Universal and Sony Plan "Free" Music Service 98
Damon Tog writes "Macworld reports that Universal Music Group has enlisted the help of Sony to join forces in a new music service. The price of the subscription is expected to be built-in to the cost of digital music players, leaving the music 'free' to the consumer. 'The plan is still in flux and faces several hurdles, BusinessWeek notes. Among them is finding a business model that allows the hardware makers to subsidize the cost of the music. In addition, the labels have tried to develop their own online music services before without success.'"
One thing worth knowing (Score:1)
Re:One thing worth knowing (Score:5, Insightful)
The most important question is the one that the major labels always forget to ask: what value does this bring to consumers? With Amazon selling MP3s, why pay $100 extra for a player, which is designed to break in 18 months?
Better Question (Score:4, Insightful)
And as such, here's a better question: What happens to the music when you stop paying the subscription?
Most subscription services of that type cancel all of your music when you're done. Are you going to want to pay two or three years worth of subscription fees and end up with nothing?
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Yeah, that's the intent. And I for one don't see any way this could fail *cough*CHINA*cough*, none at all.
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Soon, the average consumer will belive the cost of music is $0. And the XXAA will have defined the total value of their catalogs at $90, considerably less than $9800 per song...
Re:One thing worth knowing (Score:5, Insightful)
Business Model? (Score:2, Insightful)
From TFA, Apple allegedly get $0.29 from every $0.99 iTunes sale, i.e. the record companies get $0.70; I'd bet that $0.29 has to fund the credit card charges and infrastructure costs while the $
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I think we're witnessing the beginning of the end of the 'traditional' music company and these sort of suggestions are just spasms from a body that doesn't know it's head has been cut off...
You got that right. Within these companies the people who were supposed to come up with ideas and haven't, have to put something out to save their jobs, so they mention something ridiculous like this. I can't imagine there are 6 people left in the US who would have enough trust in these companies to plunk down the kind of money that would be needed to give this any chance whatsoever of making a profit.
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Large amount of fairly steady, predictable revenue every month, no matter what people actually want
-they get monthly fees whether or not you use a device or the associated service [say, if the device is lost or broken]
-they are also paid PER DEVICE, so you wind up paying multiple times for the same music [cuz they'll want you to buy a second 'player' for your car, another for your home, and one for each of your household to walk around with (sharing devices is V
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Brought to you from the industry that actually hates it customers....
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This has little if anything to do with the RIAA: they're just a just the enforcement arm of the big studios, and they will do what they're told.
In a sense, the RIAA has nothing to do with the RIAA.
The RIAA is a trade association.
Its four biggest members decided to combine together and pool their copyrights in a way that would violate antitrust law, so they decided to use their trade association as a "protective shield" for their otherwise unlawful activity. No other members of the RIAA have anything to do with the litigation campaign. And the RIAA is not an "enforcement" organization at all. If you look at its charter I doubt you'll see anythi
And the reason is you... (Score:3, Insightful)
People want music in several formats.
People want music that plays over all devices they own.
People want music in varying quality, and are willing to scale the pay of a song to the quality.
People are not willing to pay more than a song is worth. (This is the biggest issue for the labels)
If a service is build instead of a program, the company will be successful.
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selling horse carriages. When they forced the original napster out of business, they then took it's model (and name)
and made it legit. The same now has to happen with bittorrent trackers. Charge a reasonable subscription,
set up dedicated seeds so you only have to upload while you download, ???, profit, though not nearly as much
as before. People will pay to be legit, and have all the old son
Allofmp3 (Score:1)
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Of course they don't! The wast majority of people who buy music want to listen it. If formats get in the way, that's bad. If they don't, it's good.
They do? Most people have no concept whatsoever of file-size, and file-size to quality ratios.. and nor should they have. They want music, they want to listen to it and as long as they don't
From a music industry exec (Score:4, Interesting)
People want music that plays over all devices they own.
People want music in varying quality, and are willing to scale the pay of a song to the quality.
People are not willing to pay more than a song is worth. (This is the biggest issue for the labels)
We've figured it out now. People want free (as in beer) music! That's why we have rampant piracy and such lackluster sales. Right? Duh. Those mindless buggers care for nothing but free. But since these music-playing handheld machines still are selling like hotcakes, there must be some way we can get money from them instead!
Obviously we just have to make music "free", and people will buy... erm, rent... er, hang on... enjoy (yes!) our music again!
Trust us, our plans are brilliant this time!
