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Vivendi Calls iTunes Contract Terms "Indecent"
Bemopolis writes "Brace yourselves for a shocking revelation: The CEO of Vivendi, parent company of UMG, is not happy with the current deal with the iTunes Store. 'The split between Apple and (music) producers is indecent [...] Our contracts give too good a share to Apple.' The usual argument about older music priced at the same rate as new music is trotted out. No doubt UMG would prefer to make the former cheaper, while maintaining the current pricing for the latter. At least he had the decency not to claim that they were trying to defend their artists against predatory iTunes pricing. Or maybe he just misplaced the index card with that boilerplate on it."
(Where former = older music, latter = new music)
No doubt UMG would prefer to keep the current price for the former, while increasing the price for the latter.
There, fixed that sentence for you.
But Bemopolis clearly didn't misplace his index card with the Slashbot boilerplate for attacking anyone in the music industry for anything that they ever say or do.
I'm not quite sure what the story is here though. The CEO of a company wants his company to make more money? What a shocker.
Wouldn't GE/NBC be the parent company of the Universal holdings after Vivendi sold 80% to them in 2004?/p.
If Vivendi doesn't like the terms of the contract, no one is forcing them to renew. I don't see what this guy thinks he will accomplish by whining to the press.
I enjoy seeing these big corporations and trade groups fighting against each other. Only billions of dollars will change the current system. It is too entrenched.
the moaning sounds of a dying industry?
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This looks like a case where a company is calling foul on a distributor. In a way, I guess Itunes is like walmart. If you want your music to sell online, you do it thru itunes. If not, you find your own way. Perhaps by not killing online radio.
import system.cool.Sig;
Silly question, but if the contract terms are unfair to UMG, then why the hell did they agree to them ?
...Soviet Russia, Vivendi seeks iTunes contract terms as "Indecent"
...how can a company (UMG) that gets money for nothing be in such dire straits?
Half Word - Will Double, Wire Palindrome, San Francisco
They probably prediced the store to do about 10% of the sales they're actually doing, and thought Apple's profits seemed fair at that level. But the bigger pie only made them want a relatively larger piece.
'The split between Apple and (music) producers is indecent [...] Our contracts give too good a share to Apple.'
Substitute "producers" for Apple and "artists" (musicians) for "producers".
The split between Apple and (music) producers is indecent [...] Our contracts give too good a share to Apple.
:)
I agree. Music PRODUCERS (this is, the artists, and not the greedy intermediaries) should get more share
Strange curiosity: Today's captcha is "authors"
I'm split on this one:
(1) If you think of it in terms of traditional retail, Apple is applying a 41% (.29 retail/.70 wholesale) markup. That sounds like a hefty markup at first, until you figure in Apple's cost of storage and delivery. While there is no "storage" and "delivery" in the traditional brick and mortar store sense, there is still server storage and bandwidth costs. I wonder what Apple's true costs (costs to music producers and IT costs to run iTMS) are on a per-track basis. Know that, and you can get a better grasp on the actual profit margin.
(2) If the deal is so bad for the producers, why did they go in on the deal in the first place?
The second point is more rhetorical, but the first one I think bears further study before deciding if the markup is excessive. Of course, getting Apple's per-track expenses will be damn near impossible so we'll have to settle for speculation and conjecture.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
This is the most entertaining news I've read all day! Thank you, submitter.
iTunes is pretty decent. Yea people can complain about the media not working on the iPod, but I have an iPod (whether or not you think its the best or worst). But when it comes down to pricing, $.99 for a song isn't half bad. Some people may argue for lower prices, but when it comes down to it, its cheaper than some candy bars and honestly, I get more enjoyment from a song than a candy bar. Sometimes they price new albums somewhat high, especially if they don't have a lot of tracks. It's always nice to see like a 16 track album going for $9.99 (price of 10 & 1/11 songs). (Now, if only eBook stores would do similar pricing, that'd be awesome.) Digital media SHOULD be a HELL of a lot more inexpensive than the physical media. iTunes does the distribution, storage, and virtually everything else involved with selling those songs. The record labels AREN'T DOING ANYTHING anymore. They don't have a right to the lion's share of the profit. Beyond that, they sell the music licenses to Apple, so Apple should be able to charge whatever they want. If Apple wants to charge more, its their right (though it'd be a bad move) and it's also their right to keep the rest of the profit. Now, chances are, the profits are probably in percentages and not flat dollar values and that's probably what is pissing the record labels off... Apple is selling them cheaply, so they're not making as much money. Apple isn't really making that much money off of iTunes either, so the labels shouldn't complain.
