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Music Media The Internet

Say Goodbye to BuyMusic.com 212

Posted by CowboyNeal from the can't-say-i-ever-said-hello dept.
dark_lotus writes "Spymac.com today is reporting that an e-mail sent to prior customers of BuyMusic.com, informing them that BuyMusic.com is being merged into the parent site, Buy.com. Spymac reports: BuyMusic.com initially expected to sell one million songs per day or 200 to 300 in the first year according to estimates by founder and CEO Scott Blum. When re-interviewed in December, Blum offered no statistics, but did say, 'We're nowhere near Apple's numbers.'"
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Say Goodbye to BuyMusic.com More

Say Goodbye to BuyMusic.com

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  • Give me a break. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Liselle ( 684663 ) * <slashdotNO@SPAMliselle.net> on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:32AM (#8695662) Journal
    This may be slightly OT, but: I've never visited this site before, and I wanted to see what they were about. So I click the pretty link for BuyMusic.com, and I'm greeted with this:
    In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
    I realize it's unlikely that supporting the most popular web browser on the most popular desktop OS is bad for business, but locking out everyone else? I can't even find out what these people are about without having to load up IE and crossing my fingers. Pfft, to heck with that. I won't have the gall to say "no wonder these people are going south", because I know that people who use the same browser as I do are a niche market. But still... Sheesh!

    • Re:Give me a break. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by t1m0r4n ( 310230 )

      I've never visited this site before, and I wanted to see what they were about.

      I think the fact that you never visited the site before is the primary problem, as I feel it is safe to say that many others never visited the site either. I doubt the choice in requiring IE has anything to do with the failure. Didn't the original iTunes store require a Mac? But Apple had some marketing. Jeepers, buymusic.com wanted a million sales a day - I can't help but hear Doctor Evil saying that. Where the heck were they

    • Re:Give me a break. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ender Ryan ( 79406 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:55AM (#8695799) Journal
      Hmmm... From the browser stats at my place of business, IE has fallen below 90% of the browser market, and our users are generally not very technically adept.

      In what other business is cutting off 10% of potential customers, without it being an absolute necessity of course(eg., alcohol/tobacco companies not selling to minors - bad example maybe, as they often try, heh), considered a good business decision, or even sane?

      Meh, whatever.

      • Re:Give me a break. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Troed ( 102527 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:00AM (#8695832) Homepage Journal
        Several people running non-mainstream websites (like my own) have reported IE falling below 60-65% since 6 months ago. My site is not targetted at anyone particular (like a Linux-site would be) - but neither is it especially mainstream.

        Statistics for February:


        1 62.21% MSIE (all versions)
        2 14.00% Mozilla (All Gecko-based browsers)
        3 9.46% Opera (all versions)
      • considered a good business decision, or even sane? It depends, if the cost to make it work for thoes 10% is greater then the expected profits from that 10% then it is a good business decision. Since you need WMP 9 to play the music, I would say it is a good decision. If you have access to WMP 9, you probably also have access to IE, so why code the site to work for mozilla/opera/safari when you don't know if those users can even buy the music?
      • "In what other business is cutting off 10% of potential customers {snip} considered a good business decision, or even sane?"

        Well, the question is what the additional expense is of supporting that remaining 10%.

        Lets say for the sake of argument that it would cost just as much to support that remaining 10% as it does the first 90% -- wouldn't it then be an obvious decision to hold off on that last 10%, at least until it can be shown that it would bring in greater revenue than the cost of implementation?

        • Well, the question is what the additional expense is of supporting that remaining 10%.

          Isn't supporting practically 100% of browsers at no extra expense why we have web standards?
          • "Isn't supporting practically 100% of browsers at no extra expense why we have web standards?"

            Well, not exactly. For instance, think about plug-ins like Flash or Java. It's easy enough to envision a sophisticated Web-app that would require such plug-ins to be present. Additionally, I think BuyMusic uses Microsoft's DRM anyway, and so it's not such a shock that they mostly target a Windows audience.

            I do still wonder why the BuyMusic site itself would require IE...

      • Re:Give me a break. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @01:06PM (#8696442)
        Right, the point about non-IE users isn't that they are 10% of the market, it's that for many high tech apps, a substantive portion of that 10% are the early-adopters and technological evangelists. These people are often key to acceptance and adoption of these "disruptive" sorts of products. You have to appeal to Joe Average, but just appealing to Joe Average itself isn't necessarily enough.


