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Music Media

HMV to Sell Digital Downloads 175

Posted by michael from the hear-no-evil dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Sales of digital music downloads on sites like PressPlay and MusicNet have been a bust so far and for good reason. They cost too much, have too many restrictions and the palette of music you get to download is too limited. They have almost nothing to offer over what the various P2P networks give you for free. So why do record chains like HMV want to get in the game? Simple, these services cut out the middlemen and if they should ever succeed record retailers would be left out in the cold. Research shows there is a percentage of consumers who will pay for digital tunes if the conditions are right. They aren't now, but market forces will push them to improve the terms or die. PressPlay has already capitulated to some of these limitations. To protect their interests in the long term, retailers like HMV and Tower records have jumped on board and signed on with On Demand Distribution (OD2) - a company co-founded by Peter Gabriel to be a wholesaler of digital music tunes - to provide the music and the back end to their new services. HMV's service launches in September at five pounds at month (about 7 bucks), a price point which will mean nothing if the song selection sucks."
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HMV to Sell Digital Downloads More

HMV to Sell Digital Downloads

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  • The times they are a' changin (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sivar ( 316343 ) <charlesnburns[@]gmail...com> on Sunday August 25, 2002 @11:33AM (#4136749)
    Somebody out there actually realizes that the current music business model will eventually fail. How refreshing it is to see intelligence in corporate America once more.

  • I can't believe that people still don't get it. If I want a song that I can download now and play on my computer, I go to P2P's.. If I want to pay for the music to listen in my car (without burning, or because I just want the pretty pictures with the CD) I buy a CD. The same goes for software downloads. Why should I pay $50 for a download when I can spend $5 more and get the damn CD for my archive?

    Downloading music and buying the music are two different things: I may even download music I already own--because it's easier than ripping it myself.

    The music industry should wake up and smell the coffee.

    • HMV is just trying to make some money here. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. They're in business to sell entertainment products; don't ever ever expect them to give it away. Why do you think they call it the entertainment industry and not the entertainment social laboratory?

      One reason people might pay HMV a few bucks a month is for access to a wider range of music. The music on the P2P sites reflects the interests of the people who put it there, and they all seem to be 20-year-old college students.

    • Re:Just don't get it... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:18PM (#4136875) Journal
      Honestly, I think the part many are missing is the fact that most people still need their music to reside on a physical piece of CD media before they can enjoy listening to it.

      This is the real reason behind your statement (and consequently your logic) that you'll opt to go "buy a CD" instead of download a file.

      There's an entire infrastructure built around the public listening to their music on compact discs - and no p2p network can change that fact.

      The recording industry needs to address this before they begin trying to make money on downloaded MP3 songs!

      As I've said many times before, a really good alternative for them would be building computerized kiosks that let the customer burn his/her own selection of songs onto a high-quality CD - and pay for it by the song. (Probably by taking a resultant printed receipt up to the counter/checkout lane with the shiny new disc)

      This would eliminate the issue of requiring huge amounts of physical store space to display all the music. (Instead, they might have a tradeoff of a little bit of "back room" space taken up with a server containing all the digital data that makes up the music collection, and some boxes of blank media to reload the kiosk with when it runs out.)

      I would think most retails stores would absolutely love this idea, as would consumers who can finally buy their own "custom mix" CDs - instead of paying for songs they don't like/want, just to get a few that they do. By tallying up exactly which songs sell best, the recording industry gets much more accurate feedback of what's "hot" and what's "not", too.

      Selling downloaded MP3 music has only very limited appeal in a world where many people don't even own the tools required to move the songs onto media playable in their car/home stereo. (The rest of us do, but we don't always appreciate taking all the time/effort out to do so.)

      • Genius. Pure Motherfucking Genius.

        I would think most retails stores would absolutely love this idea, as would consumers who can finally buy their own "custom mix" CDs - instead of paying for songs they don't like/want, just to get a few that they do. By tallying up exactly which songs sell best, the recording industry gets much more accurate feedback of what's "hot" and what's "not", too.

        Not to mention that this solves the problem of "we got 2 hit singles and 45 minutes of filler" albums that the public is wising up to.

        • Isnt that what Now Thats What I Call Music 1-78 are for?
        • The "we got 2 hit singles and 45 minutes of filler" business has been SOP for decades. Often happens in order to quickly capitalize on a new band's initial success. Alas, many follks only have two decent pieces in them. It won't go away as long as the basic format for selling recorded music is something -- album, CD, DVD -- that packages several tracks.

          The record industry suckers almost everyone into thinking commercial music is going to change the world. It isn't, but the con sure sells a lot of crap.

      • Re:Just don't get it... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by realgone ( 147744 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:46PM (#4136935)
        As I've said many times before, a really good alternative for them would be building computerized kiosks that let the customer burn his/her own selection of songs onto a high-quality CD - and pay for it by the song. (Probably by taking a resultant printed receipt up to the counter/checkout lane with the shiny new disc)... I would think most retails stores would absolutely love this idea, as would consumers who can finally buy their own "custom mix" CD
        Actually, something along thess lines *was* done before, way way back in the early 90s. A company called Personics set up custom mix-tape kiosks in Sam Goody and other chain music outlets. And yes, the retailers LOVED it. And, yes again, the labels HATED it, ultimately killing the project by holding back licensing on popular songs. You can read about the whole sorry tale here. [business2.com]

        And for the record, I did make heavy use of these machines back in high school. I'd create mix tapes by a dozen bands I was curious about but hadn't yet heard -- the Sugarcubes, let's say -- and come back later to buy full albums by the bands I ended up liking. (Mind you, this was before the popularization of both the Internet and in-store "try-before-you-buy" listening.) Pretty much the same thing a lot of people use Kazaa/Gnutella for today -- a sampler platter. And the labels would opposed a CD-based version for all the same reasons.

        Shame, really...

      • Honestly, I think the part many are missing is the fact that most people still need their music to reside on a physical piece of CD media before they can enjoy listening to it.

        How hard is it to burn wav files onto a CD ?

    • It's actually very simple: people pay for convenience. If the price is right, of course. On P2P it's sometimes hard to find a reliable source, and some people don't want to wait an hour or so for their download to finish. I, for one, often do not even know what I'm looking for when I start browsing for music on the web. I would definitely be willing to pay $10 a month or so for a music site, where I can browse through my favorite artists or genres and download what I like. I know that I could have the same results if I just go to the "official" sites for browsing and then download on P2P once I found something I like. But it's simply not very convenient. The two important points are just that the price is right, and that the selection is large enough, so I am guaranteed to find what I'm looking for. The latter point probably means that some of the bigger labels would have to get together and set up a common site, if they want to create something successful.
  • If the online music industry had music files that where in a much higher quality format than what is supported on CD, I'd definitely take a look at what they have to offer.