-Q&A: Jobs on iPod's Cultural Impact
The most interesting jobs to me, are ones where people have nothing better to do than "add value" to a product that already works. Typically, they end up screwing up a good thing.
Let's say that all the music companies do leave iTunes, what then?
1. Multiple services, which would be as annoying to consumers as having to go to different stores to buy different label's music. In reality the majority of consumers would probably rather to pay a little more and go to the "Music store" that carries all music as opposed to the "Vivendi store", "Universal store".
2. They unite and create a new iTunes, without Apple, under a different name. Then, as a side effect, they will also create a new Steve Jobs, who'll probably favor one of them over the others, as opposed to favoring the iPod (and total sales). This establishment will slip away even easier than iTunes.
In either event, consumer cynicism goes through the roof. And piracy will be the largest benefactor. I bet you could figure out more accurate scenarios (I only spent about 5 minutes of thought on this), but I can't imagine something better coming to pass when you are talking about so many assertive people working together without an obvious "boss".
See if people will buy an $3 single from UMG when there are $1 singles of similar popularity available from other labels and $5 DRM-free albums available from CD Baby. In fact, let iTunes Suggest feature find similar, cheaper music when the user selects a song. They will be begging for old single price model in no time.
Why do they feel they need a price differential? More popular music, priced at the same price, will *already* make more money because it will sell more copies. 10000 purchases @ $1 = $10000. 150 million purchases @ $1 = 150 million dollars. So why price them differently?
I'm sure they figure they're leaving money on the table. They'd rather get 125 million purchases @ $2 = 250 million dollars I suppose ( I reduced the number of purchases, slightly, as price would likely have some impact on the number of purchases, but I'm just trying to figure out their mentality, not reality - the number of downloads might go down substantially more than that if they double the price, but try convincing a music exec of that).
Maybe it also has to deal with ala carte pricing? Used to be people had to buy albums full of songs with maybe only 1 or 2 or 3 that they liked, effectively making the price of a popular song $8 - $20. The music industry is apparently hating fair pricing on songs.
My understanding is that Vivendi (who is behind Universal and NBC Universal's position on iTunes) wants "differentiated pricing" so they can better "monitize" artists--and for certain hits they want the right to charge $2.49 per song rather than $.99 per song. $2.49 translates (for a 12-song album) into around $30 for a CD.
Are you prepared to pay $30 for a music CD?
Someone has to count all that money.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Renegotiate. Vivendi realizes that a partnership with iTunes is very profitable for them. They just wish Apple didn't realize it.
It would only be fair for Vivendi to give Apple the same percentage cut that they accept from the recording artists. Presumably that's less than the 30% that Apple is taking.
-Peter
PS: Please read twice before moderating. There may be lurking sarcasm.
I'd love to see how much of that 70% makes its way to the artists. Perhaps Vivendi misunderstood where the "indecent" portion of the financial split exists...
But anyone who uses the word "monetize" (in any of its conjugations) in a non-ironic manner should never be allowed anywhere near the channels between artist and audience. Go sell chewing gum or razor blades instead.
There were no gays in the UMG, but I am just paraphrasing. Ahmadinejad should consider stepping down as president of Vivendi!
True enough but the markup is only part of the picture. What's more important is the gross margin of the company. In the retail book/CD industry gross margins are around 20% which is pretty crappy compared to most industries. Only way to make any real money is with huge scale (i.e. Amazon) because the margins are so bad.
Basically all the money in music is taken by the labels/RIAA-members and in some cases device manufacturers such as Apple or Sony with the labels getting the majority. The labels control the availability via copyright and more importantly distribution. (A copyright isn't worth much if you can't distribute or control distribution of the work in question) Apple is in a position to supplant the labels as the most important gatekeeper in distribution and it rightfully makes the RIAA members very uncomfortable. Should iTunes become the dominant distribution medium, you can bet the profits will start to swing more in Apple's favor in due time.
I made a mistake, when reading the article I saw both Vivendi and UMG and in my typing rush (I did admit to only giving this 5 mins of thought) said that they were different entities.