        Not saying the way to make money is appealing to the ultra-rabid Linux geek or anything, but the broader set of technological trendsetters generally know better than to use IE.

    • Re:Give me a break. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So I click the pretty link for BuyMusic.com, and I'm greeted with this: "In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher."

      Yeah, they did that not long after they came out, because so many Mac users were checking the site out and then deriding what they found, or copying the HTML wholesale and making parody sites, which BuyMusic threatened with their lawyers.

  • Goodbye... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    who?

    I'm not sure I've even heard of this site...

  • Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by James A. M. Joyce ( 764379 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:35AM (#8695679) Journal
    ...the fact that they charge $1.99 a song probably didn't help either. It's supply and demand, people. You increase price, demand falls. It's economics 101.

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Informative)

      by General Wesc ( 59919 )

      Actually, quantity demanded is lower at higher prices. The demand itself is unchanged. Demand is the line along the quantity-price chart. Quantity Demanded is a point on the demand, determined by the price. Demand(price) = Quantity Demanded.

      Silly little temrinology nitpick. Sorry

    • Well, not always $1.99 (Score:5, Informative)

      by gotr00t ( 563828 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:50AM (#8695767) Journal
      I think that one of the major contributing features to iTunes that stimulates Apple's success is the presence of a uniform price for all songs. BuyMusic.com did not have this, and their prices ranged from 80 cents to 2 dollars.

      Moreover, their interface was terrible (browser based), and I have heard many stories about how people just could not get the songs to work on their machine (which met the system requirements).

      • There's nothing bad about a browser-based music store. iTunes is just a browser inside the iTunes program, after all. Remember AudioGalaxy? Great app with a browser based app that ket you queue your songs remotely.

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by e-gold ( 36755 ) <jray@martin c a m .com> on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:01AM (#8695833) Homepage Journal
      Interestingly, www.magnatune.com reports their users DON'T pay the lowest prices they could choose (and Magnatune's what everyone SAYS they want because you can try before you buy, etc., so of course everyone's now busily-ignoring it!).
      JMR
      • I bought an album from Magnatune just a few days ago (Emma's Mini is the artist). I like the concept, but their selection is too limited IMHO. I only found that one album that really appealed to me.

        • Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)

          by shiffman ( 118484 )
          Exactly. A lot of comments here and in related articles about "this store will win!" based on its policies and (lack of) DRM ignore this important fact: it's about the product as well as the shopping experience. I went to Magnatune and spent a lot of time listening. But the only disc I bought was a Lara St. John classical. There was a fair amount of interesting music but nothing else that grabbed me enough to get my hardly earned dollars. Whereas I've been buying two albums a week at iTMS.

          Magnatune ha

      • Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by quantaman ( 517394 )
        Interestingly, www.magnatune.com reports their users DON'T pay the lowest prices they could choose (and Magnatune's what everyone SAYS they want because you can try before you buy, etc., so of course everyone's now busily-ignoring it!).


        I really like Magnatunes too but for that statistic remember that Magnatunes is not only try before you buy, it's download a free MP3 before you buy. As a result this means that all payments are completely voluntary (ie they don't have to pay but do anyway) considering thi

  • Bad math (Score:5, Funny)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:35AM (#8695685) Homepage
    "BuyMusic.com initially expected to sell one million songs per day or 200 to 300 in the first year according to estimates by founder and CEO Scott Blum"

    Well there's your problem right there. Let's see, either one million songs per day -OR- 200 to 300 in the first year. Yessir, typically fuzzy CEO math led to the downfall, I'd say. On the other hand, while that first target was quite high, the second target was easy to exceed. Why I bet I could sell 200 to 300 songs in a year by standing on the street corner.

  • the fate of all the other music companies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:38AM (#8695695) Homepage
    will be similar.

    the only players in the market will be Apple and Microsoft because they have the money and product variety to support the low profit business.
    • Low profit? I'm guessing more like NO profit. Apple said it themselves, didn't they?

