Music Prices Going Up?

[Tommy Wasabi]

Krack Heads

If the music industry is going to raise the price of songs, the executives must be smoking the krack that they give to their artists.

Wake up and smell the dollars boys! If you raise rates - you will be placing significant barriers on the only thing that is saving your industry from complete dissolution.

But on the positive side, this act could be another examples of an ethically stupid pet trick! Problem is - we don't need more of those!

 

[harmless]

I hope that you know that these services are ILLEGAL?

They are not. Not in Germany. Even with the new restrictive copyright legislation it is only illegal to copy songs if the source is clearly unauthorized. This is not the case with allofmp3. As far as I can see it's a commercial site and there is no law that says I'm not allowed to buy there. So it's legal for me to use this service. If allofmp3 is not allowed so sell to me - well, that's not my concern ...


Andreas

 

[dontmatter]

Yeah, I sure as hell hope this is just a rumor. It's bad enough to have wal-mart selling songs for 88¢.

If it is true, I must say I doubt the labels would sell cheaper to other services. Somebody might decided to sell those songs at a loss to keep the one dollar price point, but the labels would raise prices for everybody, except maybe wal-mart, because of course they can find some way to be evil and make threats and bully their way into whatever the hell they want.

 

[Tommy Wasabi]

Won't work. They'll just blame their lost profits on piracy and spend another billion dollars on frivolous lawsuits.

Then when the boycott ends a month later and sales come back, they'll point to the extra money and say "see, the threat of lawsuits is working."

This is soooooo sad - but sorry to say - sooooooo true. This is another example of why having too many lawyers in the world IS A BAD THING. Maybe we could ask Congress to enforce a ceiling limit on the number of lawyers - that way, there is a fixed amount - this could possible keep the number of frivolous lawsuits to a few billion per year <grin>.

On the other hand, if congress would inact a law that basically says - you can sue whomever you want - but if the judge degrees it as frivolous and you loose - the attorney has to pay all the fees. If it is an attorney that is bring the lawsuit - then the attorney pays all the fees - for both sides!!

Ummmm - ah, wait a second, for a second there I was dreaming. "Yes, your honor. I agree with council on this point - we need more lawyers."

And the nightmare continues...

THE OPPOSITE OF CONGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

[morespce54]

pre-napster levels?

there are millions of people on KaZaA right now, sharing tens of millions of files.


yes, most of the files are crap, and don't work, etc, but they are there.

QUOTE]


Maybe there is (still), but the one thing they should focus on now is the attitude of peoples. I guess they'll never learn. When your intended customers stop paying for your product, it's usually: (a) because it's crap or (b) because it's too expensive.

Bottom line, it's your customers that decide. No matter what they are thinking or saying. wlcome back Napster

 

[dontmatter]

Any other company going this route would die, but remember the influence and brand awareness that Apple has built up, and thinking different could work out very well.

Basically, Apple dutifully price individual tracks at whatever price the big 5 think is best - ie they roll over, ha ha. Behind the scenes, Apple go all out to build up the biggest collection of decent indie music on the planet, (not as a record label, but as the store) and when the total collection of indie music stored on their servers is at say 500000 plus tracks, then it would be time to screw the big 5 totally ie relegate the big 5 collection to page 2.
sell the independents' singles at 80 cents, albums at $8 and market the indie music offerings like crazy.

It would be a backward step in some ways in the short term, ie the bubblegum crowd would be a bit disappointed that mainstream stuff was harder to find and a bit pricey, and maybe even the big 5 would pull their collections, but with Jobs and co on the marketing job, eventually consumers would come round to the fact that there is a reason that the hippest brand in digital music is predominantly offering access to very good quality indie music that is basically little known in the market place because the big 5 has been swamping choice with their inflated advertising budgets. And the indie music would at least be sold on terms that are good for APPLE, and the artists.

In the long term there will be many artists currently tied to the big 5 who will eventually be out of contract and those mainstream artists I am sure would be very interested in going the iTMS route. So the big names would eventually be represented on itunes again in another incarnation.

Man, I'd like to think that this would work....but I just don't think good music has enough popular appeal.

Still, I would very much like to see apple increase it's indie collection as much as possible, and more than that, market it. One tiny step they could take for indie stuff would be allowing for searching by record label, because it would take up almost no space on itms, but I would totally go, hmm, lets see what they're carrying from sub-pop...oh! heard good things about this, let's preview....OK, I have to buy this.