My bad.
I agree with everyone out there that paying more money for a single song would be ridiculous, especially since there are other sources of songs out there on the internet. If itunes would raise their prices too much, other programs online like rhapsody would definitely gain much more popularity. Which in the end would cause apple and everyone associated with them to lose money. I do not agree with the idea of differences in prices of new and old songs. More often recently, adults have started to find out about and purchase an ipod and then want to get their old popular songs. Sometimes great oldies are much more purchased than new songs.
I don't disagree with the premise that older music could or should be priced differently from newer music. One would expect that with older music the costs of production and distribution have been largely recouped. Of course, to me that means that older songs should be priced from 25 cents to 75 cents and new music remain at the one dollar level.
I doubt UMG/Vivendi shares my pricing philosophy, however. Differential pricing to them is just a lever they want to use to rationalize higher prices.
I think most of this discussion is pretty laughable. Its pretty easy to see what the issue is for the labels. Before digital distribution if there was a song you heard on the radio and really wanted to own, you could either shell out $4-$5 for a CD single or pick up a whole CD for around $12. Now if I want to buy a song I like, I can just hop over to (insert favorite online distributor here) and buy just THAT ONE SONG for $1 or less. No $12 album sale, no over priced single sale, no inflated profit margin. Just the $1. That is the issue. You can't make much money on the pop tart of the day selling $1 singles.
you need to stop posting on slashdot on your spare time..
Why doesn't Apple just buy a music producer? If Starbucks can get into the music business why can't Apple?
Start a shell company (or three) go buying up the catalog of a few houses. Then have a nice unveiling of the new Apple store.
Also, under a shell company, start getting artists to move to your label.
I know they used to have an agreement with Beatles Apple company about not touching the music business, but they re-settled that a year ago.
So UMG gets the fat side of a 70/30 split, and all they have to do is sit on their asses and cash the checks -- and they don't think this is good enough!
And why don't I see them running their own music stores? Because they don't know how to do it profitably. All they know how to do is whine, complain, and demand more money for things they are incapable of ever accomplishing on their own. If there was ever a reason for Big Music to crash and burn, this is it!
Music existed before the music companies, and it will exist after they're gone. With the Internet, artists -- especially the vast hoard of unsigned artists -- don't need Big Music to get their music out. For every big name you've heard of that was signed by the record companies, a thousand others were passed over, and it wasn't because they weren't good enough too. If you want fairness and a level playing field for music, that's what's happening now, and Big Music is terrified. As for those precious recording contracts, you'll have a better chance of hitting it big buying lottery tickets!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Actually it's much more akin to self-interest and outright survival.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Dear Mr Vivendi - The technology exists to make a competitive product to itunes for reasonable cost. You're welcome to compete against itunes. Before you go and try to compete, there is a reason why itunes is successful and I suggest that by the time you get it, you'll understand that unless you compete on price you're going nowhere fast. The only way to make more money really is to produce more music that people want to buy (WHAT A CONCEPT).
Now please shut up grammar nazis.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Time to get your head out of what ever dark place it currently resides -- or 2005, whichever is closer. Dell has been selling AMD-based computers for over a year now.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
According to Vivendi, they pull in ~$0.70 per song, while apple pulls in around $0.29 a song (well, TFA cites euros -- but I'd wager that the margins in USD sales are identical). I wonder how different that is from the model of physical distribution. I'll bet that the IP owners make more on the CD. It probably costs less than $0.40 to press a polycarbonate CD (total guess w/ nothing to back my numbers up), presuming that you're doing more than 5000 at a time. Add in another buck for packaging, and another few bucks for distribution. You're up to maybe $3.50 (again, total guess) out of a $15 average album. That comes out to netting (before paying royalties, etc) around 78 cents on the dollar - about 8 percent better better than the iTunes model, and that is before you factor in the fact that we're comparing a per song cost to a per-disc cost.
Here's the problem. Vivendi didn't create the market. They bitched when people took their IP without paying after they couldn't match the public demand for downloadable music. After the continued failure of the industry to create a viable pay-per-download model, a number of third parties stood up and created a new market. Prices were negotiated, and deals were made. Now that Apple's music store has become the most popular digital music store, the IP owners are complaining that Apples margins are just too high. Mind you, this is after Apple invested in the ITMS code, physical infrastructure, client code, players, bandwidth, etc.