      Failures like these (and all the rest that came before, and will come after) just point to the fact that by and large, consumers aren't dying to spend 99 cents on a song, they just want to get music FOR FREE. A lot of rants in the past on Slashdot boiled down to "Oh, it's so obvious! The only reason people are using Kazaa and Napster is because those stupid record companies won't let them buy tracks online for 99 cents

      • I agree. Get music for free is the mantra of the day.

        But what if you could take that to the next level and get paid [divendo.net] for sharing your purchased music. What would you rather have then?

        • A system [kazaa.com] that allows you to download music for free (and maybe illegally so)?
        • Or a system [divendo.net] where you pay for music but which then allows you to get paid too for sharing it -- and which infact allows you to recoup more than the original price that you paid for the song itself.
        • Or a system where you pay for music but which then allows you to get paid too for sharing it -- and which infact allows you to recoup more than the original price that you paid for the song itself.

          Well, obvious question is "does this system you mention let me listen to my favorite artists, or does it only let me listen to underground indie bands, some of whom are decent, but the majority of whom aren't?'

          And the obvious answer is 'sorry, you're screwed if you like any mainstream band'.

          -T

          • Yeah, I guess today you are quite screwed if you want access to a mainstream band commited to either one of the major record lables or to any of their subsidiaries. Unless of course the guys at Divendo can get the major record labels to back them.

            Don't see that happening unless the Divendo people are as well entrenced in the media space as Steve Jobs is.. i.e. to be able to do enough to influence that sphere by breaking "new ground".

            An interesting application for content distribution nonetheless. Even m
            • Yeah, I guess today you are quite screwed if you want access to a mainstream band commited to either one of the major record lables or to any of their subsidiaries. Unless of course the guys at Divendo can get the major record labels to back them.

              To the first, no - iTunes, and going out to buy the CD. To the second, nearly impossible. The major record labels would have to agree to license distribution rights, through Divendo, to millions of end users (can't upload a song if you don't have rights from th

        • For that Divendo thing, but from what you indicated, it sounds like a pyramid scheme that might actually work.

          Invest in the product, and then tell other people to invest in the same product through you. The investment cost is low enough to not be prohibitive, and the interest is there (I mean, who doesn't like music), plus it no longer becomes a hard sell when its a matter of sharing your good taste in music with others. Wish I would have thought of it...
      • Actually, I want to download my music easily. Key difference. In fact, I've been on and off Poisoned for the last few days, and have yet to find an album that is readily available on iTMS. In fact, I've only been able to find one song. The band - Pond. The album costs $9.90 for 10 songs on iTMS, so no price break vs. individual tracks, but how much is my time worth? As a private forester, I don't work for less than $300/day in general, and usually not less than $400.

        Anyways, that's my take on it. It's ain't the price, it's the convenience.

        (tig)

    • I'm not sure I agree with you.

      Somone new [divendo.net] could well come along with an alternate business model that would easily upset the archaic retail system (from having simply moved terrestrial retail to the internet) that Apple is built on and that MSFT too is looking to base itself on.

      It's too early to make a call. I mean even the million+ traffic on iTunes right now is a small percentage of the billion+ exchanged and transacted over P2P right now. Once again too early to call coz you never know what way legi

      • Someone could come along an upset the record industry, though definitely the record industry is doing far more damage to itself. Sites like GarageBand.com, or Magnatude, or even this Divendo (when it comes out) may all contribute but I can't imagine they will be the death blow to the music industry.

        If you gave me access to good music for free, with the only requirement being to watch ads or share my bandwidth on some type of measureable and controllable (by me) basis, I'd probably do it. But, I'd still wa
    • Just because buymusic.com's managers were incompetent, it doesn't mean all the other music companies will go the same way.

      There is more than 1 business model that makes sense here. Take a look at www.warprecords.com - they have an amazingly comprehensive roster of acts in a quite specialised market sector, and they have exclusive content. The chance of you liking any of their content is low, but if you do like it the chances are you will love all of it, and you'll go back and check it regularly for your n
    • I agree, but don't forget Sony. They have the tech, the marketing and the songs so should be able to theoretically outdo both.

  • First casuality (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ericdano ( 113424 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:39AM (#8695698) Homepage
    Yes, this is the first casuality of the new internet bubble. Next up I think will be Napster. It will probably be bought/merged with Microsoft's forthcoming online music endeavor.
    • "Yes, this is the first casuality of the new internet bubble. Next up I think will be Napster. It will probably be bought/merged with Microsoft's forthcoming online music endeavor."