    The majority of MP3's are ripped from CD's so the quality is limited to the quality of the CD.

    DVD Music and other new formats are slowly working their way into the market, but if these online pay music sites offered these formats with no large initial purchase of equipment, they would definitely turn a few heads.
    • Hell, i'd be happy if it was just equally comparable to a cd.

      If the labels had done this 3 years ago, and offered high-bitrate mp3 downloads at about a buck a track, i'd have been a customer.
    • An MP3 is not the same quality as a CD, you cant get 11:1+ compression without throwing away some quality. It'ill be a while before the masses can download whole CD's at CD quality in a few minutes let alone something better than CD quality.
    • I'd probably buy DVD Music if it provided Dolby 5.1 versions of the songs that I could download off a P2P network for free...
    • I'm not even so concerned with "CD quality" not being good enough. I think it's plenty good enough for me. I know they have newer, improved fornats like DVD-Audio out there now, but they don't particularly interest me. I don't own multi-thousand dollar speakers or even an extremely expensive home stereo receiver, so I doubt it'll be that dramatic an improvement to my ears.

      What I *would* like to see, though, is MP3s encoded at 256 bits, or at the very least, 192 bits. These are in very short supply on the free p2p networks, as 99% of people think "128-bit is good enough for me", and seem to value saving a little disk space over the improved quality. I can almost always tell a definite sound quality differnce between 128 bit and 192 bit + encoding. The 128-bit stuff just sounds "dull" or "lifeless" by comparison. You wouldn't necessarily even realize what you were missing if you didn't compare the same song, side-by-side, at both encoding rates -- but once you do, you'll never want 128-bit MP3s again.
      • You can get 192 kbit files which sound no better and even worse than 128 kbit MP3 it's all down to the encoders. The latest version of LAME for example produces excellent quality files if you're willing to wait longer for your encoding. I've seen alot of 128Kbit MP3's encoded with intensity stereo which should only be used with 96 kbit or less rates. Also MP3 files tend to lose alot of harmonics regardless of the bitrate used, newer formats seem to do better in this regard. I personally like the sound of OGG and whilst I generally feel WMA sounds worse than MP3 some of files I've heard have sounded very "warm". Finally, 192 kbit is 50% larger and hence will take 50% longer to download and remember there are an awful lot of people who don't have broadband.

      • Even better... (Score:4, Informative)

        by dmaxwell ( 43234 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @02:00PM (#4137164)
        Use a good LAME VBR preset. Even at 192 kbits, there is going to be a lot of wasted storage space and transmission bandwidth. There is no reason to encode dead silence at 192 kbits. I've been using LAME's --r3mix preset and getting 8:1 compression (on average) with excellent quality on my CDs. For crying out loud, VBR has been out for years.

  • ugh...subscription models (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mikeboone ( 163222 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @11:50AM (#4136802) Homepage Journal
    I hate the concept of subscription models. All of these services want to rope you into month after month of fees. Everyone from Microsoft to music wants the luxury of a constant income stream.

    I don't buy CDs every month, why would I pay to download songs every month? Same goes for software.

    Let me come in, buy one or two songs for a buck (and give me my fair use rights to them), and maybe I'll be back in a couple months to spend more.

    • Re:ugh...subscription models (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:03PM (#4136834) Homepage
      I agree. My wish list is very simple (see Janis Ian for more - and if you have the link, post it, 'cause I lost my bookmarks :) ).

      • Downloads MP3's from 64 to 320 bit encryption; costs increase for quality. Now I can put them in on my iPod if I want.
      • Cost: $1 or $2 per song, do bulk sales (like an entire "album" is $10, or each song is $2).
      • Statement that 33% of revenue from song sales goes to the artist, 33% to the writer, and 33% to the distributor (and no cheesy "we're charging the artist $0.50 per song for recording/distribution costs).


      If they did this, I estimate 75% of the peer to peer music systems (Gnutella, Kaaza, etc) would drop in traffic as people could get the music they want cheap, available, and useable.

      Most of the plans I've seen (like those from Sony) are either only for streaming music (blech - like I'm going to sit in my fucking car streaming music), or require proprietary solutions (like "Must have Windows Super DRM Protection Version").
      • I'd rather see a lossless option, like monkey's audio, than 320 MP3. That way I could re-sample it to whatever size I need but still have a pristine CD-quality master.
      • you're wrong.

        No matter what FREE always beats anything that costs money.

        Sure, people are still buying CDs in stores and downloading from P2P but the problem w/your proposition is simple. It's too much money. I guess even if they were close estimates, you are way off.

        MOST new CDs come out and are charged around $10 to $12. I get the quality that I expect and I don't have to deal w/downloading it, burning it, and possibly storing it on my computer to burn it again later.

        This method would only work if the actual album beat out the cost of a total album at the store. Free > anything.
      • Not a bad scheme, but I'd add one thing:

        • Anonymous service


      • Statement that 33% of revenue from song sales goes to the artist, 33% to the writer, and 33% to the distributor (and no cheesy "we're charging the artist $0.50 per song for recording/distribution costs).

        Personally, I don't care who gets the money. I'm fairly certain that the majority of music purchasers don't care, either.

        When I pop in my Star Wars video, I don't care that it made George Lucas a gazillionaire and Mark Hamill still has to take odd jobs [imdb.com].

        I do agree, though, that subscription services largely suck, and if I'm going to pay for anything, I need to get the music without any more restrictions than music on CD's currently have. Otherwise, I'll just buy the CD's and rip my own music.

    • Let me come in, buy one or two songs for a buck (and give me my fair use rights to them), and maybe I'll be back in a couple months to spend more.

      One problem with such an arrangement is that you'd be forced to buy mislabled songs, corrupted songs and so forth. If they charge on a per song basis, customers will demand some sort of quality control so they don't end up spending money downloading crap. And that means a lot more work for the downloading service. On KaZaA I find lots of songs that are mislabled (wrong band, wrong song, etc.). Doesn't bother me too much because I can always try to download the correct song later. But if I was paying for those downloads, I'd be mucho pissedo (that's Spanish for "very upset", BTW). Another problem would be the RIAA flodding the service with those bogus MP3 files which have been discussed on slashdot before. Purposely corrupted MP3s that cost you money to download.