Remember that Vivendi used to (in essence) be the sole distributor of their product. They were unable to modernize, and Apple has become a distributor for 15% of Vivendi's property. I just don't see why Vivendi has any course to complain. If Vivendi pulls out of ITMS, the real loser will be Vivendi, since it is currently the most lucrative download market in existence. Bad business. Those guys really know how to whine and make noise. Remember the whining about cassette tape? To Vivendi, I say: cry me a river.
-Turkey
Since over 70% of the consumers have iPods, and very few of them want to switch to any alternative MP3 portable player, all of those music companies will need to continue marking their music to the iPod crowd, and Job's continues to make his money off of iPod sales, and FairPlay licensing fees to those wishing to sell to the iPod market with DRM intact. They have to do this to avoid having all those iPod users resort to services that sell non-DRM music, and the still thriving P2P networks!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And when does new music become older songs? I would suspect that according to the record companies -- never!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Getting 70% of the revenue for doing absolutely nothing IS indecent! Vivendi should be getting much less!
I fully agree with you (except the 70% part, that seems a little low)...
But from what I've read from the music industry, technology isn't one of their fortes... So I don't think that argument will convince them, sadly. So I just treated it as a solvable issue (which I don't fully believe, but I'm sure they do) to play the Devil's advocate.
Greedy bastards!
"Ok, we'll do a contract based on the contracts you force upon the artist. You'll get 5%, except we're going to use magic bookkeeping to guarantee that you will always owe us money, no matter how well the music sells. That's right, this time you are the bitch."
Alternately, tell them they get an amount exactly equal to what the artists receive, with auditing of the music industry books to verify the money is actually paid. Hell, offer them twice the amount the artist gets. They still won't go for it because they wouldn't want their books audited.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Perhaps. I'd say GP meant nationalism rather than patriotism. It's the difference between "love it or leave it / we're the greatest country in the world" and "I care about my country and want to improve it". The former has nothing to do with survival, and everything to do with ignorance and/or bigotry.
Apple has stated in the past that iTunes is a break even for them-it's only reason for existance is to promote the iPod. Of course, the record companies also want a *cut* of each iPod sold, too!
The credit card companies get 7 cents out of every song sold-it comes out of Apple's 'cut'.
Apple gets 15 cents out of every song sold and out of that they have to pay for bandwidth, web design and 1001 other things. Apple gets the smallest 'cut' of all. They claim they only break even on iTunes; that it exists to benefit the iPod-which is their big cash cow. Of course the record companies are ALSO botching abiut that-they want a 'cut' on every iPod sold!Greedy bastards!
That's what I'd expect to hear from a retarded YANK.
I'm happy to live in a country where we don't ask god to bless us like snivelling minions, we TELL god to keep our land glorious and free.
It's been a long time.
Our contracts give too good a share to Apple.
Who the fuck cares. They're contracts. You signed them.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
At one point you were saying, "When our customers demand it, that's when we'll consider interoperability."
Nobody's ever demanded it. People know up front that when they buy music from the iTunes music store it plays on iPods, and so we're not trying to hide anything there.
That's because you gave them interoperability, and as much quality as they were willing to spend memory on, by burning to CDs.
But he lets people figure that out, because it wouldn't sound good to the labels if he said "it's only honor system DRM".
And of course since then, he's apparently convinced EMI (at least) that the honor system is better for business than trying to pretend you've got magic copy protection skills.
They like crushing the little people. Its probably worth it in their eyes to wrest control over their distribution stream back. However, there more or less screwed as everybody and their grandma have ipods. Switching to WMA or any other drm that is incompatible with ipods would just push more people towards piracy, and, or to bands on labels that stick with Apple.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Hm, that's a great idea. However, when factoring in the subjectivity of musical tastes, and the inefficiency of making a separate price for each individual person (based on their opinion of the album), it would be sensible to make CDs roughly the same price, perhaps fluctuating little due to popularity. When deciding the exact price, they should probably factor in the fact that only the people who like it will buy it, and thus base the price on the quality of music to them. Perhaps the figures $10-20 per CD might be reasonable?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Good luck with getting me to pay $2.99 for music I'm not even willing to download for free.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I heartily disagree.
... becomes "lost" music that no one can ever have, because it's locked away as unsellable, yet a fan can't share it.