      I think Apple will buy out Napster/Roxio. What a way to kill a competitor and then gain something on top of it. It would be great if Toast6 could be integrated into OS X 10.4 (or 10.5). Whereas if Microsoft were to buy Roxio, they'd be challenged if they were to incorporate Easy Media Creator into Windows Longhorn. The EU wo

  • Buy.com you fools (Score:4, Interesting)

    by colinramsay ( 603167 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:39AM (#8695700) Homepage
    We took advantage of a voucher offer that buy.com were running here in the UK to rip them off to the tune of a few hundred pounds. A few simple security checks would have prevented it but they obviously weren't organised enough for that.

    Having seen that masterpiece of commercial stupidity I'm not surprised that this venture is failing.

    • Old /. campfire stories (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:16AM (#8695911)
      I had this friend in high school who back in the eighth grade bilked CDNOW to the tune of thousands of dollars. CDNOW used to have this 'affiliate program'-- similar to Amazon's, though I can't remember who developed it first-- where if you followed a link from somebody's website to CDNOW, then bought something, you'd get a referral commission, a percentage of the sale.

      What my friend discovered was that this commission applied even if you didn't actually spend money-- that is, if you used a gift certificate. This lead to a nice little unintended consequence.

      What my friend did was set up two accounts with different credit cards, and then buy a $20 gift certificate with one of them. And then he just over and over, for months, would go back and forth, taking that gift certificate, going on cdnow via his affiliate link, using the gift certificate to buy another $20 gift certificate, and then giving the gift certificate to his other cdnow account. Then repeating. Over. And over. And getting the referral commission each time.

      By the time someone finally realized what he was doing, shut down his account, and closed the loophole, I believe he'd collected something like $3000 in referral fees just from passing this gift certificate back and forth. And since CDNOW was set up to automatically send free schwag to anyone who did well as a "referrer", and he kept triggering this, he had like 15 CDNOW t-shirts, all these posters....

      He then moved on to... doing nebulous things... on ebay. By the time we graduated high school he was well-known for scalping concert tickets. I don't know what happened to him after that. I would not be surprised if he's either CEO of some huge company or in federal prison by now. Or both.
    • On first glance I'd have to agree with the AC poster here and I don't know why he was modded as a troll. In fact the parent seems like a troll simply because he gives no detail about this "rip off" of buy.com.

      Conlinramsay, if you're not trolling can you humour us with a little more info on this incedent? I am inclined to be skeptical without it.

  • Bad Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skajake ( 613518 ) * on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:40AM (#8695710)
    Perhaps if i had
    a) Heard about the site
    b) They supported my browser
    I might have used it. But I suppose they will just give up and sell out before trying to reach me, the customer.

  • Consolidation begins (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:41AM (#8695712)
    Its a case of too many players (online music sites) and too few players (downloaders). I suspect the industry will converge down to 4 or 5 major online music sites. Initial survivors of the first round of consolidation will include: Apple (they've got the iPod, nice interface, and early lead), Microsoft (they've got the desktop monopoly), and Wal-Mart (they've got the low cost structure). Perhps a couple of others might surive by having a nice sales model (e.g., subscription) or novel technology (i.e., a better way to find new interesting music).

    • Re:Consolidation begins (Score:4, Insightful)

      by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <lynxpro AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:59AM (#8695822)
      "and Wal-Mart (they've got the low cost structure)."

      Seriously, who is going to buy downloaded music from Wal*Mart? Their store customer base for the most part is not sophisticated enough to get the download model and if they can't attract them, who are they going to attract? I won't buy from Wal*Mart based upon a savings of 10 cents per song when its in WMA format and I cannot be sure the track hasn't been edited.

      I'd be willing to bet that the iTunes Music Store will receive anchoring from retailers such as Target though. Kinda like how Amazon is maintaining the online sites of several retailers now.

      • Seriously, who is going to buy downloaded music from Wal*Mart? Their store customer base for the most part is not sophisticated enough to get the download model and if they can't attract them, who are they going to attract? I won't buy from Wal*Mart based upon a savings of 10 cents per song when its in WMA format and I cannot be sure the track hasn't been edited.

