New EMI Boss Says 'Downloads May Be Good'

warrior_s writes "Douglas Merrill was just installed as CIO of EMI (one of the big four that forms the RIAA). The ex-Googler recently stated it is a 'poor business model to sue your customers. I don't think that's a sustainable strategy.' Quoted by the Guardian, he was referring to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG's current practice of trying to use legal systems around the world to force their customers into buying products rather than using the free P2P networks and independent music sites and services. 'Previously, the music industry has rubbished studies that claim file sharing can have a positive effect on music sales. "I think people will pay," Merrill said. "There is evidence that people we think are not buying music are buying music. They're just not buying it in formats we can measure."'"

Comments

Where's the money?

[Thelasko]

There is evidence that people we think are not buying music are buying music. They're just not buying it in formats we can measure.

If they're buying, where's the money going? Is he referring to advertising? I'm confused.

Re:Where's the money?

[LiquidCoooled]

Actually, I would put it another way:

I have 2 main sources to listen to the same music:

I can download it.
I can listen on the radio.

Both of these have the same result: brand recognition and advertising for the band.

When that band comes on a concert tour I will gladly shell out £100-200 for a decent pair of tickets and a night out.

Re:Where's the money?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If they're buying, where's the money going? Is he referring to advertising? I'm confused. I can think of a couple of ways:

1) Somebody downloads one album. Likes it so much, they're first in line for the next album that comes along.

2) Somebody downloads a bunch of different individual songs. Likes them. Buys an album or two from which one of those songs came.

It's all based on the idea that if somebody is excited about music, they'll spend money on it.

Re:Where's the money?

[ChoppedBroccoli]

I think its a vareity of alternative revenue streams that are often overlooked.

1. Advertising (in two forms - being exposed to revenue generating targeted advertising as well as the free promotion/advertising a band can achieve through internet music sharing)
2. Concert tickets
3. Merchandise (like t-shirts, posters)
4. List probably continues, please add your thoughts here

I have been exposed to many bands through word of mouth from friends, streaming radio, sites like pandora or last.fm, etc. I also don't buy CD's. What the music industry doesn't consider is that I have paid lots of money over the last 5 years to go see bands I've discovered through non-traditional means that I would otherwise never even heard of live in concert, purchased their t-shirts and posters, and been exposed to targeted advertising and other bands similar to the bands I like through the internet and concerts. Recently, I have even started buying custom remix tracks a la carte from Amazon from some of my favorite bands because they are unqiue and hard to find otherwise. If you ask the record industry, I'm just another unpaying music listener since I don't go to Walmart and buy 5 CDs a month. If you ask me, the record industry doesn't even have a clue as to how I spend my money on music.

The Sex Pistols had it first...

[amccaf1]

"Too many people had the suss,
Too many people support us,
An unlimited amount,
Too many outlets in and out,
Who?
E.M.I.! E.M.I.! E.M.I.!"

        -- "E.M.I.", The Sex Pistols, 1977.

Re:Sad Mentality Indeed

[jimicus]

Sometimes I wonder how another industry would react if a magical technology dropped in their lap that made duplicating their product instantaneous and nearly free (people already pay their ISPs) to nearly instantly deliver it to customers. What would an automaker think of something like that? They would probably rejoice and drop their pricing to pennies on the dollar.
  I've already suggested something a bit like this as a thought experiment some time ago - essentially, a 3-dimensional photocopier which costs very little to run. Original in one end, as many identical copies as you like out the other.

I suspect it's more likely the inventor would be quietly encouraged to commit suicide and his invention destroyed. Every single Western country's economy depends on such a machine not existing, if only for the fact that you could use it to reproduce your own currency. While it's nice to imagine a utopia in which society changed overnight to accommodate the idea that suddenly, material goods need no longer be scarce, society doesn't tend to change that quickly.

Re:Wow

[BigJClark]

Reward this, by searching out the EMI catalog and buying a CD of a band you like. This type of thinking needs a reward to reinforce it.

Re:Tag

[Technician]

Suddenoutbreakofcommonsense?

Maybe.. I think that they noticed that the #1 seller of music is now by download. Apple has passed Wal * Mart as the number 1 music retailer. That only happened after Apple started offering DRM free tracks and still sold music.

They still hate high quality P-P distribution and they believe everyone should buy their own copy. Trying to sell it crippled at high prices is their problem that they haven't figured out yet.