New Music that never gets pushed to a mega deal
If you think all old songs deserve to be expensive, you obviously haven't listened to Dave Clark's Time album (with Freddy Mercury!).
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
In the immortal words of Duke Nukem and John Carmack,
"Suck it down."
This is what they get for shunning the online market and failing to see the opportunity to create their own system.
One could argue that racism is about self-interest and survival.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Vivendi
Amiestreet.com has a model that I love... Songs start at free or a few cents. Users take a listen and if they like it, download it and recommend. The more people download, the price goes up (not sure what the ceiling is, but I think it's .99). If you recommend a song that gains in popularity you get a fraction of the sales. I've got .34 credit from a song I recommended a week ago.
What do we look like? Those monacle wearing, mongoid worshipping, tabloid devouring failed colonialists with bad teeth, the limeys?
We'd ask again, and be proud for doing it.
(And mods without irony sensors can byte me)
It's been a long time.
Which completely screws with my plan to have bitching tunes blasting from my spinner-equipped nuclear missile.
Perhaps the figures $10-20 per CD might be reasonable?
You forgot to factor in Gnutella, and forgot to factor in the artists themselves.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
For years the record labels controlled the music business. They even had a firm grip on the record stores. And now, the tables are turned slightly. Apple is able to call at least some of the shots, and Universal hates it!
And Universal is very scared also. People hop on iTunes and buy music. iTunes tells them what the top sellers are. Heck, they grab podcasts instead of listening to radios. For a lot of people, iTunes is becoming their only interface to music. Soon the record label will be forgotten and iTunes will be remembered.
That's what Apple is hoping for. I really think they're planning to remake the record industry. I guarantee you that software is already done that goes directly from GarageBand or Logic Studio straight to the iTMS. No record label needed anymore.
The future of music doesn't involve record label. Record Labels were f*cked as soon as the CD-R came out.
Andy
So whereas the latest albums are selling to the market of "people who might like them", twenty year old albums are selling to the smaller and tougher market of "people who might like them but have been turning down the opportunity to buy them for decades". Obviously if the inflation-adjusted price goes up the number of sales will be negligible - if I didn't think an album was worth $15 on the shelves ten years ago or $10 in the used CD stores five years ago, why would I think it's worth $20 online now? If you want to sell old music whose popularity hasn't unexpectedly increased, you'll have to drop the price or increase the quality. Doing the latter can be effective for music old enough to have never been released digitally, but once the public has seen it on CD you're not going to be able to give them much better than that.
I'm happy to live in a country where we don't ask god to bless us like snivelling minions, we TELL god to keep our land glorious and free
Yeah, and that's easy to do when the US Navy has 13 aircraft carriers, 25 assault carrier, a couple of retired battleships and a bunch of other stuff on your side. If, as my fellow conservatives would like, the USA learns from its lessons and withdraws from all of its military alliances, we'll see how all ye fair.
Would you like to take an over / under on how long it takes Poland to get the Bomb after the USA withdraws from NATO?
This is my sig.
to see Apple just dump Vivendi!
It would make my day.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
As long as the media is a vinyl record, with a lot of good songs and not one hit wonders, I agree.
FalconShould there be a Law?
even if they sold non-DRM MP3s (which we already know is something that the majors will never agree to)
Apple already sells DRM free music. Instead of the 99 cents for iTunes songs you can pay $1.29 for songs without DRM that has a higher bitrate.
OR the labels might try legal action to *force* Apple to open up the iPod to integrate with other music stores (more likely)
Perhaps you don't know it but I can take a cd, rip it in iTunes, then play it on an iPod. If I had one.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In reality the majority of consumers would probably rather to pay a little more and go to the "Music store" that carries all music as opposed to the "Vivendi store", "Universal store".
In reality Apple wants to keep the same prices but the labels want to charge more. They ask for more and when Apple says no way, they leave.
FalconShould there be a Law?
did they sign it?
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
for certain hits they want the right to charge $2.49 per song rather than $.99 per song. $2.49 translates (for a 12-song album) into around $30 for a CD.
I haven't once paid $20 for a cd, there's no way I'll pay $30 for one. I might pay $30 for a vinyl record, if it has at least 10 good songs. Or 5 great songs if that's the only way to get them.
FalconShould there be a Law?