      Your idea is nice but, as you point out, the downloading service is gonna want a steady revenue stream and they certainly don't want to have to inspect each MP3 on their service for quality and accuracy. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a per-song downloading service.

      GMD

      • I disagree. I think that good/high quality .mp3s (and that includes proper id3 tags/filenames) are the only thing that will convince people to pay for songs. People will put up with a lot of quality issues if it's free. If I'm paying for it, it damn well better be right. That's on a per-song or a subscription based model.
      • This doesn't make any sense at all.

        Why would a company sell you a mistitled song? What, somebody's going to stick the CD in and type in "Britney Spears" when it's clearly a Beatles song?

        It's simple: You pay $2 for the song. The song is downloaded. Whoops - that's not it - you have a digital reciept showing you paid for the Beatles, and you got Burke Backarack. You email/contact retailer, give sale ID number, they go "Whoops - our bad", and they let you have the one you want. Why? Because they know if they don't, you'll tell your friends how they hosed you, and most companies don't like negative press (especially of a fledgling business model).

        Because they want a steady stream of revenue, the odds are greater they'll check the songs they put up for sale to make sure they've got it right. To say they won't is (except for a few human mistakes sure to sneak in), to be honest, just a little silly.

      • You're smoking crack (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @06:26PM (#4138306) Homepage
        And so are the moderators who modded you up.

        The suggestion is for the the MUSIC COMPANY to sell downloads of the music they sell anyway. THEY HAVE THE MASTERS. It would take gross negligence for them to sell you a mislabeled or currupted song.

        I ran some of the numbers. As long as they do a large volume of sales I think they could be rather profitable at 25 cents a track. The volume of sales and free publicity are guarenteed at that price. The bandwidth, 24-hour staff, and location costs combined are pennies per download. A few cents per download for the artists. Sell it as 80 downloads for a $20 subscription to avoid micropayments. And it makes a great gift-certificate.

        Sceptical they could do it for a quater a download? There was a /. article a while ago about a small label hand burning CD's and mailing them to you for $4.95, shipping included. And making a profit doing it. $1 of that went to the artist. Assuming there are at least 10 tracks on the CD that's 50 cents per track. And that includes a physical CD, hand burning each CD, and mailing it. Large volume file downloads are practicly free in comparison.

        At 25 cents a track for legitimate, high quality, and well indexed music, it WOULD be cheap enough to defeat P2P.

        -
    • I do buy CDs every month. In fact I usually buy several each week. Music is important to me, so I'm happy to spend £20-£30 per week on it. A subscription model would be a godsend to me, but only if they have the music I want. The kind of stuff I listen to seems to only be available in specialist [replay.co.uk] stores [fopp.co.uk]. Much as I love spending a Sunday afternoon browsing through these stores, if I knew I could get all the releases I want for a monthly subscription, I'd be sorely tempted. I'd probably still buy the stuff I really like on CD too.
    • A subscription business model allows a company to smooth out it's earning cycles. Rather than having big spikes when they release a product they have income trickling in all of the time. (Or pouring in if they price gouge like a certain software company that we all know and love.)

      So if they let people pop in buy two songs and then disapear for two or three months they would have to charge more per song up front.

      On a subscription business model if you are one of those who only download a few songs every month, you could end up bearing part of the cost of other people who download lots of songs every month. If everyone downloads lots of songs every month subscription prices may rise.

      Maybe they could give a choice. Ten bucks a month for up to 50 songs or non-subscribers could download songs at two bucks a pop.

      • Maybe they could give a choice.

        That I could deal with. I just want to avoid a future where everything I buy has a monthly fee. There are so many 'subscriptions' out there already...home phone, cell phone, water (mine has a monthly minimum no matter how much I use), cable, internet. They're going to keep adding stuff until your montly recurring costs are sky high. :(

        • Well, the things you listed all have good reasons to be subscription only. Every time you use any of those products, you are using their equipment, be it phone cable, water pipes, bandwidth, etc.

          Music, on the other hand, costs nothing to keep up once you have it. I buy my CD/download my track and that's that. When I play it, I'm not using their equipment, no matter how many times I play it, it will not cost them a penny. This is why I'm not keen on things like subscription software (Except for stuff server based like online games) . Of course options are nice, such as when you want to rent a DVD, but then it's just a one-off thing for a short period of time.
    • I think Pressplay's latest pricing is getting close to reasonable. "Portable downloads" which you can transfer to another medium, like CD, and which you can use after your subscription expires, run ~$1/each.

      This is a pretty good deal if, for example, you typicially buy CDs to get one or two songs (and so end up paying $7-14/song). It isn't all that bad if you actually want the entire CD. (Say $14 for 14 tracks).

      Of course, there is overhead. $10/month for access to the service. That gets you unlimited streaming and unlimited downloads, but the downloads are restricted. You can't use them once your subscription expirers, and you can only use them on two machines.

      Still, $10/month doesn't seem all that bad. A big appeal is that you basically have full access, via streaming, to your collection from any computer, saving you the trouble, for example, of on-demand streaming your own.

      The biggest downsides I see, at this point:

      that portable audio devices aren't fully enfranchised. To take audio with you, you have to purchase a "portable download." To really address this within the typical subscription model requires a further proliferation of DRM that I am not sure I am comfortable with.

      selection seems limited. Pressplay seems to have a lot of artists (and I am assuming that most of their recent releases are available for download and purchase), but part of what I love about Kazaa is that I can find all sorts of obscure stuff, like old songs from the 80's, rare live recordings, ect that an "official" service might never manage to offer.

  • Advert for IPod (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The advert for an iPod at the bottom of the page advertises them in 10MB and 20MB versions.

    Wow, I must be ahead of the game with my 5Gb one.

  • Electronic/Dance music is a good product for...... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheHouseMouse ( 589773 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @11:51AM (#4136806)
    As it currently stands, the majority of dance/electronic music is only released on vinyl. However the CD dj is no longer a novelty, but the problem arises of finding music on CD. But the current amount of CD dj's don't warrant the need for widespread CD releases. It seems like a PERFECT idea to sell this type of music online, with the intention of people buring the music for their own use. You can't even find much new dance music on P2P networks, so there isn't a whole lot of competition. And I think that many DJ's would jump at this opportunity. You can buy or pirate pop/rock anywhere, but the dance music scene is no where to be found in many american outlets.

  • Quality and eMusic (Score:3, Informative)

    by Moderator ( 189749 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @11:52AM (#4136807)
    How is this any different from EMusic [emusic.com], a company that offers entire albums for download at something like $9.99/month?

