EMusic Acquired, Halting Unlimited Downloads 379
wallabywatson writes "EMusic.com have announced that they are cancelling their $9.99 a month unlimited download service after being acquired by Dimensional Associates LLC. Instead, subscribers will be limited to 40 downloads (ie 3ish albums) per month. A new premium $50 a month service will allow 300 tracks (~25 albums). The service details have been released as have new terms and conditions. If, like me, you think this sucks and want to cancel your subscription go here before November 8, 2003."
It's not that bad (Score:5, Insightful)
bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The old bait and switch! (Score:3, Insightful)
YES! MICROSOFT! +30943047)&$&097340734 EXCELLENT
You do not deserve instant karma for simply turning every negative concept and applying it to Microsoft. Of course they're not going to start charging timed licenses for their OS. It's not clever, and it's not funny. Stop cheating at life and think of something clever to say.
Re:EMusic Dead Pool (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, now they can make guaranteed payouts to rights holders; I'm not so sure this is a death knell. Probably an intense metamorphosis in subscriber base.
We've been saying it on the currently-dead message boards [emusic.com] for months -- if all of Emusic's subscribers downloaded as much as we did, they'd expire overnight, taking in less than a penny per track.
It was only a matter of time before they had to revamp their pricing structure. I just didn't expect so drastic of a change.
Re:It's not that bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Emusic NOT an Unlimited Service (Score:4, Insightful)
With a business strategy like this, it's not hard to see why Emusic is being acquired. Unfortunately, it's hard to see how this new pricing structure will work any better with a music catalog that is decidedly obscure.
Lets do some math.... (Score:2, Insightful)
If I opt for the $50/month subscription and CHOOSE to subscribe twice a year, every SIX months, then I'll pay only $100 and be able to download 600 songs. I can use the time lag to see if they can indeed add to their song catalog in the meantime and wait for something worth downloading (good music, good quality files, etc) to be added.
Not only that, but the time lag ALSO allows me to go elsewhere to their competitors (or to Newsgroups, overseas web/ftp sites, IRC for that matter).
Encouraging your revenue sources to go elsewhere away isn't a good idea, to say the least.
Re:Why is this so bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that EMusic doesn't carry mainstream stuff; it's good music, but it simply isn't worth as much money.
Hmm. Time to change my sig...
NOOOOOO!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why is this so bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
To bring you up to speed:
The format is MP3 and they say they're keeping it that way. So, no DRM. (That's why Emusic is the only non-CD PC format I get my music in; the CDs are only un-"protected" ones btw. I listen to my music my way, thankyouverymuch.)
They are available around the world but licensing agreements do require them to keep certain tracks available to i.e. North Americans only. Mostly foreign stuff that's supposedly selling well in foreign countries.
Finally, part of the reason Emusic is still cheaper is that their catalog is largely eclectic and indie stuff, with a sprinkling of "sampler" albums from a sprinkling of "popular" artists. That stuff goes cheaper, so it can be sold cheaper. I don't know how much this trend will continue.
I agree with you that they did need to change to be profitable. I just think they made too drastic of a change here.
Re:Why is this so bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been with them almost a year. My sub runs out in Nov. (Now...it's Nov 7 to be exact)
In that time, I've grabbed about 130 cd's. So maybe 12 cd's per month. 120 tracks on average. Often, I might go a month or two without anything, and then go get a bunch all at once.
With this new d/l limit, I'd have to cut back to 1/3. About 4 cd's per month, for the same price. And no month to month carryover of unused tracks.
Plus, now you'd have to be MUCH more careful about which tracks you actually d/l. Gone will be the concept of "just get the whole album". If I were to continue, I'd pick and choose each track so as to maximise my selections. Previous, if a few tracks on the album sucked...so what. It didn't cost anything extra.
but they are company trying to make a profit.
Right. My question is...were they making a profit before, or is it simply a case of the new owners wanting to make more profit? IMO, they are making a big mistake, and there will be a mass exodus fo current subscribers.
See ya emusic.