All your profits are not belong to us?!?!?!
Why would the credit card companies get a cut of something bought with an iTunes gift card?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I've never seen an analysis of why record companies do what they do (other than being greedy bastards and damned good business people until recently).
So, with reservation, I put on my horns and red suit. Grab my pitchfork. And trim up my Van Dyke, for I am (today) the Devil's Advocate.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Peanut Gallery:
Many years ago, media (then record) companies searched the world over for the best talent, signed them to contracts, and published their records. They courted the best artists and tried like hell to sign the best ones, arguing amongst them selves for the best of the best.
At some point, right around the '70's I'd guess, media companies got hit by their first clue bus (my guess would be because of a glut of "Artists" post 60's): Why be in control of a bunch of bitchy artists? After all, people really don't know good music from bad for the most part; and as technology progressed, why, they really don't have to sing at all do they?
So, over the years since, media companies began NOT searching for artists, but seeking a more common "artist" creature. Then THEY would be in control. To people like my 'client', control is everything.
Why do you think pretty much all music = pre-digested crap? Did all artists suddenly die after the 70's? Nope. They're off doing something else now. Their services were no longer wanted.
In any event, media companies began searching for the minimum talent that technology and professional song writers could fashion into an "artist". As technology grew, the incident of occurrence of these creatures grew until you, good sir and madam, sitting at your keyboard are likely (+50%) material for a new "rawk shtar" or "pawp tawrtleete" or "wrap gangstahh" or "shit-kicking tear-in-my-beer slinger". Artist = product, not person.
So the record companies began to spend huge amounts of cash (which formerly would've gone to the artists) to promote their "artists". Now, the "artist" was transmuted from being a person into real "intellectual property"; an invention of the media company. Dick with the company and BWAFF! no more artist. Now they were in control of production. It was a very wise move.
They toned their little fledglings, guided them, plumped up their little egos to fantastic proportions, encouraged divergent behavior (as people like leaders and often mistake insanity/passion as inspiration - Joan of Arc), and have media consultants adjust their image to make them popular.
The fact that this course has devastating psychological consequences for the "artists" is... acceptable collateral damage to my 'clients'.
Along with this we have thousands of no or medium-talent retards scrambling to be a product. The end effect, of course, is the media companies' complete control over artist manufacturing.
They invested in research to find out exactly what the MOST people wanted, and found out it was... whatever anyone else liked (for the masses, I mean; not you, the discerning reader *cough-cough*), and thus was born the hydra of crap-music. That was the day music died.
My 'clients' continued on this way for a while, shoveling money into the various media markets to excrete their product into the mainstream and into our ears. For years we fed them billions of dollars.
Then they realized to make more money and to make their conquest complete they needed to own the distribution outlets as well! Eureka! Naked music execs ran down the streets naked!
Media companies began buying up media content services: radios, concert venues, and in concert with the movie industry (on the same track as well) news papers and magazines.
Now they own the manufacture, transportation, and distribution of a very fat cash cow: music.
All they have to do is figure out what a group of people want and vomit out some music and artists tuned to cater to them. My 'clients' have proved viciously effective in this regard. Media companies make damn fine capitalists.
Since song writers cost so much mon
of course it is. That's why multi-cultural 'non racist' societies eventually break apart. Or more accurately, tear themselves apart.
The problem I see with fluctuating the price due to popularity, given the vendor's lack of anything approaching ethics, is the fairness of these numbers.
It wouldn't be above them to pad the numbers on EVERY song to push prices up to the "maximum" or to add automated orders to increase the price based on traffic to the songs. Or just outright lie about the pricing.
Any business, government, or any other model that depends on "the weal and cooperation of your fellow man" isn't taking into consideration human nature. Such an endeavor is doomed before it begins.
In fact, this is how the USA lost control over its government. Never trust anyone with anything you value when you have no verification. "Trust us" = "We're telling you a lie, sucker"
CE.
Those bastards calling any relationship they're in where someone else is actually calling the shots "Indecent" is far too ironic. Made me shoot my coffee all over my keyboard. Why oh why do I persist in taking a sip as Slashdot is loading? Anyway, free speech is all well and good but to keep our keyboards out of our nation's landfills any of the big media companies should be banned from using the word "Indecent." If they use it as in "The way we're ass-raping our musicians is indecent" we'd be so shocked that they actually realize this truth that we'd probably all have massive coronaries on the spot. And if they use it in "The way Apple is ass-raping us is indecent" then there's another ruined keyboard from irony-induced coffee-spouting.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
older music is worth a lot less than new music! After all, old music doesn't have the same resale value as the new stuff.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
It's all about the power.
