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New RIM Streaming Music: $5 For 50 Songs?
jfruhlinger writes with news that Research In Motion will soon jump into the music service market. The service will be available through BlackBerry Messenger, and will offer users 50 songs for $5/month, which they can then share with other people who own BlackBerries.
"So why would anyone pay $5 a month to get 50 songs on their phone, when they can pay $10 a month and get an unlimited number of songs, that work on lots of different devices, from services like Rdio and Rhapsody? Reasonable question! But RIM seems to be assuming that its subscribers won’t ask. Instead it is playing up the notion that BBM Music will be about 'personalizing' your phone, in the same way that ringtones supposedly did a decade ago. Ringtones, as you’ll recall, let buyers play a few seconds of a song, and sold for a couple bucks, while full songs from Apple’s iTunes went for 99 cents. And for a few years, the music companies and the wireless carriers sold lots and lots of ringtones."
Or you can wait a few months and buy 50 shares of RIM for $5. How much does a deathknell ringtone cost?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
When it started, paying 99 cents for a song was great. Now, it's extortion. People need to realize this.
This is exactly what I need! More DRM'd music stores which most likely won't even have many of the bands I listen to! And not only are these DRM'd in the fact I have to listen to them in a cross-platform player but instead I have to stick to the same brand of phone! Sounds like one great deal to me!
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I prefer the Apple model, where you buy a track and you get a track, and you can do what you want with it; no subscription, no DRM, plays anywhere. Subscribe to *music*? I don't think so.
Before going down the 3rd time, a drowning man thrashes harder than ever.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"What about this."
"We're RIM. You want this."
"No. Seriously. What about this?
"We're RIM. You want this."
Newsflash RIM. You've been resting on the fact that you were a big dog in the early professional mobile market. That's not going to save you. It's the only reason you haven't bailed from the market already. It's not going to slow your plummet anymore.
So get back to work and FOR FUCK'S SAKE...INNOVATE. Otherwise, take your place along other relics such as Microsoft Bob. The Lisa. The Osborne 2. Get the picture?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This isn't aimed at the corporate blackberry users. BBM is the new pager (remember those?) - the messaging of choice for low class drug dealers and their customers. Think the London Rioters. They loooove them some BBM, and might go for $5/mo for 50 songs, which is 10 more than you need for the top 40 regurgitated R&B hits.
This is a very bad deal for anyone who would actually read slashdot, but I can't say it's completely a horrible idea for RIM.
So evil Apple constructing a mechanism that allowed users to legally license songs for a buck, instead of simply using the music for free. Many complained that Apple users were still stealing music even though they were paying instead of just taking.
Then evil Apple created a phone that ultimately allowed users to bypass the phone companies and load music and trivially create and load custom ringtones at no charge and browse the web without telco interference.
RIM is the last major party playing the game in which the Telco is held above the end user. The $5 is to be billed by the telco and serves as a bribe to the telco. Apple does not share revenue for music. Due to certain corporate features, RIM may have some success.
MS ans Android is somewhere in between the user centered Apple and the telco centered RIM. MS does not have the power to give user what they want in spite of the telcos, and therefore even though they provide a more user centered expereince, they do not provide enough value to the cell companies. Android could, but the OEM still play in the world where volume matters, and therefor must keep the cell companies happy, even if the end user does not gain maximum value. So we have RIM, which provides corporate value, and Apple which focuses on the end user. I hope both continue to prosper, while Android and MS fight it up.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So now 10 cents is too much to pay for a song? What's outrageous is being charged 20 cents for a freaking text message.
Let's do some math, based on my personal collection. I have 7,677 songs, only a small minority of which (~400) are Creative Commons or public domain. If I were to rent those from RIM, that would be... $770 per month. Even by RIAA standards, that's extortionate.
But, you say, I don't actually listen to all those songs. You're probably right. Let's trim out the ones I gave 1 or 2 star ratings (my entire collection is methodically tagged), the ones I only have because they came on an album with other songs, or even just to complete an artist's collection. That cuts things down to 6254 songs, or $630. Still way too high.
Again, you repeat, I probably don't listen to all of those in one month. In fact, so far this month I have listened to a mere 727 songs. Adjust for the length of the month, and that comes out to 1090 songs/month, or $110. Which is still too much for me to pay, but maybe someone will. Sucker born every minute and all that.
So let's say I only rent my very favorite songs, the one's I've given the full five-star rating. That's 70 songs (I'm very conservative with that rating), two of which are CC-licensed, and one more that is copyrighted but not available for sale. Still, that would be $10 a month, for my favorite songs and a few variations each month. Which isn't competitive with other streaming services, and isn't even really competitive with buying permanently from any popular store - those 70 songs would cost ~$70-100 to own forever, or a few month's worth of streaming.
Why would anyone willing choose a Lackberry, let alone an overpriced service through RIM, unless they'd been required by their employer or conditioned by previous experience?