    • Re:Quality and eMusic (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kanon ( 152815 )
      The difference is that Emusic doesn't care what you do with the mp3s once you've downloaded them whereas HMVs servivce will only allow you to burn (Or have insecure copies) of a small number a month. (See the OD2 homepage)

      From where I'm sitting Emusic seems to be the better option (As long as you like older music and bad Euro death metal :) )
      • hey, there's such a thing as GOOD euro death metal too. Emusic sells Entombed, Opeth, Carcass, and Morbid Angel, all of which are very good, assuming you like the style. Some decent Alternative and Goth too.

        • I know :) I was just kidding. You got to admit though that Emusic has a lot of crap. Now imagine how good they could be if the labels let them use some bigger names.

  • What happens when... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by awx ( 169546 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @11:56AM (#4136813)
    ...we do start paying for music like this, and get mp3s in return, and the RIAA comes cruising along the networks and tags us for having "copyrighted content" on our computers?
    • If you were sharing them out on a p2p network, then you would be in the wrong. If the RIAA got into your computer illegally, and you wern't publically sharing the mp3 files, well, it wouldn't (shouldn't) be illegal.
    • So don't put these copyrighted mp3s in shared directories. Duh.
    • ...we do start paying for music like this, and get mp3s in return, and the RIAA comes cruising along the networks and tags us for having "copyrighted content" on our computers?

      You mean 'the RIAA comes cruising along the networks and tags us for sharing "copyrighted content" from your computers?'

      If you make it publically available, then you're violating copyright (with the possible exception of claiming (in Canada) that you were merely providing a way for other people to make, from your collection, copies for their own use, which is legal).

      --Dan
  • Here is the next Brilliant Idea..

    Since Radio and record Lables have acted monopolistic in nature to reducing the choics of quality music..

    One would think if one offered a P2p music service with the ability for local bands to add their works and a play sample that this would be a very big business idea..

    Hey Music execs WE WANT CHOICE!!!!!!!!Hey Music execs WE WANT CHOICE!!!!!!!!Hey Music execs WE WANT CHOICE!!!!!!!!Hey Music execs WE WANT CHOICE!!!!!!!!

  • They tried in store compilations too... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...but soon realised that people weren't willing to stand around for hours putting together a CD that cost an arm and a leg.

    Hats off to them for trying, but he DRM will probably kill it stone dead. People are far too used to being able to do what they want with what they've paid for.

  • HMV sell region-free DVD player.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by anonymous cupboard ( 446159 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:05PM (#4136841)
    HMV are interesting, they publish music but they also retail it and have quite a big retail chain inEurope (Ibelieve they are also linked with Virgin Records as well now). Of course this means they are in the middle of the music-sharing etc. disputes. An interesting fact is they seem to be selling region-free DVD players in their retail outlets and, most importantly, advertising the fact.

    What this means is they are not automatically either RIAA or MPAA friends. Good luck to them.

    • Err, just about everyone and his brother sells region-free DVD players outside the US. In fact, you'd have to look pretty hard to find a major European retailer that won't sell you a region-free player if that's what you want.

      This is especially true in Britain where buying US-imported Region 1 encoded discs doesn't present a language barrier and, amongst DVD afficionados, is often the preferred option.
      • Many stores still don't sell region-free DVD players.

        WHat is remarkable about it isn't what is being done, but who is selling it. HMV is a record label and was part of the EMI Group until 1998. EMI was also a film distributor in the UK. What interested me is that HMV do not seem to be bothered about the "party-line".

        • HMV the retailer is a seperate entity from HMV the record label, and each has its own priorities. So, to use a similar analogy, while HMV the record label would be concerned about Joe Average burning his own CDs at home, HMV the retailer will quite happily sell him a CD-R drive, media and a copy of Roxio Easy CD Creator to boot.

          This is hardly a change of policy - record stores, including the likes of HMV and Virgin that have close ties with record labels themselves, have been selling blank media for years. Blank audio cassettes, video and DAT tapes, Mini Discs, floppy discs, etc all fall into this category.

          Potentially, selling such media damages the record stores sales of pre-recorded material. However I've yet to see a record store that won't sell you a blank because it's scared of hurting its sales of more profitable items.

          Another example is Sony. Sony the record label won't sell you a copy of either Attack Of The Clones or Spiderman soundtracks on CD without using a form of copy prevention that stops you from playing the CD in a PC. * However, Sony the hardware manufacturer will sell you a PC or games console that it says you can play your music CDs on but not one that will play these pups.

          Furthermore, Sony will sell you a Mini Disc, MP3 or other digital recording device that is specifically designed to facilitate the digital reproduction of CDs without batting an eyelid that you could use the technology to make illegal copies of the music published by its own record labels.

          (* In the UK at least. And, yes, I know that these technically aren't CDs as by definition they don't adhere to the relevant standards that would allow them to be described as such, but I've yet to see a popular description for these discs that is immediately understood by the music buying public. Anyhow, if you're on /. and you're reading this discussion then you either know what I'm talking about already or are intelligent enough to find it out for yourself.)

  • Uh huh (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This will stop people from ripping music and offering it for free to others how?!

  • added value (Score:4, Interesting)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asvNO@SPAMivoss.com> on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:17PM (#4136872) Homepage Journal
    The main problem with all these services is they FAIL to meet the needs of the customer. Here is what I want for a pay service:
    • Music stored available in multiple standard formats with multiple bit rates: OGG,MP3,FLAC,SHN
    • A pricing structure starting at $10/month going up to $30/month based upon bit rates, not the amount of songs you download. At $10/month you only get to download 64kbps mp3's, $15/month for 128, working your way up to $30+/month for flac or shn downloads that are lossless.
    • Every CD ever made period.
    • Allow transfer to portables and CD's
    • An intuitive web interface, instead of building some bulky windows client that does everything your computer already does: CD burning, music manager, etc; just have a well designed web interface that works on all platforms with all browsers.
    Now if they can just figure out a way to pay the RIAA and the artists, we will be set!
    • The thing I don't get is where they got the idea that we want to make a monthly subscription, in order to buy music?

      What is it that makes all these companies have a problem with the £n per track, model? That's the way I, and almost everyone else, buy music now (more or less.)

      Yet they refuse to offer us this way to buy music via dowload.

      I find that very odd.
    • An intuitive web interface, instead of building some bulky windows client that does everything your computer already does: CD burning, music manager, etc; just have a well designed web interface that works on all platforms with all browsers.