        You may not be price sensitive, but Wal-Mart's success (now at over a quarter trillion dollars a year in sales) suggests that many people do lik
      • I'd be willing to bet that the iTunes Music Store will receive anchoring from retailers such as Target though.

        Already started. You can now buy iTMS Gift Cards at Target [com.com].

  • Review of BuyMusic (Score:5, Informative)

    by briggsb ( 217215 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:42AM (#8695716)
    Here's a review of BuyMusic.com [bbspot.com]. Some of the reasons for it's unpopularity are pretty obvious from the review.

    • Here's a review of BuyMusic.com. Some of the reasons for it's unpopularity are pretty obvious from the review.

      I think you misspelled "my". It's a nice list of reviews, don't get me wrong, but I think most people would prefer full disclosure when you karma whore like that! :-)

  • A day for the history books (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:42AM (#8695718)
    1) Thing is released
    2) Slashdotters deride Thing and has say it has no chance and will fail miserably
    3) Thing fails miserably

    Folks, let's stop and reflect. This isn't a sequence of events we see too often. And we may not see it again until-- well-- until Infinium has to either release a product or go bankrupt. So, um, may.

  • This is surprising how? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hawthorne01 ( 575586 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:42AM (#8695722)
    Confusing DRM: Songs purchased from BuyMusic vary widely in burns allowed, transeferring to other machines, etc.)

    Limited/poor selection: Never increased from their initial catalog

    Poor search functionality / confusing website layout: If customers can't find what they want, they're not going to be able to buy it.

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  • Is it just me.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jwthompson2 ( 749521 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:42AM (#8695723) Homepage
    or did anyone else never see a single advertisement about this alternative to iTMS? I have seen hundreds of commercials and other advertisements for the iPod and iTMS but never a single one for BuyMusic. The only thing I remember hearing was on TechTV when some billboard was shown off somewhere when the site opened, that's it for my exposure to their marketing campaign.

    Am I alone on this or can we equate market failure with marketting failure on this one?

    • Re:Is it just me.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hawthorne01 ( 575586 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:46AM (#8695736)
      They ran a lot of ads when it launched with Tommy Lee smashing the same model of guitar that Apple featured on the iTunes portion of their site.

      Bad karma right there. Never fsck with a company who's CEO has a Reality Distortion Field. :-)

      • Well... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:06AM (#8695862) Homepage
        Bad karma right there. Never fsck with a company who's CEO has a Reality Distortion Field. :-)

        ...most CEOs seem to have their own personally issued one. Never fsck with one that has an industrial strength generator tho.

        Kjella

  • Say goodbye to ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zooka ( 457908 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:51AM (#8695771)
    Say goodbye to BuyMusic.com, the web site.
    It's being integrated into the parent site, Buy.com.
    Not quite the same as giving up and closing shop.
    Or did I miss something?

    Is it really goodbye, or more like "See you later, when you re-open down the street"...

  • The tragedy... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @10:51AM (#8695772)
    Is that this will likely be used as ammunition to "prove" that no one wants to buy downloadable music. "Oh alack and alas," I can hear them sigh, "We, the lowly and humble record industry did so TRY to sell music on the Internet, surely we did, but those evil pirates just refuse to buy songs they can download for free!"

    • Re:The tragedy... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by parkrrrr ( 30782 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:04AM (#8695853)
      According to a piece on All Things Considered [npr.org] yesterday, the RIAA's attempts to vilify "pirates" are apparently discouraging potential customers from buying online, even from legitimate stores like iTMS and Wal-Mart.
      • And I have no doubt that it's not in any way coincidental. Online music in *any* form threatens the RIAA and the nice, comfortable distribution system they've gotten set up. Especially now that they're starting to make inroads on shutting down independent music stores as well.

        If only more people in the government would wake up and realize that there is simply no logical sense to anything the RIAA has done in the last few years, EXCEPT if the end goal is to prevent competition from any other distribution

  • ... that this is a market rejection of their heavy-handed MS-based, Windoze-only DRM; it was way too problematic.
    Plus, if you'll recall from when this service debuted, you didn't buy the music a la iTunes, but rather you in effect were leasing it.