I think the situation of fading in to irrelevancy is something that both Vivendi and the current US administration are learning. Just as more and more artists are escaping from the hegemony of RIAA-member studios, so are more countries ignoring the USA and their overstretched military. Europe, for example, no longer fears invasion, and the Euro has made the US Dollar less important for the world economy.
But that's only peripheral. In this case, it's not the money that Vivendi is upset about, but the fact that Apple is calling the shots and robbing them of clout with their signed artists. Newer artists are avoiding the studio contract as first production costs dropped, and also now with internet making marketing easier. It's the last gasp of a dying empire.
Well, iTunes seems to pay the most of all online stores (as per macjournals). Let's do the maths: The labels get 70%, the credit card companies get 20-25%, and Apple gets 5%. How is that gouging the labels? I doubt Apple makes much money on iTunes at all; most of the money is probably spent on R&D, bandwidth and similar stuff.
Don't forget that Apple has to pay the credit card companies. If a person only buys a single song, Apple probably takes a loss, all things considered.
If Apples cut is really only 15% do you have anything to back that up?
The point of my post is (or was) that the music industry does exactly that. That's what the free market is for. We can decide the quality of things ourselves, and ideally, we only buy if we get a good deal (i.e. if we think the album is of quality) and the companies charge what it's worth. The reason why the OP's suggestion seemed so obvious (well, it did to me, at least), is that it's exactly what's going on. The only thing he neglected to mention was that not everyone hates post 70s music.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Well I hate apple, but I can't see as iTunes with very little overheads takes more of a percentage of the profits than what shops take on phsical media.
If U2 leaves UMG what's left?
Nirvana, Lifehouse, Garbage, The Cure, 50 cent, Eminem, Tupac? The sub-labels interscope, geffen, A&M, Island, Def Jam, MCA Nashville, Motown, iClassics. I mean who doesn't have all the U2 albums by now?
Who don't have their Motown, their country? When thinking of Island, Motown and Def Jam, I wonder still making vinyl these days?
I still don't get where Astralwerks falls into this.
Are they under UMG? is K-OS still there?
Maybe I will smoke a few more joints and write a letter, ahh that's it, let's see...
Dear UMG,
Why did you have to fuck things up?
Europe, for example, no longer fears invasion, and the Euro has made the US Dollar less important for the world economy.
Actually, it works well for the USA, as the strong dollar has been a subsidy of Europe for a long time. I'm hoping for $2 per Euro, and a ton of unemployed Germans, and a ton of manufacturing back in the USA. Let's see BMW let go 100k people for a change!
This is my sig.
Sue Him.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Again, you are moving away from the topic. But your protestations are relevant, much like the protests from the studios about how they subsidised the iPod with their offerings. It's the "sour grapes" of one who is being snubbed, who is fading into irrelevance.
and if this is true what Vivendi is doing, then aren't they technically guilty of "collusion" by conspiring with the other companies against Apple?? If they were to succeed and gain control somehow, then they'd also be guilty of collusion and RICO. I smell a very very big rat here...
I can see this coming now. People begin grabbing only the tracks they want excluding everything else and then Vivendi is now forced to start charging the price of a single track at that of an entire CD!!!
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By refusing to deal with digital music sites back in the late 90's and early 2000's they essentiually forced them all out of business, and when musicnet and pressplay - their own sites failed because they were designed by the record execs they ended up with apple being the one game in town that could sell their music just as their bottom line cd sales were beiginning to collapse.
which is where the majors get the acts that get promoted (until the bitch goes crazy, shaves her head and fucks up an MTV award shows. [Now she can't even get a luncheon date from her ex-lawyer.])
The labels are dying as a business model because the internet makes them unnecessary.
I can find more music, legally, on the 'net and the web than I can find at Tower Records (Oh yeah... Tower's GONE now...)
What's got the music business scared is that its all happening so FAST.
They've gone from 'essential' to 'buggy whip maker' in less than a decade.
Their skills, as dubious as you might think them, are all useless now.
