MySpace Teams With Record Companies To Create Music Site 147
The New York Times reports on a deal between MySpace and three of the four major music labels to develop a new music website. Users will be able to stream songs for free, purchase downloadable tracks, and (possibly) pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited access. From the Times:
"Exact terms of the deal and details about the new site, like prices for downloaded music tracks, were not disclosed. But MySpace did say the site would offer songs free of digital rights management software or D.R.M., which is used to prevent illicit copying but can create technical hurdles for buyers. The songs would be playable on any portable music device, including Apple's iPod. For the music industry, the deal is partly born of desperation. In the face of widespread, escalating online piracy, music sales dropped to $11.5 billion in 2006 from a peak in 1999 of nearly $15 billion."
Because of iTunes? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think its sort of awesome; we're seeing more variety and more competition in the market now than ever before. Of course that's not saying much when before was more or less == 0, but hey - it's a start.
While I have long been skeptical of the record industries ability to do anything other than try to ream consumers, the fact that they seem finally willing to ditch DRM en masse is certainly giving me some hope for the future.
This could be kind of cool (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Because of iTunes? (Score:2, Interesting)
I just hope they don't stick glittery shit all over my MP3's.
last.fm? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if they'd just get the prices down (Score:4, Interesting)
Who wants to keep track of all this crap on your hard drive? I'll pay four cents every time I want to hear most songs.
And if, for some reason, I want to save it as an mp3, I expect to be able to do so, with no arguments.
You serve me, RIAA bitches, not the other way around. Maybe you're starting to understand this you stupid fucking bastards.
Prices of other things (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure that the cost of gasoline doubling in that same time had nothing to do with people buying fewer CDs.
Screw that. (Score:5, Interesting)
Cry me a river 'industry'. If there was an objective way to measure the quality of music coming from the big labels, I'm sure it would be would be in the red as well. The only good music I'm hearing is odd little acts going it alone, and mostly by choice.
The new indie is no record. Just free tracks, and an invitation to come to a show. Sadly, even doing this is a incredible money sink. Driving an hour to shows is ridiculously spendy; my drummer lives over one hundred miles away as well! Since we don't play covers, we draw less than your AC/DC/Zepplin/80's/Classic/Rock band. A crap economy, DVDs, PS3s, and other distractions don't help either.
I say, ignore this site - why again would I make someone buy a track, or put any obstacle in the way of more people hearing my music? Since it's a label partnership, the 'names' are going to get pushed, and get preferential placement anyway.
Support your local band [www.theschmoejoes] and buy a t-shirt! It's pretty much the only business model left.
Piracy caused billions in damage? (Score:4, Interesting)
When the industry thinks of the billions lost do they even take into account the amount of independent artists that are booming right now? Their website says "RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States" which is pure malarkey. Independents have a bigger slice of the pie and this also doesn't take into account many international artists. These self-produced, sometimes even self distributed, artists gain respect all around because they know some jerk with a ponytail didn't tamper with the creative talent that makes good bands, amazing. This is the age where you can spend a couple thousands of dollars or less, in recording equipment, to produce a semi-professional album. Kids don't need to beg Record companies to back them financially for studio recording sessions, they do it themselves, drop $900 to manufacture 1000 professional CDs, and sell em for $8-$10.
Maybe the fact that MP3's are cheaper than CD's period? iTunes has destroyed the album, people only spend $3 for 3 songs instead of $13 for the album. Maybe they'd buy the whole album if many mainstreams bands sucked at creating strong albums. No one wants to pay $17 for a brand new CD anymore because the scam has gone on far too long, everyone knows better, produce a bad album iTunes enforces it and makes you pay.
I'm sure there's a lot of discrepancy in those numbers because of the declining Used CD market as well.
More money is thrown around nowadays but the music market is complicated compared to yesterday. RIAA is just getting hammered because people are spending their money elsewhere and many artists can survive without standing under the RIAA umbrella.
INTERESTING FACTS:
If you are not an artist that pays royalties to the RIAA your money from records sold is not counted in this figure AND if you do not join the RIAA you are incapable of obtaining a Gold or Platinum record, true story.
-AKA
EULA? (Score:1, Interesting)
No offense but the Music industry has been so far behind the eight ball this is a load of bs.
www.soundclick.com already did it.
What concerns me the most is this:
""They have a huge community that wants to talk, share and learn about music."
They want to tap into all the other artists on myspace music. Effectively tapping the same market as soundclick and others do. But what the hell will the end user license look like for a musician submitting their music on this website. "All your rights to your music you have just signed away by uploading your song to our distribution website".. effectively.. this will stop their website from being of any use other than serving up all the old hits we love and all the new stuff we hate.