  • This didn't help... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by microcars ( 708223 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:05AM (#8695858) Homepage
    remember the flak they got from one artist who claimed they did NOT have permission to resell her songs [macnn.com] because they got the bulk of their catalog from Orchards.

    bit 'o quote from the above link:

    Here's what I've deduced... BuyMusic.com (which I will refer to as BM) got their "vast" music library of 300,000 plus songs from a company called the Orchard. The Orchard is a distribution company that has consistently shafted artists by not paying them for CD's sold nor returning unsold CD's or canceling contracts. So, without the express consent of what is likely all of the Orchards catalog, BM has put it up for sale at the bargain price of $.79 a song.

    So now, they can tout they're selling tracks at $.79 and they can say they have a library of music of over 300,000 songs. But what they don't tell you is that it comes from musicians/bands that were not asked for permission, and who will likely not see a penny of any sale made through BM. By their very own site policy they are committing copyright infringement. They have done this to lure PC/windows users to their site in hopes to sell the few major label aquired songs they do have, at a price that is much higher than Apple's $.99.

    • Re:This didn't help... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ThisIsFred ( 705426 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:06PM (#8696132) Journal
      Oh, real nice. >:o/

      That's one step worse that just redistributing illegal copies via P2P, because they were actually collecting money. Consumers want a) a big catalog, b) lower prices than just buying the CD, and c) no DRM. Sorry, but it can't be "choose any two", that area is already occupied by Apple. Maybe, since a ton of redistribution costs are eliminated, and since the music has already been published... Maybe, just maybe, the record labels might want consider lowering their cut of the sale. After all, the hosting fees are being soaked up by the company that's hosting the files and running the ebiz site. Bandwidth costs could be added as a subscription fee, the more you pay, the more files you can download a month/day/week.

      However, I'm fairly certain this isn't going to fly with the big record labels until the computing public stops getting a free lunch with downloads of copyrighted material. We've got a credibility problem while that's still going on. Every generation of legislation is going to be worse than the one before, until it's a felony. Anyone can look at the progression of these laws and see that the slippery slope argument does apply. And "use-prevention" (i.e. DRM) gets worse, too.
    • Uh yeah. They are doing that to me as well. [slashdot.org] The link is to my journal with several links to the old slashdot story and other references. By the way mods, please read the link before you mod this troll. Yes, I'm angry, and I'm sure you would be too. I repeat, it's one thing if fans are distributing my music for free via p2p, and completely another if a company is SELLING my music without my permission.
    • Hey Mic,

      Thanks for reposting this, it's encouraging to see the tech community reposting some of the horror stories that Indies normally suffer through without much public knowledge.

      BTW, Jody's a guy and his music is pretty good:
      http://www.jodywhitesides.com

  • I bought something from them (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:07AM (#8695868) Homepage Journal
    One song. I'm not a big music listener, but I wanted one particular song that I liked. I think I paid a buck for it.

    The experience was OK. Yeah, all the usual incompatibilities made the process less fun than it might have been. I had to upgrade to a version of Windows Media Player that I'd been deliberately avoiding. But that's one-time pain.

    So I bought my song, and listened to it a half-dozen times, and got my buck's worth. And didn't go back. Next time I needed a song, they didn't have it (it was somewhat more obscure). I went to iTunes instead and have bought another, oh, three or four songs from it.

    I bring this up because I suspect that while I fall at one end of the spectrum, it shows that music services need to be prepared for the fact that many users don't buy twelve albums a year. You can advertise like crazy, but even if you do manage to acquire a customer, it's still not going to rain profits down on you. Selling popular music will remain a difficult business in which only very large players will be able to compete.

    (Unpopular music, the kind many Slashdotters claim to prefer, which always seems to be the first thing people check for on a new music service, will always be something of a money-losing proposition.)
    • (Unpopular music, the kind many Slashdotters claim to prefer, which always seems to be the first thing people check for on a new music service, will always be something of a money-losing proposition.)

      "Unpopular" music can still be profitable.

      I think it is a good litmus test of whether a store truly has a variety of music they claim to have.