As a Smalltalk programmer who watched his entire market crater about half a decade ago, I feel for 'em. They'll have to join the heap of humanity on the bottom of the pile, 'cause its crumbling fast.
As a podcaster with over 200 episodes under his belt, I feel for the broadcasters too. Everything 'over the air' is going to be 'over the fiber' soon and if you own a transmitter its value is dropping like a bomb.
Tough.
Everything has changed because of something started when I was a kid, and the internet is just getting started.
The pace of change is only going to accelerate from this point forward.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Well excuse me for not keeping track of a company I don't do business with. Let me rephrase it:
It's like how Dell claimed they'd switch to AMD to get Intel to give them a better deal for years, but Intel finally caught on and Dell had to either buy AMD or admit they were liars.
How's that?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
It's not as simple as that. For classics, sure, you can charge more (Pink Floyd's The Wall, for example. At some brick-and-mortar store the CD album even sold for more than the DVD version!).
For old but less popular songs, you might want to drop the price -- let more listeners discover old songs, and maximize the use of your old catalog. You're already paying for encoding and storage anyway.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
$30 is pretty commonplace in Australia. Music is a little overpriced here IMHO.
Oh, ok you're using Aussy dollars not uncle Sam's dollars. That's still rather high 30 Australian dollars is 26 US dollars at today's exchange rate.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It goes to all the other employees and the various expenses of running a business. If you were to drill down into Warner's financials (the only big publicly traded record company that I am aware of), you'd likely find that as a percentage of gross revenue, nobody makes more than the artists -- not even the CEO. It's a big pie but it gets rendered into a lot of very thin slices.
More likely it's Hollywood Accounting.
I might say "the company keeps the rest," but the truth is that the rest of it goes to pay all the other employees who have a hand in keeping the company running, as well as paying for R&D, marketing, and all the other realities of running a business.
And how many employees does an entertainment company really need? Artists may very well have their own studios, with today's tech many people are able to setup their own. A company sound engineer, if the performers don't have one, is needed however one can work with more than one performer. Marketing, the internet makes it pretty easy. I haven't tried out iTunes, and don't ever plan to, but I bet it has something similar to what Amazon does. "People who liked (or bought) this also liked (bought) this." Sure that's only a subset of people but word spreads, someone hears something they like and they share it with friends. I wouldn't be surprised if most media company employees are nothing more than office drones.
FalconShould there be a Law?
OK, let me rephrase, you don't make nearly as much money on the pop tart of the day selling $1 singles as you would selling $5 singles
Downloading one song may be cheaper but by allowing cheap one song downloads more will be downloaded. I haven't even bought a single since they came on 45s in the '70s and I've never downloaded any music, legal or not. As for albums, I have a few tapes and about 20 cds. However I plan on getting a turntable and a reel-to-reel tape deck. When I do I'll be buying vinyl records. I'll do just what I used to do, the first tyme I play a record I'll record it on a tape reel. Then I'll play the tape and put the record away for safekeeping. When the tape starts wearing out I'll just grab the record and rerecord it. If I ever get a digital player, I don't have an iPod or anything like it, I can rip the tape.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You say that, but the fact of the matter is that MY country has to stop YOUR country from constantly trying to redraw our borders.
That's right! There's a country that the US is having a border dispute with, and you're NOT winning! What the hell is that military of yours for, anyway? You can't invade a tiny country in the middle east, you can't prevent a bunch of desert dwelling semi-illiterate chowerheads from running planes into your tallest buildings THREE TIMES, you can't even redraw the map as you want.
What exactly are your kids paying for? Your military is like the phallic sports car of the international stage; Way more expensive than you can actually afford, looks more useful than it really is, and nobody is really convinced by the act.
The best part? My country just contracts our defense to you guys for a fraction of the cost. Keep begging to God to bless you. I'm sure he'll look past the pre-emptive war against Iraq and the one you're trying to start with Iran. What's 60,000 civilians between friends?
It's been a long time.
FAILED colonialists? Has there ever been a bigger or more successful empire than the British?
The USA is living proof - they (sort of) speak our language, they're mostly white and we're not at war with them.
Ooh, congratulations! at one time you had an empire!
Do you still HAVE the US? No? India? No? Africa? No? Hong Kong? No? Australia? No?
Legendary fail.
It's been a long time.