Re:It's not that bad (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you people want? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really folks, I can't figure some of you out. People who are cancelling their subscriptions over this are being unreasonable.
music in America (Score:3, Insightful)
-- Hunter S. Thompson
This is a bullet put through emusic's brain. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that you are paying the full price wether or not you actually download 40 songs. Being a mostly indie site, you may rarely have any idea what you are downloading. You may download 40 songs before you even find one group that interests you (unless you only stay with groups you aleady know).
Another problem is that it's subscription, unlike iTunes. That is, if I downloaded 12 song's in three months from iTunes, I pay $12. If I download 12 songs from eMusic in three months I pay $30. Before you say that then I shouldn't have an eMusic subscription, it's a matter of how my time is used - I might go three months between actually having time to spend an evening downloading, at which point I may want to download a lot more than 40 songs.
Especially if I'm experimenting, I may want to download a couple of hundred songs, and end up keeping only 50 or 60. If I get the $50 subscription, those 50 or 60 songs just cost me $150. That's $3 song, based on my usage. Naturally I shouldn't get that plan - however, now none of the plans they offer are sufficient.
I'd be happy to pay $10/month for 40 songs if, as someone else mentioned, unused downloads carry over. I might even go for the $15/month plan.
Re:What do you people want? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only 25 cents if you download the max. Even if the service had every track you want there's only so long you could sustain that price point. Given that the music in question is not going to all appeal - entire genres might not interest you - then the base cost of $50 per month, if you only download 5-10 songs is way too high.
TWW
They're going to lose some cash on this one. (Score:2, Insightful)
However, iTunes this is not. You don't get the latest tracks on this service -- you get the ones *not* signed by the RIAA. Pay $0.99 a track for the latest top 40 nonsense? Sure! Pay $0.25 for B-grade music? Um...maybe. You're not usually paying top dollar for these CDs. (I'm not even touching the argument about how top 40 music is lame or all sounds the same. Go away.)
The 40 download limit for $9.95 is ludicrous. I, and many EMusic subscribers, would never pay that much. If all tracks were guaranteed CD quality, maybe. However, I've downloaded a few albums from them that were 128 CBR MP3. Yuck. They are making progress; all new stuff is encoded in VBR. Plus, without the RIAA artists, the collection feels a little...aged. Ironically, I do like the fact that they are announcing this model. Coming clean and making their expectations known is definitely the way to go. Now they just need to tweak their model.
I'm wondering how this will all turn out. I'm betting they're going to see a mass exodus, based on this new pricing scheme. I'm certainly angling that way.
Re:Don't go "there" (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What do you people want? (Score:3, Insightful)
Along with the selection, at least iTunes has a decent sales model. The 40 albums per month number emusic has established is pretty arbitrary. I would stick around if emusic gave me an option to pay per-track at $.25, or even at a higher price if emusic established a better selection. The new plan is just silly.
Re:What do you people want? (Score:4, Insightful)
The reward, though, is getting turned onto bands that you would have never found out about otherwise. You download 20 CD's in a month, and out of those you find 2 new bands that you think are really cool. You can then check the "you might like" links and branch out from there. Over a couple of years, you wind up with a pretty good education in indie music. It had the potential to really elevate indie music to a new level of acceptance (like IFC & Sundance try to do for indie film).
but not anymore. That's what people are complaining about. I'd be willing to pay more per month, but I won't pay to lose the joys of exploration. The reason eMusic will hurt from this is that their catalog is really not strong enough in mainstream music selections to provide a compelling value proposition other than the joy of exploration. Of the 400-500 CD's (not tracks) I've downloaded, there are probably 100 that I think are really good. That's 20%. At 40 tracks a month, that means I'll average out 8 really good songs a month; if I'm lucky, those will be on one CD & I'll discover - when I'm lucky - 1 new band I like a month.
It's not about the cost per song I like. It's somewhat about the cost of songs I don't like, but moreso about the loss of exploration. It's the same reason people want to hold onto Kazaa, but we were exploring legally & in a socially responsible manner. It's the loss of discovery that's killing me, not the price per song.
Before eMusic, I was not even familiar with Mogwai(!), much less bands like Wheat, South San Gabriel, Mark Eitzel, or Claire Voyant. I'm not in college anymore - eMusic was my connection to new, non-corporate album-oriented music. And now that connection is lost.