  • Is this really a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:08AM (#8695870)
    I think what these marketing geniuses are not considering is the new "internet word of mouth" factor. The books they've studied in college were probably writen when internet wasn't even around. These people are underestimating the buzz that can be generated on the internet because we are the first people to try new things and report on them in blogs, forums, etc. Has anyone seen a buzz regarding any of these DRM-laden WMA files? I've seen a plenty of excitement about iTMS, but none in relation to BuyMusic.com, Rhapsody, WalMart, Napster, et al. In fact, the noise is overwhelmingly negative when it comes to these distributors. Considering that most opinionated geeks on the internet don't use IE, should have been an indicator as to why it failed to generate the positive response from the masses. You treat them in a hostile manner, and your product or service fails to put up the kind of astronomical numbers some 40y/o suit scribbled on his business plan.

    So let this be a lesson to those people who want to market their product to masses if it involves the internet - Never disregard the netizens who are the first real quality assurance team. They wouldn't let me through the gate of the store because I was using Firefox. Nevermind the fact that I'm a very dedicated Windows user who was ready to test the service out. My experience while visiting BuyMusic.com:

    ME: get buymusic.com
    BUYMUSIC.COM: Hello. It seems that you're behind times with your browser. I'm going to assume you're using some kind of an archaic operating system like Mac or Linux, savage. Please go buy a real computer with WindowsXP then come back! Otherwise, go away. You are not welcome here.
    ME: Wait, I am a Windows user. It was awfully condescending of you to generalize.
    BUYMUSIC.COM: Sir, we apologize. Please open your real browser and come check out our selection of music.
    ME: Fuck you.

  • "Spymac.com today is reporting that an e-mail sent to prior customers of BuyMusic.com, informing them that BuyMusic.com is being merged into the parent site, Buy.com."

    Oh, dear. How I long for the days of complete sentences.

  • what? (Score:3, Funny)

    by sarvik ( 762713 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:23AM (#8695939)
    did anyone got a close look a their logo?
    Get Loaded(tm)

    that's it! I'm trademarking hangovers from now on!
  • Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.

    In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.

    I think I'll stick with the cross platform iTunes..
  • I remember going to reel.com (premiere DVD selling site online) way back and they eventually merged with buy.com.

    They still don't sell enough of the niche products like Amazon, and they charge sales tax in way too many states. If it wasn't these two factors I'd buy from them alot more.

  • Ha! pwned!

    but seriously..
    Serves them right, for all their trying to smack Apple's store around, it was drastically less featured and crashed the first 3 times I tried to test it. Eat it, buy.com.

  • I weep for Buymusic.com (Score:4, Informative)

    by darkest_light ( 663084 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:41AM (#8696019)
    Poor babies. Sometimes when you have terrible customer service [scriptygoddess.com], you sell music without the artists' permission [xlr8yourmac.com] and the press demonstration of your service fails [usatoday.com], you have a bad product. But then again, maybe not...

  • allofmp3.com will eat all their lunches (Score:5, Informative)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:44AM (#8696028) Homepage Journal
    My music buying money and the music buying money of my friends goes to allofmp3.com.

    Its cheap, legal, non DRM, supports all the formats you want including MP3, AAC, OGG at various bits rates and there are lossless compression modes as well for people who want PCM.

    It has what appears to be a sufficiently complete collection of music.

    You pay per megabyte. At 320kbps, albums cost around 86 cents.

    So why on Earth do people choose any of the US based DRM download merchants?

    • Re:allofmp3.com will eat all their lunches (Score:5, Informative)

      by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#8696182) Journal
      I just checked out their website.

      So, I'm guessing this isn't legal in the United States? When you check their legal help page, you find:
      All the materials in the MediaServices projects are available for distribution through Internet according to license # LS-3?-03-79 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. Under the license terms, MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting.


      Users are held liable for the use and distribution of the MediaServices site information materials according to local legislation.

      Does the Russian Federation's copyright laws allow anyone to redistribute copyrighted material using a provision something like a U.S. mechanical license combined with a compulsory license? I would imagine that means that allofmp3.com does not have an agreement with the artists or copyright holders to distribute this music. Since it says in their legal section that users are held liable according to local legislation, in the U.S. anyway there's no difference between using allofmp3.com and kazaa. I could be wrong, of course, but if you're trying to stay on the right side of the law, I don't think allofmp3.com is doing anything to help you out.