      Something similar to Audiogalaxy then? IMO something like the AGSatellite client without spyware/adware which would automatically create directories based upon artist and album with a web-based interface could be a winner.

      Tim

    • Re:added value (Score:3, Interesting)

      by blowdart ( 31458 )

      You're thinking like a techie, not joe user. Face it, music downloads are not aimed at us.

      Music stored available in multiple standard formats with multiple bit rates: OGG,MP3,FLAC,SHN

      Aside from MP3, normal users don't know, and frankly don't care about the other formats. Hell, if their machine plays it, they're happy, and as 99.99% of joe users have Microsoft's media player available for their OS, then MP3, WMA and maybe RA would be the choosen formats.

      $10/month you only get to download 64kbps mp3's, $15/month for 128, working your way up to $30+/month for flac or shn downloads that are lossless.

      Again, this is for the "normal" public, not the audiophile. They won't care about higher bitrates. As long as it sounds ok (128kps) they won't care.

      Every CD ever made period.

      *grin* That will *never* happen, unless AOL/TW takes over every record label.

      Allow transfer to portables and CD's

      The OD2 offering allows burning to CD for an extra price.

      An intuitive web interface

      So you want a web interface that controls your hard drive, and your CD burner? Are you MAD? Allowing code like that, which would pop out of the Java sandbox, or would be deliver as ActiveX is frightening.

      (Note I work for an OD2 competitor)

      • So you want a web interface that controls your hard drive, and your CD burner? Are you MAD? Allowing code like that, which would pop out of the Java sandbox, or would be deliver as ActiveX is frightening.

        My point was that it should NOT be a CD Burner, it should simply allow downloads via a web interface. Basically all your arguments site that the options are for audiophiles, any service out there would be designed for early adopters, which a great amount will already know what bit rate is, plus people who are going to be initially interested in a pay service will be music enthusiasts, not joe-idiot.

        • My point was that it should NOT be a CD Burner, it should simply allow downloads via a web interface. Basically all your arguments site that the options are for audiophiles, any service out there would be designed for early adopters, which a great amount will already know what bit rate is, plus people who are going to be initially interested in a pay service will be music enthusiasts, not joe-idiot.

          OK, point taken on the interface. However, I would argue the interface is up to the seller. We have an interesting bunch of customers, and all their interfaces are different.

          The problem with aiming at early adopters is that the early adopters in this market are the Napster users. The ones who don't see any problem in sharing. The music industry hates this (and you can see why).

    • "The main problem with all these services is they FAIL to meet the needs of the customer."

      No, they will fail to meet your unreasonable demands. Every song in every format at virtually no cost to you. What you would offer them wouldn't even cover the cost of their bandwidth let alone compensate the artists.

      Keep buying off the rack because no one is going to sacrifice themselves so that you can download every piece of music created for next to nothing.
      • The bandwidth would easily be covered by $30/month, especially for such a large scale operation. At $30/month, that's $360/year, which is quite bit. As with many services the light-use profitable users will make up for the heavy users who download everything, plus you can have some type of bandwidth cap. The main thing I'm saying is I buy maybe 30 CD's a year, 1/2 of them are used so I'm really buying 15. The bulk of my purchase goes to pay for packaging, distribution, the record company's take, the store's take, and then a little bit goes to artist. With downloadable music, you won't have packaging, distribution, and store costs, that leaves a lot more money to be made by the record company and the artist, but in many ways you can eliminate the record company all together. So right now I'm spending $200/year on CD's, but with that service I would be paying $360/year and their costs would be lower.
      • Let me just pick apart this statement and try to figure out which part is unreasonable:

        Every song

        This is the only bit where I really see a problem. 100% is probably impossible, but I would think you could get 90% of all songs ever made with the cooperation of just the top 5-6 labels.

        in every format

        No problem here whatsoever. Archive them all in a lossless codec, then if the customer wants a different format just encode on the fly. Disks and CPUs are dirt cheap.

        at virtually no cost to you.

        Why not? Look, they're competing with FREE trading networks, for chrissake. They're going to have to come down a bit. Per-download fees are fine, flat monthly fees are fine, just as long as it's considerably less than $20/CD.
        • "Why not? Look, they're competing with FREE trading networks..."

          The "FREE" trading network you are talking about I assume is the file swapping going on with P2P programs. They are not "competing" with these. People who trade copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission are not competing, they are breaking the law by infringing on those copyrights. And yes, I know that some trading is legal if done with the copyright holders blessings.

          I'm not saying that it shouldn't be cheaper than a packaged product but definitely not dirt cheap. There will still be expenses and compensation to the artists and unfortunately to the RIAA.

          Even if the early LEGAL file trading businesses are more expensive than CDs, once established as a viable and legitimate business, competition should drive prices down. The most important thing is that we bust up the RIAA. As long as they maintain a monopoly on music prices won't fall. These are the real middle men. They are not really interested in the artists or the consumer. They are a group of parasites that need to be eliminated.
    • Implementing this is a pretty large investment for a completely unproven business model.
      So far the model you describe has one (you) guaranteed customer, definitely not enough capital to justify ripping 'every cd ever made'.

      No matter how romantic it sounds, there is no way maintaining a massive database with 16 versions (bitrate+codec) of every song on the off chance that someone might want a 64kpbs Ogg of some hit from 1924 will EVER be sufficiently profitable.

  • EMusic (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ende ( 154873 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:20PM (#4136882)
    Speaking as someone who hasn't bought a cd in almost 10 years, I was really suprised when I learned of EMusic. I am a fan of punk, ska & hardcore, and glady pay EMusic $15.00/mo in order to download their vast selection of music in that category. Granted, their other sections lack content, so my girlfriend gets upset when she can't find her newest pop album, but I am rather happy with the selection that they offer me.
    • Agreed. However this all shakes out, EMusic [emusic.com] really deserves to be a winner. If you haven't yet, check them out. I signed up for They Might Be Giants [emusic.com], but found myself downloading a lot of their roots music collections [emusic.com] and bluegrass [emusic.com]

      It looks like a number of smaller labels, including artist-owned labels have given their entire portfolio over to EMusic to distribute, so they must be doing something right. No, they don't know who Britany Spears is, but if you like music and appreciate variety, EMusic is a goldmine. Oh, and I have no other involvement than being a customer.

  • The reason? Market survival (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:31PM (#4136901) Homepage
    Digital music downloads is what's known as a 'Disruptive technology'. Every industry has disruptive technologies that, when they appear, are not as good as what is currently in place, but end up improving to a point where they replace the original sustaining technology.