That, and selling in apple lossless are the two things I want.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I think the Post is lying. Steve Jobs may say and imply many things, but I've never once seen him flat-out lie to the public. He explicitly said that the $0.99 price isn't changing, and until I see otherwise, I'm going to believe him.

That being said, I too think ITMS costs too much.

I just ordered some CDs from the BMG Music Club. While their catalogs are full MSRP, they always have special discounts and bonusses. I ordered a 6-disc Chicago box set (105 songs) for $37, a 5-disc 80's compilation (95 tracks) for $25, and two single-disc albums (13 tracks each) for $2 each. Including estimated shipping charges and tax, the total price comes to about $97, or about $7.46 per disc. There are 226 tracks, resulting in an average cost of 43 cents per song including shipping/tax or 29 cents per song without shipping/tax.

You heard it right: 29 cents per song. For CDs, with all the liner material, purchased directly from BMG (an RIAA member.) Which is why 99 cents per song for a download (where shipping and tax isn't charged) is highway robbery. Downloads should cost less not more than CDs.

It also shows you how much you're getting robbed in stores. BMG is selling directly to me for an average price of $5 per disc (not counting shipping/tax, even though a lot of that shipping charge is profit). It costs about $1/disc to manufacture (maybe slightly more for box sets, but not that much more. So they are taking $4/disc profit from me to pay the artists and run their operation.

But when you buy those same albums in stores, you are paying $8-12 for a discount album, and $15-18 per disc for a full-price album. I think we can be certain that BMG isn't charging the stores $5/disc, or we'd see stores charging much less in order to compete with each other. That 60-260% markup (between what I pay a local store vs. what I pay BMG through their music club) is mostly going to the record labels and the RIAA-owned distribution channels.

Maybe the music industry wouldn't be losing all that money if they'd come to grips with the fact that an informed public simply doesn't appreciate paying a 250% profit margin for nothing more than a distribution channel.

You comparison is way off because of BMG's (and other companies like them) unique business model. BMG loses a ton of money on their loss leaders, but they more than make it up from selling overpriced CDs and by "selling" CDs to people that don't keep up on their account. I did BMG and Columbia house for a few months but I never stayed w/it 'cause staying on top of it was too much of a PITA (plus they rarely, if ever, have bands that I like).

Jomama:
This would be the WORST thing the music industry can do. As is, Apple only gets what, 20 cents on the dollar..and they do most of the work. Jobs needs to make a stand.

The labels spend far more money signing bands (including all associated costs) than Apple does running iTMS.


Lethal

 

[dontmatter]

ah the greedy bastards are at it again... it would be quite interesting if we could unite for one month to boycott the entire music industry. no buying cds, itms, listening to the radio, watching vh1 or mtv, buying music related magazines (rolling stone), etc... though it surely wouldn't kill the industry, it would seriously hit them in the pocket book, which seems to be the only place they have any feelings. the loss in advertising dollars alone would surely commit one exec to throw himself out a window

No, no, my friend. You can always buy music, in CD form, itms, etc, and you can always read music related media and you can always listen to the radio. Just, not anything but indie labels. Listen to kickass radio stations like seattle's kexp (online, of course... http://www.kexp.org), and all other radio stations with websites of .org.

 

[iMeowbot]

Already been tried . . .

. . . and failed. Labels do seem to be handing out different deals to each service to see what will work, and the variable prices and rights granted to buymusic.com were unsuccessful enough that it had to be rolled back into the parent company. I'm expecting to see more experiments like that for a while. These companies will want to see for themselves what sells, they're not going to blindly trust the word of one retailer.

 

[Porchland]

According to the transcript of the conference call

Thus I don't put much credence in the Post's report. Why would Jobs say the rumors aren't true if it had already been decided to raise the prices and the news could come out any day?? He would have been much more vague in his answer. There's not too many ways his answer can be interpreted, so as far as he is concerned, the price isn't going to change for now.

Maybe his decision to say that was a way to stop the labels from pressuring Apple for a price hike, and this leak is the labels' retaliation? Who knows.

Apple and the labels are doling the giant-sumo-wrestlers-wolly-bully thing in the press. It's happeing in the Europe iTMS digital rights negotiations and it's happening in the domestic pricing negotiations.

My guess: The labels want to negotiate a better deal in Europe and the rest of the world by leaving the domestic pricing model the way it is. Apple has to play along to some extent if they want to distribute iTMS in Europe, but I think the business model is going to be radically different in five years when the big five labels have a smaller share of the total download market than they do today.

And, as I've written here before, I think Apple will own a label before it's all said and done. Time Warner is the model; some content and some distribution helps you have some control over both.