Oh... and I shouldn't write this... It's supposed to be a secret, but here goes: Since this "free" service obviously needs to be limited to the specific devices that are paying us, there must be some DRM involved. That means that we can at any time change this into a pay-per-play scheme. See how clever we are!!!
We should have done this sooner! World domination! We've learned now! Those selfish consumers want nothing but free, so we'll give them "free", all right. Ha! this time, we cannot loose! Brilliant, I tell you!
Trust us, our plans are brilliant this time! (Score:1)
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Fed Up (Score:1)
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hope this is sarcastic....
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Yeah -- since this is by the industry, wait till you see the price. It'll probably be something like $150 + ($1.50 * song_capacity). So for a 1gb device (240 songs), expect to pay $510. The next question to answer is whether you can replace songs. I'd expect it would be a one-way deal -- once you load it, you own it, and can't replace it. If the songs are replaceable, they'd soon run
Good Sign (Score:2, Insightful)
This could be a great thing for both consumers and corperations, if they are willing to start trying new business models, it means we as customers could very well wind up with new innovative ways to enjo
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They might even have a few years of success with such a model, but as soon as the first groups of consumers who quit starting complaining about not having their music any more, support will wane, and their grand scheme will flop.
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What about this scenario: you subscribe for some songs you really like, but as revenue starts flowing, labels publish as much crap as possible, because they know you would like to hold onto the content you like. If you rebelled, the songs you like either expire at the end of subscription, or would be tied to one particular player which is gonna get obsolete/less functional in 3 years or less and with rest
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For example, I have a 2G iPod nano which works great. I don't see any reason to spend money on a 3
Yearly Subscription (Score:1)
it's en fuego (Score:5, Funny)
Initial reports indicate this offer is really "heating up", but that's only because the music players use Sony batteries.
blah blah blah (Score:1)
The sad truth is ... (Score:1, Insightful)
"Free" as in "Sony" (Score:5, Insightful)
- Free as in speech (you're free to do what you want with it)
- Free as in beer (you get it for free)
- And now there's free as in Sony (we're free to fuck you after we have your money)
No thanks, Sony and UMG. Fool me once, can't get fooled again.Re: (Score:1)
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IF so you forgot the unusuals pauses. I don't understand why people are so emotionally charged on this site. Before passing down judgement we need know how this will actually be implemented. While I doubt that this will be painless to use theres still a chance it might actually work out really well.
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I don't understand why people are so emotionally charged on this site. Before passing down judgement we need know how this will actually be implemented.
It doesn't matter how it's implemented if the companies doing it can't be trusted. These companies can't be trusted.
Case in point: on the issue of ripping one's own cd for personal use, at the oral argument before the US Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster, when it suited their advantage, they said that that type of copying was fine. Then, on the witness stand in Capitol v. Thomas last week, they said it was not fine, it was a copyright infringement.
It doesn't matter how they say they will "implement" it; t
All the music fit to hear (Score:4, Interesting)
It's like radio, but with more room to roam in your cage.
The problem is that selling cages to consumers has traditionally led to them escaping, or not entering in the first place in great numbers...
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And make it more difficult for artists t quit the majors, like some begin to do.
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It gets worse for the music industry (Score:2)
Among them is finding a business model that allows the hardware makers to subsidize the cost of the music.
Er, right.
The music industry has an even worse problem coming up. The music player industry will probably be eaten by the phone industry. Most newer phones have some music player capability. And the phone guys have a network in place that can distribute the music. The problem for the labels is that the telcos want a much bigger piece of the revenue than iTunes takes. Sprint started at $2.50
But sometimes you just want a music player... (Score:2)
As convienent as a all-in-one device is, sometimes I don't want to bring something that expensive with me. If I'm going to work out, all I want is the music player. I don't want to get interrupted, and I don't want to risk damaging a much more expensive piece of equipment. There's always going to be a market for an mp3 pl
Why (Score:1)
We have already seen that most of those that pirate music still purchase CD's - in fact we consistently see that those that pirate music are the *highest* purchasers of music. Why do they need to incorporate this - it is already subsidized in the outrageous cost for a CD?
Allow it to play anything and make your money off 15 dollar CD's like they always have. Put lyrics, art, higher quality recordings (tha
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"We have already seen that most of those that pirate music still purchase CD's - in fact we consistently see that those that pirate music are the *highest* purchasers of music."
Yet piracy is exploding, while CD sales are dropping.