    An example of disruptive technology is the 8" hard drive. The 14" hard drives were fast and stored a lot of data, but few of the disk companies bothered to make 8" drives when they came out because they were slower and didn't store as much data. Not only that, but they cost more per megabyte. But the market for Minicomputers demanded lower cost (even if it was higher cost per meg) overall drives, so they started improving. Only one or two hard drive companies from the 14" market survived the switch to 8" drives because they didn't see the benefit, and their customers didn't either, until it was too late.

    The same thing happened again when the 5.25" HDs came out. Only a couple manufacturers of 8" drives stayed in business, and only because they spent money on the 5.25" drives well before they were good enough to sell, or profitable.

    Finally, look at the excavating market: Up until the 1940s, steam shovels were all cable activated. They used cables to lift the arms and control the scoop, not hydraulics. When the first hydraulic dirt movers came out, they couldn't move anywhere near as much dirt and they cost more to operate, but eventually they became more powerful, safer, and cheaper to own and operate then cable operated stuff. NONE of the steam shovel companies that were in business in the 1940s survived past the 1950s because they didn't see the benefit of selling what they saw as inferior technology, which hydraulics definately were in the beginning.

    This created opportunities for the startups to dominate the small hydraulics market unopposed until they were able to grow into and take over the domain of the cable operated steam shovel.

    What HMV (and these other companies) are doing is learning from the mistakes of those companies. Digital music download is a disruptive technology to the sustaining technology of physical music purchase. It's not as high quality as CDs now, and it has lots of deficiencies, but they know that eventually, the market for digital downloads of music may grow to compete with and even replace physical media sales. That's not what customers want right now, but the market and technologies change, so 5-10 years from now, customers will demand this, and whoever is in the business first will have lots of advantages.

    Remember, what the customer wants is not always best, and if you spend your life following the customers requests only, you'll eventually go out of business when a disruptive technology appears. It happened to the 14" drive manufacturers who listened to their customers (who weren't interested in slower, lower capacity drives), and it'll happen to the music industry that doesn't embrace and extend downloads.

    For more data on this, read 'The Innovators Dilemma' by Christensen.
    • It's an interesting point, this whole "get onto the emerging/disruptive technology before everyone else does".

      Of course, the problem is spotting which technology is truly disruptive and going to replace the existing one, and which one is a hare-brained idea. Hindsight is everything. Remember the people who managed to warm otherwise level-headed (I suppose) venture capitalists to the idea that everybody was going to (insert famous dot.com disaster here).

      My hindsight prediction is: Considering that people are already actively downloading digital music, and not because they're interested in trying out new technology but because they aren't able or willing to obtain the music in the traditional way, this is probably a real disruptive technology, not a dead dot.com end.

      On the subject of how on earth anybody at all (least of all the artists) is ever going to make any money out of it, my crystal ball is silent.
  • SimpleFiles [simplefiles.net] is my project. What I do is charge a small amount ($0.02 usually) per file to cover my costs, the rest of the price is set by the seller. There is no subscription to pay, and you can choose which individual files you want to sell. An aspiring artist could put their mp3's (or any DRM format if they want to) up on the site and charge what THEY think is right.

    Travis

  • HMV has sort of already been offering this (Score:4, Informative)

    by Steve Cowan ( 525271 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:45PM (#4136932) Journal
    At least in Canada [hmv.ca], I have browsed HMV's site a few times in the last year looking for specific products that turned out to be only available as .wmv downloads. Even though the they are in (yuck) Windows Media format, it is definitely a forward step.

    The downside was the price. I was looking to order some CD's from the "Ultra-Lounge" collection but they were only offered as digital downloads, and the price for the download was actually more than I had paid for some of the CDs from that collection that I had already bought!

    If HMV can pull off this pay-for-download feature and actually keep prices good and cheap, then distributors will have good reason to be shaking in their boots. But if prices turn out to be unreasonable, then I'm concerned that HMV will be trying to merely squeeze out distributors while keeping prices unreasonably high.

    Remember: right now artists get about 6 to 10 cents per song, up to a maximum of 10 songs, per album that is sold. That means most artists see a maximum of $1 from a CD that sells for over $15. And that's putting it simply: in most record deals with major labels that dollar goes towards recoupable expenses (production costs, legal costs, shipping, manufacturing, the whole bit).

    A big price break here could cause consumers to purchase a lot more product, which in the long run is good for consumers and artists, probably works out well for companies like HMV, and the knuckle-dragging major labels will barely be affected at all. So as long as they can stick to offering cheap digital downloads, this is excellent news.

  • my usual plug for emusic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by startled ( 144833 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:46PM (#4136936)
    I subscribe to emusic, and have for a long time. Unlimited downloads, mp3 format. It's mostly not major label stuff, which is a good thing for me-- why should I support the RIAA?

    The only drawback is sometimes they don't add music as quickly as I wish they would. Still, they've got enough music in there to keep me busy exploring new genres and bands at no risk to me but the downloading and listening time (and their transfer rates are so high that download time is negligible).

  • Cutting out the middle man. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blowdart ( 31458 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @12:48PM (#4136943) Homepage

    Up front admission: I work one of OD2's rivals. So if you like, take what I say with a pinch of salt.

    OD's service, as well as ours, does not cut out the middle man. The labels still get paid. OD2 paid the labels for this content (albeit by offering shares in themselves, not with actual cash). The subscription fee you pay does, therefore, filter back to the label. I would be very surprised to see any minor label, let alone any independant band hhave content available.

    OD2 are well known within the industry for offering Microsoft formats only (perhaps one of the reasons MSN have choose them to power the MSN downloads [od2.com].

    Their licensing model is a music "rental" scheme. The problem, for slashdot users, is this seems unacceptable to the "technical public". The normal public may well go for this, after all, 99% of people accept the video hire model, why not music hire. However, it is, in my opinion, still too limited. If I am going to pay for access I want more than 25 downloads per month. I'd happily pay £10 pcm for access to all of EMI's back catalogue. Maybe one day EMI will listen and go for it (and preferably use my code base *grin*).

    However, the suggestion in the story that "these services cut out the middlemen and if they should ever succeed record retailers would be left out in the cold" is rubbish. The labels provide the music, of course they get paid.

    • I think by middle man they may mean the record stores who barely make anything anyway. You are correct. The label companies will still get their cut.