Consumers are escaping traditional boundries (Score:2, Interesting)
If you include sales from independent entities distributing by themselves for themselves (i.e. ignore the vacuous wailing of sidestepped middlemen) overall music sales where actually up 14%
Elvis Presley is dead, please let him rot (Score:2, Interesting)
This is hardly progress. This is just another attempt to keep alive one of the most archaic and outdated marketing models still in widespread use. They say "before anyone did anything, Elvis Presley did everything" but in reality his unprecidented success screwed everything. Music marketeers have been blindly flogging the same horse ever since, despite the endless painfully obvious indicators that a paradigm shift is imperative to their survival.
The fundamental flaw in the Elvis marketing model is that the product is not the music, it's the idols. To the labels, the artists aren't considered the purveyors of the music, they're just the packaging. They create idolization of the artist among consumers and then cash in on it. Music is only barely relevant to the process. Look at Paris Hilton... what does she do again?
That's why there are so few major labels. It's not a matter of signing the right talent, it's an incredibly cut-throat competition to manufacture the most influential icons. Making cars is far more expensive and complicated, yet there are 10 international auto makers for every major music label.
But now consumers can access anyone's music just as freely as the radio spewing out any big label's next wannabe hit. So traditional mass media is losing its dominance over the preferences of consumers to the internet, which by definition cannot be bought or controled. As a result, idols have less influence these days, and are becoming increasingly expensive to create.
So what's the next step? If I knew I sure wouldn't post it to a public forum! But what I will say is that the next successful music marketing model will not generate its profits from selling "music units", be they albums, songs, subscriptions, etc.
As a touring musician, live/studio engineer, and producer, I can assure you that there is a powerful motivational force between musical performers and their audiences that has never been engaged for profit to even a fraction of its potential. A bar owner paying a band 10% of sales to pack his bar and sell $12k in booze in one night makes much more sense than a label spending $5M on promotions hoping it holds a candle to the other label's $5M promotions.
But as long as labels treat their talent like packaging, they will continue to falter with repeated "innovations" on the same old game. Consumers have free access to all the content they could ever desire. Fancy packaging simply isn't enough to sell ice to eskimos.
Re:Now if they'd just get the prices down (Score:2, Interesting)
At the Ralphs Grocery Store down the street (they are an average, Kroger owned supermarket), the generic loaf of white bread cost $2.00.
At the pump, regular unleaded gasoline was $3.69 a gallon two days ago.
Mass Market Paperback books range from $5.99 to $9.99.
New Release DVDs have been between $2.00 to $6.00 for several years now...to RENT
At this point, you can have most songs a la carte, without the baggage of songs you dislike. If we can open up more avenues for new music to be heard without buying it, then we can buy what we like with confidence.
I have to agree with the parent. A dollar for a song (especially a DRM free song) that we are going to listen to over and over again is very reasonable considering the amount of work that often goes into creating and producing a song. Perhaps the production chain is not as massive as many video games have become, but I dare say in most cases the replay value is higher.
And just in case anyone suggests that all those items mentioned above are physical objects and thus have more value than the ethereal song, consider any time you may have spent working in retail, or a service industry, where you produced nothing of "value." We don't consider that work worthless in our society.
Re:Because of iTunes? (Score:5, Interesting)
2) RIAA licenses MySpace/Amazon/Microsoft/etc to also provide the same or a wider selection of music. (This is where we are now.)
2a) If [New Competitor] has more restrictive DRM or offers a worse deal, or more likely when it doesn't work with their iPods, it fails to gain traction and eventually closes shop. (This has happened several times.)
3) Consumers flock to [new competitor] thanks to their clear advantage over the iTunes store. (warning: entering extremely hypothetical territory)
4) Record companies "tell Jobs where he can stick that 99 cents," call up [new competitor] and tell them its time to up the price to 2.99 a track!
4a) If [new competitor] complies, consumers flock out in droves quicker then they came in, [new competitor] closes up shop. Record companies better renegotiate to (1) before things get even worse for them.
5) More likely, [new competitor] realizes that a price hike of just about any size (let alone a 200% increase) will cause (4a) and tells the record companies where it can stick it's 2.99.
Record companies decision time:
Deal with the new monopoly and it's improved (from a consumer perspective) standards: goto (1), replacing iTunes with [new competitor].
Attempt to break the new monopoly by driving consumers to a new store, where prices can be raised: goto (2), and probably to (2a) not long after.
Seriously, consumers have had $.99 songs for too long now to accept a price hike with no justification. This theory someone always pops up when a new store is announced, that once they get a big enough market share iTunes will get the boot and prices will go through the roof. It's crazier than the RIAA litigation strategy.
We've seen countless new online music stores fail to grab more then a tiny segment of the market from Apple. This one doesn't seem to offer much that hasn't been tried better before, including name-brand recognition.