 

[coolfactor]

Apple Simplicity

Why should all songs be the same price? They're not all the same quality.

Simple. Apple Simplicity is the reason all songs should be the same price. To me, nobody can judge which songs are actually "better" than others. They only ruler they have is "popularity ratings". The music industry sure has it backwards. The more demand for something should drive the price down, not up.

I am confident Apple will keep the price at 0.99 per song, in the US at least. Now I can see Canada having a $1.25 per song rate because of the exchange rate, even if PureTracks has songs at 0.99.

Anyway, nothing to get all worked up over. Apple is on our side, and they will fight for us. We have the iTMS because they did just that in the first place.

 

[vitaboy]

It's the labels, not Apple, who control the pricing

Just like it is the labels that are holding back Apple from launching iTMS in Europe.

This is obviously a greedy little pricing test on the part of the labels, to see if consumers will pay $1.25 for a 128 kbps download.

The only logical and correct response is that people continue to buy the $0.99 songs and NEVER buy $1.25 songs. Then Apple can clearly show that raising the price above $0.99 had a detrimental impact to sales.

Let's make this clear - this has the signs of the labels dirty little pawprints all over it. We need to continue to support Apple buy continuing to buy in general, giving Apple more leverage over pricing, but that probably won't happen until Apple hits the billion songs per year threshold.

So just avoid anything that is more than the $0.99 per song or $9.99 per album like the plague and give the labels a whack in the head.

 

[iMeowbot]

First of 128Kbps in AAC format is twice the quality of an MP3 making it near CD quality. It would be perfect if it were lossless. Oh, wait, Apple is venturing into a compressed losses format.

Yep, and they went with their own AAC derivative rather than the other lossless schemes that have been in development for MPEG. Really now, why would Apple go their own way on this, after crowing for so long about standards, unless they really, really want their lossless format to work with Fair Play?

And you know? 25¢ is just about the premium I'd be willing to pay to get something in that format.

 

[ALoLA]

I hope this is false as well. I'd be hesitant to spend much more on music if the price were upped to $1.25. I've already bought more music from iTunes than I had the previous 10 years. At 99 cents, I almost bought on impulse. But at $1.25, I'd give it a second thought. I did buy some albums, but a good portion of my recent purchases were individual songs. And even if this were truly false, the RIAA is not helping their cause by coming out and correcting this rumor. Frankly, the damage that is being done (i.e. people going back/continuing to use P2P software) may not be reversible. Whether it's greed, stupidity, being out-of-touch, lacking vision, what have you, the RIAA has proven that history can repeat itself.

 

[chasingapple]

Boy those record companies are GREEEEADY!!! Screw them, if I see a $1.25 song I wont buy it just because of this, I will instead look for it on Kazaa. No I do not want to, I would much rather just pay a BUCK to get it, but if the record companies can steal more money from me for the same song that was 0.99 yesterday then I say do the same and become a pirate! SCREW YOU SONY and the other 4, you wanna steal from me? FINE, I will steal from you!

I guarentee you one day the record companies will go away, and places like iTMS will be the new portals for bands to get their music out there.

Cheers mates, fight back!

 

[greg75]

I hope that you know that these services are ILLEGAL? Actually, they are legal in russia because the law there allow a company to not pay any copyright fees as long as they pay for a license from the governement. So of all the music sold on these sites, not a single $ goes back to the artists. So its worst than P2P because artists dont get paid and you get screwed by giving the $ to the russian governement.

Do you get paid by Steve Jobs or the RIAA to lie?

The legal status of Allofmp3

Russian copyright legislation allows phonograms to be performed publicly without the authorization of the copyright owner for broadcasting and cable transmission. (Article 39) The Internet could be deemed to fall under this exemption. The copyright involved have to be paid to a collecting society.

Allofmp3 has signed agreements for this with Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems (ROMS). According to license № ЛС-ЗМ-02-36 the Internet-project http://www.allofmp3.com, has the right to use musical compositions by providing downloads. Under the license agreement Allofmp3 pays out fees to ROMS for downloaded materials that are subject to the Russian Federation Copyright And Related Rights Law.

ROMS is a member of CISAC (http://www.cisac.org) - the International confederation of authors and composers societies. ROMS manages intellectual rights in the Russian Federation. All third party distributors licensed by ROMS are required to pay a portion of the revenue to the ROMS. ROMS in turn, is obligated to pay most of that money (aside from small portion it needs for operating expenses) to artists. Both Russian and foreign.