      The day we can cut out the RIAA will be the day the consumer will win a BIG victory. The RIAA is a group of greedy bastards who don't care about either the consumer or the artists that they exploit.
      • Excuse me but the RIAA is a non-profit organization compriosed of record labels themselves, and not just the big labels either. If you cut out the RIAA you cut out the people investing in the music business, the labels themselves. Or were you just looking for some /. karma and bashing the RIAA without having a clue as to who they are and what they do?
  • Unless the service allows users to download mp3s it may as well give up right now.


    This shouldn't pose a problem - sell the songs for 1 euro a pop from fast servers and provide "community" features such as artist news, chat, song rating, special offers etc. and people will come. Many users would gratefully pay a reasonable price for guaranteed delivery and the other value added content on the site.

  • Dear Music Industry (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    CAN'T YOU HEAR THE SOUND OF ME NOT SPENDING?

    HMV's new service will cost five pounds or around $7.00

    I assume that that's per month.

    US for an undisclosed number of tracks.

    Oh yes, sign me up! How many tracks, what format/quality and what can I do with them - that's irrelevant.

    PressPlay recently changed their model to offer unlimited streams and downloads for $14.95 a month.

    I believe that this is still a rental model. Stop paying, tunes gone. PressPlay go tits-up, tunes gone. Such a deal - not!

    Dear Music Industry:

    I've got a huge pent up desire to spend money on downloadable tunes. I used to own almost two thousand LP's (yes, I'm over 35). CD's came out and I thought "good quality, lousy price. I'll wait until the price gets reasonable". I'm still waiting. I bought some cassettes in the mean time and a total of 16 CD's to date. I do not download your copyrighted material - as much as I hate you big record companies, I don't feel that it justifies grabbing your tunes without permission. I have downloaded from IUMA and mp3.com over the last 4 years. They both hit a sweet spot in the crap:quality material ratio a couple of years ago and have been sliding ever since. 4 years ago it was about 500:1, 3 years ago 350:1, 2 years ago 250:1, 1 year ago 300:1 and today 500:1. I have also bought from independent artists and labels who deserve the money a lot more than you do. But mostly I do without these days (effectively, I boycott you dopes).

    I see nothing worthy of attention in the articles posted. Someday, maybe someone will "get it", but not yet - you marketeers would rather screw with consumers than get serious.

    It seems absurd to have to post such basic guidelines for you idiots, but I guess all the money drug-abuse has addled you brains. Here they are and I'll spend money only when they're met. I want:

    1) Reasonable price ($0.75 - $0.99/tune if all other conditions are met)!
    2) Extremely broad choice/selection!
    3) The ability to audition tunes before I buy!
    4) To buy, not rent - after I pay once, it's mine forever!
    5) QUALITY encoding at reasonable bit-rates! (VERY NEAR CD at least).
    6) Service!
    7) A demonstration that you value me as a customer rather than a sucker!
    8) Goto 1) and repeat until you morons get it, or die!

    Call me when you're ready, music industry. I've got some money to spend. But don't waste my time with all this other trendy rental/subscription marketing bullshit. You're not in the cell-phone business and I don't need your 'product' to survive.

    • I'll wait until the price gets reasonable". I'm still waiting

      I'm in the same boat. I have a laserdisk player. I've been buying tapes waiting for the promise that disks are cheaper to make because they can be pressed in high volume. They changed from laser disk to a macrovision and region encumbered format that is even cheaper to press, but sadly it's still more expensive than tape. I also am still waiting.

      There is a MP3 jukebox recorder by Arcos that does a fine job preserving my audio tapes and disks by enabling encoding to MP3. Maybe someone will do the same for me in the future so I can back up my video collection to a more stable medium.

      After I bought the rights to a song on tape or disk (LP) I was even hoping they would provide an exchange where I could turn in stretched tapes and scratched LP's for a small media exchange fee. It never happened. You have to back it up yourself or buy a new copy of the medium and license. (new CD)

      The music industry severly lacks in consumer support in supporting the products the consumers have purchased. At least I can find a mechanic to repair my older car when it gets scratched. No such support exists with the music industry. Too bad.. I have boxes of cassettes and LP's in need of service. It looks like I have to do it myself.

  • It's such an easy concept... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @01:22PM (#4137058) Homepage Journal
    All you have to do is play off the weaknesses of the current p2p models and they'd be set. Lord knows their's plenty of them.

    1) Consistent high download speeds.
    2) What you see is what you get downloads, ie; ensuring their quality (no cracks, loops, hiss, bogus files, etc).
    3) Stable downloads. No "need more sources", "qued" and all of that BS.
    4) No sideband search traffic or p2p downloaders sucking up my bandwidth.

    The only reason why we use p2p is because it's the only option anymore, not because it's good. But to these three, you have to add:

    5) Downloaders rights. You pay for a song/subscription, it's yours to copy, burn, etc. Some services erase your archive or it becomes useless if you quit their service. Funny, but I don't see the repo man coming after my T3 magazines if I don't renew. I bought it, it's mine.

    If you combined these with a reasonable download price, and maybe some extra goodies thrown in for your patronage, then I'm betting you'd actually have a snowballs chance of grabbing a large share of the legal market. It'll happen eventially, but damn, they are seriously behind the curve.

  • Hmm. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Cutting of the middle men. Hmm.

    Wrong middle men for me - I'd rather see the RIAA cut than record stores. Because you know, I kinda like having a hard copy of my music sitting in a drawer. Sure, I rip everything to mp3, but what if my hard drive sizzles? For me (And the average person who still doesn't have broadband), ripping a disc is still quicker than downloading one. (Especially if they limit downloads!)

    "Initially, files could not be burned to CD or transferred to a portable digital music device. That alone turned many potential users off."

    You think? The entire point of digital music in the form of files on a hard drive is the fact that you can take it anywhere and not have to worry about some ass stealing your discs, your discs being scratched, etc.

    "Record retailers are aware that if digital files sales should ever take off they need to to make sure they are not cut out of the action."

    As many have pointed out, kiosks. Let me go burn a disc in store, paying by the track, and putting whatever tracks I want to on the disc. See the above: Discs are good to have around, and we'll even throw in a few bucks for the disc itself if you don't let us bring our own. ;)

    "HMV's new service will cost five pounds or around $7.00 US for an undisclosed number of tracks. PressPlay recently changed their model to offer unlimited streams and downloads for $14.95 a month. OD2's Grimsdale feels confident the pricing for these services are getting closer to satisfying consumers."

    Number of tracks and a flat rate? Sorry. Charge by track and I'd consider it. $14.95 doesn't sound bad for unlimited streams and downloads, but I don't see how they're getting away with it. *chuckle* (Unless the RIAA refuses to acknowledge the fact that cds don't cost $15 to produce!)