I think there's a bit of confirmation bias going on here -- we want to feel good about piracy, so we keep repeating stuff like the above. When somebody tells us that their piracy has led them to purchase more music, we remember it. When we meet somebody who (like many of my f
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The last couple of years the Movie companies have moved toward sequels as a way of life. They are afraid of messing up - so they take the 'safe' route. (Pirates 1, 2 and 3 Shrek 1,2 and 3) Note for the most part sequels make less money each time. The record companies have been doing this even longer and I believe that this is why sales are dropping for the record industry. They are so afraid of failure that each new song is really a remake of
I still long for the day (Score:2)
Playing Let's Pretend for a minute, if I owned an online music store I would offer music in MP3 format and also FLAC for the advanced users.
People could then download the FLAC versions and use some crappy tool that I provide to convert it into a selection of different formats.
Oh, and albums would be downloaded in a single zip file. If Radiohead can do it then so can I.
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"Advanced users" using FLAC don't need you to provide some crappy tool.
Magnatune [magnatune.com] already does what you suggest, including the optional FLAC downloads. Presumably the typical musician isn't impressed with the concept, or it would have conquered the market by now.
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The other option I want is downloads via flac that is followed up by a physical disk in the mail. This would give me all of the professionally produced packaging and pressed disk, w
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Sounds like another non-starter. Think DivX (Score:2)
First (and fatal) flaw: if you're going to roll the cost of the music into the price of the player then it's going to be far more expensive than any other portable player. Even a "minimal" 4 GB player holds about 800 tunes - even i
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That sounds like cartel and probably highly illegal under American copyright law,
You mean anti-trust law.
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And yes.
It sounds highly illegal to me as well.
S/FREE/LOCKED IN (Score:1)
What about the storage TAX? (Score:1)
too little too late (Score:2)
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This is actually a great move (Score:5, Insightful)
This creates two incentives. The first is to increase the sale of tunes, since the other players depend on the tunes not the player as their main business. So they want more tunes sold. But as long as there is an Apple monopoly of sold tunes, this isn't going to happen, and there is nothing they can do about it.
The second incentive is to compete with Apple as a retailer.
So, because of the success so far of the Apple strategy, all they can really do is emulate it: come up with another store, another player, a different format, and tunes locked to it. Since they have to overcome an incumbent, they will be reduced to making his attractive by initially lowering the price of the tunes and using a different locked format, to make people use their player. This will be a replay of competing format wars that we have seen with hardware formats in the past.
We will then move to the stage, which we have seen previously in media with different consumer formats, where consumers still refuse to buy the stuff because they hate incompatible formats. After a while of this an unlocked standard will emerge. I don't mean a standard that is not copy protected, but one does not lock purchased tunes to players from one particular vendor, or make them be purchased by one specialised bit of software or currency. It will work just like CDs and DVDs do now: buy your content wherever you want from one of a variety of independent outlets, using whatever payment means you want, and play it on the player of your choice, from one of several manufacturers.
The Apple strategy has worked well for a while, but it has within it, like all DRM based attempts to tie up your use of what you buy, the seeds of its own destruction. It is not a sustainable business model longer term. The present model for music and CDs was. The only thing that is destroying it is overpricing from the content publishers.
Apple is far better placed to deal with the implosion of the business model. Its trivial to take locking off the iPod and iTunes store. And if the money falls out of the tunes market, it hardly affects them. For the content owners, their whole model is falling to bits in well defined stages that we have previously seen in other format wars. It is what is coming towards us.
As an old fart... (Score:2)
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Free with strings (Score:1)
Very very small print: You need to install this rootkit software to make the MP3's work, but we're telling you in advance this time, so you can't sue us.
Copyright enforcement: If you do something we don't allow to our MP3's, we reserve the right to make that Li-ion battery in your MP3 player go up in smoke. Just see all those laptop batteries as examples of how to enforce copyright!
[not aiming comments at specific companies mind]
I usually sell good ideas (Score:2)
Create your music DRM free. Distribute it via your own tracker. Create some software for it that encorporates some PGP key exchange so "free" software can't access it. Load that software with P2P worked ads.
Effect: Since P2P software is usually notoriously slow and/or long running, people will see your ads. This will cover for the losses due to DRM freeness. Good PR is a given, even and especially amongst geeks, who have been criticising DRM for ages now and who are generally the loudest
IDDIIIIIOOOOOTS (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is: who put them in charge? Their proposed exit strategy for media distribution sounds as "shoot us in the leg". If I had any stok or option on those companies I would consider selling them now before is too late.
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Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, Pot. (Score:3, Insightful)
He's got to be aware of how outrageous it is for a music industry executive to be saying anything like that, doesn't he? Apparently not.