#!/bin/bash
echo RIM are confused by the market
echo RIM don't know what to produce
echo RIM think that everybody likes Blackberry's
echo RIM can't accept that you would prefer another mobile
#!C
#include "staff.h"
#include "key.h"
#include "tempo.h"
#define poem RIMisRIM
a poem() {
RIM is RIM not Rim nor rim
tis why we stick them in
but
so where to put-it do we
}
#!/bin/bash
echo Can you guess what's in the headers??
-- The Grand Teddy Bear has Spoken: "Windows 8 Source Code Available NOW! more disgusting than your pr..."
"sold lots and lots of ringtones." ... to stupid people, apparently. Seriously, who was ever dumb enough to buy a bloody ringtone for $1-2? I always wondered that. I know that they must have sold some... but to WHO?
RIM is laying off a fair amount of their workforce. Coming up with the worst ideas possible. The tablet is crap, the phones are old tech and horrible. This is their newest idea? The future for RIM looks bleak. Hell I can use subsonic and stream my whole music library to my phone or any web browser for nothing.
How much of that $770 would get passed on to the performers or writers? With some operations (mostly ring tones) that answer was $0 and assuming this bunch are going to be honest it's probably still going to be a single digit. There's a very good reason why the music industry looks a lot like organised crime and that's due to some of the same players being involved in both. Buy those CDs at the merch table after the show or off the performers web sites, it's the only way performers are going to get a decent cut.
With the app installed, you can choose up to 50 songs of your choice. Apparently the catalog selection is pretty good!
From there, you invite your contacts via BBM, etc. to also download the app if they don't have it and join your music sharing network (invited contacts must pay the $5/mo. also to take part and remain part of the service).
From there, you can listen to not only the 50 songs you've selected), but any of the 50 songs from your music sharing network. So if you have 20 contacts, you'll have access to 1,000 other songs in addition to your 50. We're not sure yet if there's a limit to how many people you can share with, but essentially the more people in your music sharing group the more music you'll have access to.
BTW - BBM is one of the largest mobile social networks in the world with over 45 million user.
If it where anyone else putting this out, it would be heralded as the second coming of the music generation. Since it is RIM, the knee-jerk reaction is to slam it, without understanding what it is.
Critical analysis is lost when it comes to RIM
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
bandwidth caps and on wifi we serve our own music now.
included this feature in the greateat thing sliced bread: imessage Their copy of BBM. then it would be a huge innovation, but since it's vogue to attack RIM it gets downplayed.
and how long is a 'song' ?
Some artists have different ideas about that.
In the days of vinyl and also cassette tapes, a song could be around 22 and a half minutes. (and an album would be divided into 2 parts, (eg Hergest Ridge) or a double album could be 4 parts (Incantations)
Then CD's came along and a 'song' could be up to 74 minutes (something to do with one of Beethovens symphonies)
I don't have any songs that long, but I do have one nearly an hour long (Amarok)
So I don't mind paying just under $10 per hour of music as long as I can move it to other devices, and listen to it as many times as I want. But I won't pay to just 'rent' music.
Maybe because $10 is twice $5, and you don't have the right to share?
Sheesh. For people for whom this matters, I think they'll do one of two things:
1. Look at RIM's offerings, and look at spotify (which isn't available for BB phones). A spotify phone is going to win out.
2. Buy a BB, without knowing about spotify. Eventually, they'll run into someone with a spotify-capable phone, at which point they'll probably feel like a ginormous "L" has been stamped on their forehead. That should help future BB sales. Not.
You might want to read his comment again. And this time, try to comprehend what he said, in stead of knee-jerking...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Because like me, I'm sure many people tend to listen to a fairly small selection of songs they like at any particular time. I might have 30 albums on my iPod, but I doubt I listen to more than 4 or 5 of them in any given month. So in other words, why pay $10 for something you don't need, when you can get it for $5?
Will you get RIMMED today? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rimmed
When I can get spotify?
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
...for anything related to Blackberry?
When I had a Blackberry, I was astounded at how there were almost no apps, how terrible the browser was, the low build quality (three clit transplants in two years? really?), and how horribly obtuse configuring just about anything with it was.
The only thing it had over the iPhone and Android? The bill went to my employer. When policy changed and that was no longer the case, there was no possibility I'd ever touch RIM again.
The way I understand it, this service is intended to be a form of self-expression, rather than a means of accessing a large library of music online. If you sign up for the service, you can pick 50 of your favorite songs that define your musical preferences. These songs can then be shared with any other person on your BlackBerry Messenger list that has also signed up for this service. So the number of songs available to you is the number of your contacts that also have the service multiplied by 50...5 = 250, 10 = 500, 20=1000, etc. minus any overlap. Its more of a way of recommending music to your friends in your contact list and a way of expressing your musical preferences than anything else. There are plenty of ways to access free music online (Pandora, Grooveshark). This is just a way of making it more personal and social.