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Music Media The Almighty Buck

Music Industry Set To Introduce the "Ringle" 348

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.
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Music Industry Set To Introduce the "Ringle"

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  • Three songs or two? (Score:3, Informative)

    by hasbeard ( 982620 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @03:09PM (#20559461)
    The summary says three songs and a ringtone, but the article reads, two songs and a ring tone. Which is it?
  • by Blue Stone ( 582566 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @03:35PM (#20559963) Homepage Journal

    THREE uncompressed (CD-quality) DRM-free songs for $6?
    The Summary says THREE, but TFA says (quote):

    Populated with two songs and a "ringtone"
    Which of course makes the $6 seem so much better value.

    For the Record Companies.

  • by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @04:58PM (#20561485)

    "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.

  • by daddyrief ( 910385 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @05:36PM (#20562141) Homepage
    I copy ringtones in a similar fashion. I use MPT (Motorola PhoneTools) and a program called GoldWave, [goldwave.com] which allows me to cut and pick which part of the song I want as a ringtone. It really doesn't take as long as sibling suggests.

    Oh, and a hint, when exporting out of GoldWave (or whatever editor), encode the mp3 ringtone as MONO and a slightly crappier bitrate (start with 128 kbps and work your way down.) I dont know about you, but I cant stand when people play music out of their cell phones and it sounds like crap.
  • by hondo77 ( 324058 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @06:36PM (#20563001) Homepage

    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).

  • by EdBear69 ( 823550 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @07:22PM (#20563653)

    Umm, me for one i am simply not into MP3s or digital music.
    How do you claim to use CDs and not be into digital music?

    Am I missing something? Or are you forgetting that CDs ARE digital music?

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