I think most everyone else had best not be drinking anything when they read his plaintive cry, though. Bad for keyboards and monitors...
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The underpants gnomes would be proud (Score:2)
2. Once they all hate you, alter your business model
3. Profit
this is all very good for the consumer... (Score:1)
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this is all very good for the consumer but what about artists, i'd like to know how this would be included in royalties for each end every artist in the world, i cant see how they are going to make that work!
I don't think they care much about that. They say they don't even know [blogspot.com] how much royalties they owe the artists. (See Oct. 11th letter of Richard L. Gabriel).
Trust sony after star wars galaxies (Score:2)
What the title should be... (Score:4, Funny)
Spiralfrog & imeem - Free & Legal Already (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:2)
There's a huge Catch 22 here. I'm all for competition, but if they win, and crush the iPod, do you think we'll be better off? They're the music business after all. Out to screw the customer and the artist. In the end, we'll all lose out.
Andy
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Universal is really trying to get control of the music business back from Apple. Looks like they're willing to use any means necessary to do so. There's a huge Catch 22 here. I'm all for competition, but if they win, and crush the iPod, do you think we'll be better off? They're the music business after all. Out to screw the customer and the artist. In the end, we'll all lose out.
Exactly. And we all know that by now. So why would anyone in his or her right mind buy into it?
By the way how could you call it "competition"... competitors joining forces to try to defeat someone else's business. Isn't that what you would call "anticompetitive"?
I certainly don't trust them. (Score:1)
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I don't trust UMG any further than I can throw them. Then offering free music is like a fox offering 'free meals' for hens. At this point, there is only one thing Universal Music Group could do that would make me happy - and that would be GO BANKRUPT. On the day they finally fall apart, I'll be the first person dancing on their proverbial grave and rejoicing.
Let me give you fair warning, Lunar. I'm going to try to get there ahead of you. I want to be the first. May the best man win.
I want an indemnity MP3 player to cover downloads (Score:2)
What I want is the option to buy an MP3 player that will indemnify me ("legal exemption from liability for damages") from any repercussions from MP3 downloads. If I buy this player, I have purchased the right to play whatever MP3 files I find online from RIAA member labels.
Or not even purchase the player, but just a certificate or something. Why don't they offer this so people who want to be honest can be? Your only real option is to buy music on CD to have a legal copy of it. Why isn't there a web site
Re:I want an indemnity MP3 player to cover downloa (Score:1)
By the definitions set forth in print and media by the law teams for the RIAA, just ripping a copy of a CD in a computer constitutes theft. Thats their words.
It apparently doesn't matter that the "fair use" doctrine is in play here either. They are attempting to rewrite law as they go along and waiting for someone high up to challenge them on it.
They will ultimately kill the traditional business model of the record/CD medium, and also the rights by any human to hear any o
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By the definitions set forth in print and media by the law teams for the RIAA, just ripping a copy of a CD in a computer constitutes theft. Thats their words. It apparently doesn't matter that the "fair use" doctrine is in play here either. They are attempting to rewrite law as they go along and waiting for someone high up to challenge them on it. They will ultimately kill the traditional business model of the record/CD medium, and also the rights by any human to hear any of the legacy music until they decide when and where.
You have accurately described the Law According to these record companies.
Your only remaining music WILL come from new artists writing and performing songs by which the RIAA cannot come by and park on.
Which is correct, except that old artists are dumping them also. See, e.g., Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Madonna. Now that the lawsuits have received so much publicity, and now that it's clear that these record companies are vestiges, I believe you're going to see many or most major artists decline to renew as their contracts run out. There is simply no reason any more to sign the oppressive recording agreements that have been the li
Less money for the artists (Score:1)
Remember what Steve posted (Score:1)
February 6, 2007
With the stunning global success of Apple's iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to "open" the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods. Let's examine the current situation and how we got here, then look at three poss
Unbelievable (Score:4, Insightful)
2. Don't they realize that their antitrust combination to try to defeat Apple would be a flagrant violation of antitrust law?
3. Why are they incapable of just trying to compete with someone in a fair and open way?
4. Who in the US would be stupid enough to patronize their new venture and thus subsidize their RIAA lawsuits against the American people.
5. SONY BMG are the guys who just testified in Capitol v. Thomas [blogspot.com] that it is illegal for people to copy their cd's onto their computers for personal use.
Anyone who would buy anything from these companies is an idiot.
Bah.... who trusts Sony (Score:1)