    I'd bet I'd get screwed either way, what with having ecclectic music tastes.

    ""It's still early days but the consumer feedback is good," said Grimsdale. "The cost per track is low, so if you want to listen to music on your computer, it is very good value.""

    Again, I want to store music on my computer and listen to it anywhere. ;)
  • Your customers are telling you what they want and how much they will spend. You can't pay for this kind of market research! Summary:

    1) Must be .MP3 format. Read that again. Again!
    2) Digital media is about choice and freedom - not piracy. We want to play the music on whatever device/software we have handy. Not just the ones you want to sell us.
    3) Let me either subscribe OR purchase entire cd's at once. (have we ever heard of a .zip .tar or stuffit archive folks)
    4) $10 to $30 subscriptions and $8 to $12 per album.

    Let me get my 2x4... Bonk!

  • Here's what would help sales (Score:3)

    by SIGFPE ( 97527 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @01:51PM (#4137142) Homepage
    Give us more than just an mp3 file. Give us high resolution tiffs of the album sleeve and the band. Make us feel we are really buying into something. Send an email from the actual band members to anyone who actually pays. Make people feel like when they pay (1) they're really getting something and (2) make it feel like a personal transaction with the band itself - something that P2P can never offer. Give people who pay coupons and special offers that they don't offer anyone else (and undercut other vendors - mustn't forget that).


    Until the record companies figure out how to make us interested they can lose all the money they want.

  • There are markets that would be willing to subscribe to a service for a flat rate and be able to download music, in unrestricted, unencumbered fashion. Why?? because the P2P networks, as awesome as they are, still have problems. You still have to hunt around for songs, songs are named incorrectly, people are hosting them from a 56K connection sometimes that 20 poeple are trying to share, some people flat out refuse to share files, too many connections, etc.

    It takes time to hunt, and it can be slow. And just because you found one song you like, doesn't mean that you can easily find ALL the songs in that album. And they still require you have an idea of what you're looking for. If you just want to sample some random music in a certain genre, your options are still rather limited. Usenet is great for this, and people pay money to major news servers for the privilage of being exposed to music they've never heard of before, yet someone else thought enough of to bother to post it in the first place. Not everything is great, but I've discovered a lot of cool stuff that way, and I probably never would have found it any other way.

    So if a service was to offer fast downloads, accurate names, full albums, quick searches that return results, and random samplings, or even a full archive list available, sorted by genre and other means, they could make it. And of course, no silly encryption crap. It's not really necessary anyway.

    -Restil
  • Just going to chip in with my $0.02 worth of "what I'll pay for" when it comes to digital music distribution:

    #1 - Must be an open encoding format (MP3, OGG, etc). I will NOT EVER subscribe to any service that requires any digital rights management / licensing. When I buy the music, be it online or on a CD, it's MINE, and I don't want to have to worry about screwing with licensing if I move the media to my portable MP3 player, upgrade my computer, reinstall windows, move to linux, etc.

    #2 - Single tracks must be available, not just whole albums.

    #3 - Purchasing a whole album must be less than the cost of purchasing individual tracks by at least 20%

    #4 - The total charged for a full album must be $10 or less.

    #5 - If downloading the full album, graphic files for printing CD covers/labels must be available as an option, for perhaps $1 to $2 more.

    #6 - Consumers must have the choice to pay for either a monthly subscription (unlimited downloads, but lower quality - perhaps 64kbps), or purchase music as a single transaction. If the consumer has a monthly subscription and wants high-quality, they should be able to purchase the high-quality version for half the regular price.

    There you have it. Now I'm expecting that some people will get all bent out of shape about my requirements. Please be mindful that these are MY requirements, not what I'm realistically expecting the industry to adopt.

    Of course if they don't adopt them, or something very close, I won't be a member of a pay service.

    The most important requirement is #1 - I am absolutely inflexible on that.

  • Five tracks/month? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sydbarrett74 ( 74307 ) <sydbarrett74@gma ... minus herbivore> on Sunday August 25, 2002 @03:03PM (#4137317)
    Here's the kicker: 'But subscribers may only burn five tracks per month.' Hmmmm.....

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @03:59PM (#4137579)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Charge, but give us something as good as Napster (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @04:22PM (#4137695) Homepage
    It seems so obvious... the problem is not that the music services make you pay, it's that they don't provide what people want.

    I'm willing to pay, but what frosts me is the idea of paying for something that's NOWHERE NEAR AS GOOD as what I was getting for free.

    I enjoyed downloading really weird stuff from Napster and AudioGalaxy. Are the Sonys and Vivendis of the world ever likely to provide Harry Champion singing "I'm 'Enery the Eight I Am?" Cab Calloway singing "Nagasaki?" Joe Venuti playing "The Hot Canary?" Raymond Scott playing the Clavivox? Charles Trenet singing "Fleur Bleu?" Kay Thompson singing "Eloise?" Bernard Cribbins singing "'Ole in the Ground?"

    Or will they just have Britney Spears?

    The solution is obvious. Let people upload and share material. "Electronic record store" is the wrong model. "Electronic flea market" or "electronic swap meet" is the right model. The only thing that needs to be changed from what Napster was doing is to do what flea markets do: charge a small fee to participants.

    I have these items because other people that share my weird tastes were willing to provide them. Nobody has to wait for some executive to decide whether there's money in releasing them. If anyone thinks they have something that might interest someone, they upload it and if you're right, they download it.

    This frees the service from all the cost of acquiring and converting recordings themselves.

    Now, how much does sharing REALLY cost the record companies? There's not a doubt in my mind that a) the amount it affects them is tiny, almost lost in the noise; b) if it does represent lost revenues, it's a TINY loss; and that c) a solution along the lines of the "blank VCR tape tax" or the similar charge for home audio digital media could take care of it.

    The other piece of the puzzle is micropayments. Why does EVERYONE want to charge me $4.95 and $8.95 and $11.95 per month? To cover the costs of charging me, or something? A jukebox will play a single song for a single payment $0.25. If we can put a man on the moon we should be able to provide an Internet service that delivers what a jukebox can deliver.

    So, what you have a service patterned on the very successful Napster or Audiogalaxy, the only difference being that to access it, you need to charge $15 to set up your account, and every time you download a song, $0.25 gets deducted from the account.

    There's no reason in the world other than pigheadedness why this couldn't work, and could be very profitable for music companies.

  • They have almost nothing to offer over what the various P2P networks give you for free.

    I think this should have read, "They have almost nothing to offer over what the various P2P networks give you illegally, but for free."

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