    • Re:allofmp3.com will eat all their lunches (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shiffman ( 118484 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#8696191) Homepage
      Legal? You mean because it's in Russia and possibly beyond the reach of American and European law? Something isn't legal just because it hasn't been caught yet.

      When something sounds too good to be true, it's likely because it is in fact too good to be true. $.86 an album may pay for bandwidth; it certainly isn't paying for the musicians. And much (most?) of the content they're offering is owned by the major labels, who are surely not receiving what they've contracted to receive.

      After a quick look around allofmp3.com I can only conclude that they're hoping to make their pile before somebody manages to shut them down. And then they can pop up somewhere else.

      The only differences between these guys and P2P are that they're better organized. And they charge you. But legal? Don't make me laugh.
    • There's nothing legal about allofmp3.com. It's a russian pirate site, albeit a very well made one. Don't kid yourself into thinking the artists are getting paid here, and it's certainly not legal in the USA.
      • russian? yes
        illegal in USA? yes

        illegal in russia? no

        to be fair, it's not a russian pirate site. it's a legal russian music site that happens to have an english version of their website. remember, they do license their music from russian equivalent of riaa.

  • Expectations too high? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:52AM (#8696068)
    BuyMusic.com initially expected to sell one million songs per day or 200 to 300 in the first year according to estimates by founder and CEO Scott Blum

    Basically there were hoping to sell about 1 million a day with yearly sales somewhere in the 200 to 300 million range. Apple is not going to beat those goals with esimated sales at 130 million songs a year, and they are #1 right now. I would think with a smaller catalog, BuyMusic was overly optimistic. And the problems with this is that plans made are for naught if your expectations far exceed reality.

  • Dot Com Era Thinking (Score:3, Insightful)

    by salesgeek ( 263995 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:14PM (#8696172) Homepage
    I thought the idea of build it and they'll come was dead a few years ago... Regardless, 500,000 plus transactions per day is not a reasonable expectation unless you are Wal-Mart.

  • Selling Music versus litigation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LookSharp ( 3864 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:46PM (#8696333)
    Here's an interesting thought (to me, anyway):

    Apple's sales alone have generated $32.5 million US for the labels-- that's 65 cents per song, times their 50 million downloads. At virtually no cost to them, other than somebody to manage the checks coming in.

    Think about how many people the RIAA have settled legal action with so far... at last check I saw a number of 1200. Their own numbers say they are averaging settlements of $2000 with each file sharer. That works out to $2.4 million US, LESS LEGAL COSTS, which I would imagine to be consistent.

    Which market strategy is more profitable?

    (I guess the counter-argument would be: keep suing a few people to keep up public education about piracy AND collect money from online music sales. But nobody's factoring in negative press and ill will generated by companies suing their own customers. And make no mistake, file sharers are, in bulk, RIAA customers.)
  • BuyMusic.com didn't make a key investment--dancing silhouettes! Apple has the coolness factor that other tech companies lack.

  • From http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/mar/15itunes . html [apple.com]:

    Apple's patent-pending "Allowance" feature which lets parents automatically deposit funds into their kids' iTunes Music Store account every month.

    You can already do this in meatspace with Visa, Wal-Mart, and other cards. Perhaps they mean to just use it defensivly, but really, whoever filed it is an immoral person.

    What was the final outcome of Amazon suing B&N on using Amazon's one click bullshit patent?

  • I bought from them (Score:2, Interesting)

    by joeljkp ( 254783 )
    I know I must be in the severe minority here, but I bought a song from buymusic.com once. Worked perfectly, and was the same price as all the others. I got it from them because none of the other stores had it. I'd say the problem was advertising.
  • Interesting that when I vistied buymusic.com [buymusic.com] on my Mac with Safari (go to preferences -> Advanced -> uncheck JavaScript) I saw a few Buymusic.com exclusives.

    Of the FOUR exclusives they have, one is titled "All down hill from here".

    This reminds me of some of the song titles Apple had posted in their press releases for hitting certail sales numbers:
    10 millionth - Complicated [apple.com]
    25 Millionth - Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! [apple.com]
    50 Millionth - Path of Thorns [apple.com]
  • one million songs per day or 200 to 300 in the first year

    Hmmm... One million songs per day, times 365 days in a year, equals 200 to 300 songs per year. Must be "The New Math."

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