We have received this confirmation from ROMS:

I can confirm the legality of allofmp3.com
You can legally buy/download mp3-songs from this site if it does not breaks the law the national legislation of the country in which you will be during that moment.
Sorry for my english.

Yours faithfully, the assistant to the lawyer
of the Russian society on multimedia and to digital networks (ROMS) http://www.roms.ru,

Bahanets Roman Igorevich

Is using Allofmp3 legal in my country?

In the User Agreement Allofmp3 states that you may not use the service if it is in conflict with the legislation of your country. Of course Allofmp3 has added this as a kind of disclaimer.

Who can tell if using Allofmp3 is against the law in your country? We doubt if anyone can in the current jungle of legal issues on copyright and internet.

Some thoughts:

Downloading copyrighted material for personal use through filesharing is legal in countries like Canada and The Netherlands even though the downloader knows the uploader is acting against the law. In this perspective it seems highly unlikely that downloading from a licensed supplier like Allofmp3 will be declared illegal.

DJChemistry, a Law student who has written a thesis on the US' efforts to establish a minimum set of international intellectual property standards concludes that:

You are completely home free by downloading from this website right now. In the future, I cannot guarantee so. However, any changes that will affect the legal status of these downloads will be conspicuous and more than likely featured in the NY Times many times over.

Another interesting opinion comes from Neolex, a high school student majoring in law in New York City. He comes from the Ukraine and has researched US law and the role of ROMS in Russia:

Now lets look at the US law. You can legally acquire music from anyone who has a legitimate right to distribute it. You can buy from a iTunes, because it was licensed by RIAA, you can buy it from Canada, if it is licensed by CRIA, you can buy it from Russia, if it was licensed by ROMS. Now the key difference is that RIAA and CRIA need to obtain licenses from songwriters and artists. ROMS owns rights to intellectual property automatically.

 

[jero]

NOT GOOD.

 

[PlaceofDis]

lets hope this doesnt happen, then the iTMS wont be able to sell anything, thanks for the update, at least apple are claiming this is untrue....lets hope thats the truth

 

[faintedlife]

!!!NOT TRUE!!!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...&e=6&u=/nm/20040507/wr_nm/tech_apple_music_dc

Apple Denies Report of Hiked Online Music Price

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. on Friday flatly denied a report that the computer maker was planning to raise prices for songs bought on its popular iTunes online music store.
*
"These rumors aren't true," said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Sequeira. "We have multiyear agreements with the labels and our prices remain 99 cents a track."

Apple's statement came after the New York Post reported on Friday, citing one unnamed source, that music fans may have to start paying more for some songs on Apple's music store following contract renegotiations with the record labels ahead of the one-year anniversary of the store.

Since the launch of the music store last April, which works with Apple's popular iPod digital music player, the company has sold more than 70 million songs. The store now has more than 700,000 tracks for sale.

 

[DGFan]

Looks like the NY Post naysayers were spot on

 

[wdlove]

Just goes to show how out of touch the industry is with its customers. They have FINALLY found a way to get a large number of people to quit using P2P and buy their music legally-- and so they decide to kill it by raising prices.

They just tend to be arrogant and greedy at their peril. Consumers have the power of boycott. Now that the economy is improving it's getting worse. I feel very frustrated.

 

[VeloDrax]

My Promise to the RIAA

I've spent hundreds of dollars at the iTunes music store doing my best to support a good service and do the right thing.

However, if the RIAA or whoever raises music prices on iTunes, I swear to God, I will never purchase another digital music file as long as I live. In fact, all the time that I currently spend at the iTunes Music Store will be spent pirating music and allowing others unfettered access to my music library.

I'm not kidding record labels. And I bet there are millions of others just like me.

 

[Uragon]

I don't think it's true..because the price hike will certainly affect ITMS and Apple. Unless that's what they want. But if you read the article, it makes alot of sense to ask ITMS for a price hike, because it is competing now with their newly opened music store to which they are selling at a lower price instead of 1.25

 

[mobilebandit]

Soulseek People!!!!

Soulseek is the best P2P out there... I've downloaded at least 300 albums since I got broadband... they even have the new Morrissey album on there right now. I have never had a problem with their files not being what they should. Build Nicotine and avoid paying for music at all.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Simple. Apple Simplicity is the reason all songs should be the same price. To me, nobody can judge which songs are actually "better" than others. They only ruler they have is "popularity ratings". The music industry sure has it backwards. The more demand for something should drive the price down, not up.

I agree that all the songs should be the same price, but if something is in demand it drives the price UP not down.


Lethal