songs individually and force you to drive to the store?!?!
Wow. That logic is shocking. I just have to repeat it to actually believe that some executive thought this up: Consumers want songs individually, so lets package 3 songs together with a ringtone and double the price!
The person who came up with that idea probably makes more money than everyone who reads this post put together. JSDFKGLHADFYGUHQO@W*%ORILU@#WERLJKC!@%$)*
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
Why complain here? Why fight them? Just short their stock and laugh all the way to the bank. Instead of complaining, short em while publicly declaring this to be a good move. Somebody's got to pay for my Christmas.
I'm in that camp, sort of.
... but if I was going to buy the music a la carte, I'd just pick out the handful of songs I want and discard the rest.
There are lots of CDs where I liked most or all of the songs on the disc, but I wouldn't have purchased them individually if I'd had a choice. That is, they're acceptable, but they're obviously filler. At $6-10 for the whole disc, I'll buy it, because the value of the songs I like makes up for the somewhat lower value of the filler songs, and I don't find them so offensive that I need to skip over them when I'm listening to a disc or anything
It's a question of alternatives. If I like three songs on a disc a lot, and the rest not quite so much, I'm only going to buy the three songs. It's not because I hate the other songs on the disc, but because I know I can save the money, and then turn around and spend it on the best few songs from three or four other albums. By doing that, the net quality of my music collection (in my own, totally subjective, estimation) is higher.
I know there's a virtually limitless quantity of music out there to discover; the limiting factor is going to be my money and time, not the available music. So therefore, it makes sense to only buy the best tracks from each disc, if that option is available.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
In addition to the "ringle" CD, the following must be included:
1. - A self-destructing DVD, which will auto-destruct after a week, or 3 viewings, whichever comes first.
2. - A Blue-Ray DVD player with a slef-destruct mechanism which activates in case the inserted disk is not deemed "genuine" by the SONY servers (broadband connection required).
3. - An additional CD containing only the mandatory rootkit, without which the 3-song + ringtone CD cannot be played.
4. - A Betamax tape, just for the heck of it.
Well - there's nothing wrong with them trying to sell people stuff. Just because we won't buy it doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it a failed attempt.
One problem is that this failed attempt will inevitably be blamed on piracy. Watch.
"This was back before we could even create CDs at our own PCs and when CD prices were at their premium of $16-18 each. (Then again, aren't they still around that price?)"
No. The average price of the top ten CDs on Amazon (the nation's #1 music retailer, apparently) is $10.28. Audiophile recordings, CDs with bonus DVDs, and the like can get up to $16 - $18, but nowadays, the effective price for most new CDs is $10 or $12.
"Yes, I know there is more than just manufacturing..."
Manufacturing is typically the smallest component of the cost of sale. The record company typically pays more in royalties than they do in manufacturing costs. And, of course, that doesn't include production costs, shipping, returns, marketing programs (a big piece of the pie), overhead and the myriad other costs that are a reality of the retail business no matter what you sell. But, for what it's worth, finished CDs don't cost $0.25 to produce.
"but consider that every $.25 profit to each disc was 100% profit. So, even if the labels made $1 profit for each disc sold, they made 400% profit."
I am not sure I follow your math. A buck net profit per CD sounds a bit right. If they sell in to distribution at $8, and net $1, that's about 12 points of margin.
Remember -- after several quarters of reporting really, really low profitability, Warner Music lost money last year. I know the "record companies make obscene profits" story is a popular one on Slashdot, but it is generally not correct.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
My teenage daughter likes to have cool ringtones, and with a freeware utility and a basic audio editor, I can make dozens of custom ringtones from her favorite tunes in just a few minutes. I get points as a cool dad, and I don't have to suffer the indignity of giving Sony or Warners or whichever evil empire an additional dollar. To my great surprise, the homemade element seems to please my daughter rather unlike the ugly sweaters her mom used to knit for her. I don't know if the RIAA deems my handiwork a violation of their property rights, but I sincerely hope so. I've even made myself a ring tone from an old recording of Super Freak by Rick James that I use only for when my wife calls me. It gets a chuckle from the kids in my class.
Years from now, business schools will teach the behavior of the music labels and the RIAA at the turn of the millenium as a case study in the way to kill off an entire industry sector. Musicians will swap stories about how their predecessors had to deal with a business relationship to the labels that was not so different from the ones the coal miners had to suffer under half a century earlier. One difference being that when the coal miners died, at least the company couldn't abuse them any more.
I've gone almost two years without buying a single music recording from anyone but the artist, and my collection is richer than ever. For the classical music and opera that I sometimes enjoy, I simply rip the CDs I can borrow from the excellent collections at the Chicago Public Library and then I use the savings to pay for a pair of season tickets to the Lyric Opera (which is doing La Boheme, La Traviata AND Atomic City by John Adams/Peter Sellars this season).
You are welcome on my lawn.
Serious question: is that legal?
The making your own ringtone part: yes (though record companies wish it wasn't). The ripping CDs from the library part: no (not even a little).
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
But this time it'll be blamed on ringtone-piracy! And those dirty, evil phone manufacturers making phones that can use MP3s as ringtones. Because we all know that MP3 is the devil's format, an nothing without without DRM could ever be legit.
It's not exactly rocket surgery.
Am I missing something? Or are you forgetting that CDs ARE digital music?
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
I thought the default wife ringtone was the Imperial March.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Frankly, so what? Piracy is a large cause of falling revenues in the music industry. Does it hurt your sensibilities to hear that?
You can talk about the quality of the product until the end of time, but the truth is music is no better or worse than it ever was. Realistically, if no one wanted the music, people wouldn't be downloading it either.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
It wasn't you who said it first. It was the European GSM provider who said it first. So they bundled the SMS-Service often for free or for very little money with their calling plans, because they just thought it a nice feature with not much practical use.
After all, SMS was never really thought for the broad public, it was more or less thought to replace the beeper in some circumstances or to send technical status messages.
But then the public discovered the SMS and turned them in a cheap chat system. And suddenly a technical byproduct became a main selling point for GSM plans, and the prices for SMS services skyrocketed.