The market is ripe for bulk (wholesale) prices. There are loads of 30 and 60 Gig devices. They are trying to trickle the product at a buck a drop. Nobody is saying fill-er-up. They go elsewhere for that. If they wanted to sell stuff, how about the entire Beatles catalog as a zip for $80. Aerosmith, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, Styx, Abba, Slipknot, Atreyu, Prince, or just about anyone with a fan base could clean up with the right price of the package deal for the back catalog. They are stuck in the 8 track or LP mentality of providing only 20 minutes per side at a buck a track even for back catalog stuff.

This is readily apparent when you pick up some of the buck a DVD old TV shows. Someone had to go to the expense of creating a new theme song to put on these DVD's because the labels wouldn't release the rights to the original sound track. Is that stupid or what? They had an oppertunity to sell the music, but instead didn't because they were too stupid to negotiate a deal. They got $0 for 0 copies sold. How is that a deal for them. It was much cheaper for the TV content folks to simply create a new theme song.

Pick up a copy of any of the Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillies, Pettycoat Junction, or other oldie buck a DVD TV show for examples of this in action. Hit a torrent and find the original theme songs. They are not even close. I think the music folks wanted to charge more than the retail price of the DVD just for the rights to the songs. If anybody knows the details on this, let me know.

Re:Only about 10 years too late!

[pxuongl]

your statement is contradictory or very encouraging depending on how you see it....

If you're 20% of all music sales and only .001% of all music downloads total, that means that you can potentially, just by capturing 1% of all downloads, increase your sales by 10,000%!

that's one way of interpreting the numbers. another way of interpreting it is that you have no idea what you're talking about.

in what world do you live in where having 20% of music SALES constitute a failure? Walmart, the #1 music retailer has about 19% of all music sales.

And if you count recent stories being accurate, then Apple would be the new #1 seller of ALL music, having recently surpassed Walmart.

so please, how can you doubt the success of itunes?

Re:Tag

[Mopatop]

Rubbish, everyone I know still finds file sharing more convenient. Even before I switched to private trackers, eMule and the like are still more able to get me what I want between now (9:31pm) and when the shops open.

On a more personal note, the kind of music I want to listen to - progressive & breaks - can't even be found on most high-street stores. Even going downstairs to get my wallet constitutes unreasonable effort compared to P2P. As I work from home, the same applies to anything that involves leaving the house.

Ask trent - they made close to 1 m buck in days

[unity100]

just using new methods that prehistoric derelict of ceos are condemning in those music companies.

Re:Sad Mentality Indeed

[NeutronCowboy]

I doubt it that it would work the same way. For one, material cost is non-zero. For two, most objects are made of several non-plastic components. I certainly will not be able to print a mouse with that technology. Not even a stapler or scissors would work (and that's just from looking around my desk).

What would work, however, is printing out objects with basic shapes that can be made from plastics: garden chairs, book shelves, plastic containers (I'd buy a 3-d printer just for those), etc. Yes, these industries would up shit-creek without a paddle. But it would spawn a whole new industry of 3-d printer makers, designers and shippers of raw material.

As for the example with currency, that's nonsense. Such printers already exist, and they cannot - and are not - used to print currency.

Material goods will always be scarce because they need material to be built. Digital goods have no such restriction.

Re:Tag

[electrosoccertux]

Culture is always on the move, to be in you want to have the latest fashion and to be hip you want the latest music.

The music industry could lure both the casual pop listeners and the hardcore music enthusiasts by supplying a non-DRM'd subscription model in chunks of 6 months and 1 year (reasonable, to keep people from subscribing for one month a year and that's it). Say, $10/month for the 6-month plan and $8/month for the 1 year plan. This gets you access to all music.

Even more sustainable would be to do this with movies, because they could probably get away with a "basic" service where you only get movies from the last 6-months, and a "premium" service that lets you have access to the entire movie catalog. Most people, me included, would buy the movies-from-the-last-6-months access, because I generally am not interested in seeing many movies twice. The "premium" service would exist for movie buffs who like to have everything all the time.

Such a service would curb pirating very much I imagine. Opportunity cost isn't bad. Work 2hours at minimum wage and get a month of music.

Since everything would be tracked, monies could transparently be distributed to the bands most downloaded, and finally there wouldn't be incentive for the industry to hype any one band, they'd instead be interested in keeping revenue by pushing bands to develop new, artful albums (instead of the mass produced "music" we have now).

Re:Tag

[kesuki]

Dollar discs are generally put out for content that has lapsed into 'public domain' http://www.topiclink.com/info/article?page=5
according to that site, 16 episodes of Andy Griffith have fallen into public domain 55 episodes of Beverly hillbillies have gone PD

so they pay a bad music composer to make a cheap theme song, someone who's hard up for cash, and probably isn't in any guilds... it's highly unlikely they even approached the rights holders of the theme songs.