I agree, I guess my only concern is that with all of the governmental meddling by Moscow, that WTO membership would hinge on this rather than more essential reforms.
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Noneofmp3.com
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I agree, I guess my only concern is that with all of the governmental meddling by Moscow, that WTO membership would hinge on this rather than more essential reforms.
Won't boost sales from me. I reciently purchased a Toyota Prius. It has a 6 disk CD changer in it that supports. MP3 playback. While I do have an iPod occasionally it runs out of juice in the car. I would have liked to convert a a few hundred tracks to MP3 and left them in the changer. But because of DRM I can't do that. Oh sure I can but then to CD, then rerip them back down in MP3, then burn them back up again but that is BS. I'm basically done with iTMS. Plus allofmp3.com has a higher quality track then what even iTMS put out. Cheaper + higher quality makes it a winning service IMHO.
I love allofmp3.com What this boils down to is the *AA being greedy aholes. If they actually looked at allofmp3's model they would realize that they could sell tracks at an unheard of rate if it was in the 15-20 cent range per track. I've easily spent more money on allofmp3 then I ever did on CD's and iTMS combined. I think when its all said and done I spent prob around $400 or so. Filling up my iPod to 90%
I love allofmp3.com What this boils down to is the *AA being greedy aholes. If they actually looked at allofmp3's model they would realize that they could sell tracks at an unheard of rate if it was in the 15-20 cent range per track. I've easily spent more money on allofmp3 then I ever did on CD's and iTMS combined. I think when its all said and done I spent prob around $400 or so. Filling up my iPod to 90%
As a buying experience and as a direct competitor against uncontrolled piracy - a phrase I believe Jobs has referred to a few times - AllofMP3 is for me better than anything else on the market that takes money and gives you music in return. Even if they increased their charges to be on a par with iTunes for lossless downloads, I'd still stick with'em.
iTMS doesn't interest me at all - it's a buying experience akin to the Mac itself for the most part, for people who don't quite know what they want and for those who don't quite know what they're doing but are all smug about it because it's cool and shiny. Yes it's easy and yes it's effortless, but it's DRM'd and 128K AAC.
Separately to CD's which I buy (heavily discounted or used) of which I have several thousand, I've bought about 15 songs from iTunes since they went live I think. I've paid allofMP3 a lot more than that. Even with the difference in percentages that we're talking about, the chances are more likely that the artists got far more money from my transactions with AllofMP3 than with iTunes.
The devoid-of-intellect and ample-of-greed music industry has always tried to counter new distribution methods not in their interest by law. It took Apple, a computer company to usably evolve and legitimise the online music industry. Do you guys remember what the morons at the labels (and 'Shoot myself in the foot again? Why yes' Sony) were doing before that with their online plans? Out of touch, truly idiotic technology and totally the wrong approach to their customers. Perhaps it needs what may in technicality be a borderline pirate to kick the online distribution model on to the next level. Fact is, downloads have become far more profitable than CD's, and AllofMP3 is screwing the pooch for the established industry. If AllofMP3 is genuinely doing what it says it is doing (let's assume it is), then the argument has relatively little to do with artists getting compensated and everything to do with the bottom lines of the established music giants.
All that aside, what I can say is that as a music buying website, even putting the relative pricing and legality of it's existence aside for a moment, I prefer AllofMP3 to iTunes.
To those who pontificate about the legality of AllofMP3 on this thread - is all of your software legal for a start? Have you paid for all the shareware you use? Statistically, I'd say not.
Let him who is without sin etc etc.
*Casts stone @ ChrisWB et al*
iTMS doesn't interest me at all - it's a buying experience akin to the Mac itself for the most part, for people who don't quite know what they want and for those who don't quite know what they're doing but are all smug about it because it's cool and shiny. Yes it's easy and yes it's effortless, but it's DRM'd and 128K AAC.
Separately to CD's which I buy (heavily discounted or used) of which I have several thousand, I've bought about 15 songs from iTunes since they went live I think. I've paid allofMP3 a lot more than that. Even with the difference in percentages that we're talking about, the chances are more likely that the artists got far more money from my transactions with AllofMP3 than with iTunes.
The devoid-of-intellect and ample-of-greed music industry has always tried to counter new distribution methods not in their interest by law. It took Apple, a computer company to usably evolve and legitimise the online music industry. Do you guys remember what the morons at the labels (and 'Shoot myself in the foot again? Why yes' Sony) were doing before that with their online plans? Out of touch, truly idiotic technology and totally the wrong approach to their customers. Perhaps it needs what may in technicality be a borderline pirate to kick the online distribution model on to the next level. Fact is, downloads have become far more profitable than CD's, and AllofMP3 is screwing the pooch for the established industry. If AllofMP3 is genuinely doing what it says it is doing (let's assume it is), then the argument has relatively little to do with artists getting compensated and everything to do with the bottom lines of the established music giants.
All that aside, what I can say is that as a music buying website, even putting the relative pricing and legality of it's existence aside for a moment, I prefer AllofMP3 to iTunes.
To those who pontificate about the legality of AllofMP3 on this thread - is all of your software legal for a start? Have you paid for all the shareware you use? Statistically, I'd say not.
Let him who is without sin etc etc.
*Casts stone @ ChrisWB et al*
The reason allofmp3 was able to sell the tracks at such a low price was simple: the website was stealing music and selling it illegally. They didn't pay for the music. They were selling a product they never had to pay for.
What this boils down to is a website being held accountable to international trade laws. The artist and the artist's supporting company legally deserves to be paid for their work.
Don't get me wrong. I have no beef with copyright protection. my entire collection is bootleg/pirate free. Over a thousand CDs and several hundred downloads. I buy CDs, download from iTMS, eMusic and some free download sites such as CNET, Last.FM and Aurgasm (although the latter was recently hit by RIAA as well for violating the Digital Rights law even though the site owner supposedly has permission directly from the artists/labels to offer some songs for downloading) I just find it interesting as to how regulation/enforcement is trying to catch up with technological dev'ts. first there was napster (w/c was recently abandoned by microsoft by coming out with Zune w/c doesnt work w/ napster downloads), copy-controlled CDs w/c ironically can easily be ripped by using iTunes, more DRMs and now this.
Sorry, did you miss the rest of this thread?
Statistically, the chances of any artist outside of Russia receiving any money at all from the stolen music on that site, is at or near zero.
No matter how much money you foolishly sent them.
Then you spent your money for nothing. Except perhaps a salve to your conscience that "because I spent 10 cents on this stolen item, I have 'done the right thing'."
How is this different from buying a car stereo, with no box or manuals, cash, no receipt, from the back of a truck for $5.00?
I never once used allofmp3.com because I figured it was in the same league as stealing, if I didn't feel like buying something from iTunes I'd fire up limewire. (screw you RIAA, I'm in Canada). I mean if I'm going to be stealing the song anways, I might as well not give the money to other thieves.
Unless it also pays for a really good website, deferred, reliable transcoding to your choice of codec and decent browsing client of course
I guess everybody has different reason for using them. for me, they were primarily a resource for CDs that wouldn't rip or had issues while they ripped. The one I'll miss them for the most was the Jupiter disc off of SA. I bought a copy from BB, brought it home and neither mine nor Lori's computers would read it. I took it back and got a new copy. Wouldn't read again (but both did read in standalone CD players). So, I ended up d/l'ing a copy of the disc from allofmp3. I figured it was sure to sound proper instead of trying to find everthing on limewire.
It looks like Allofmp3 is back in business. They weren't theoretically shutdown, they just weren't able to accept credit card payments if you wanted to add to your balance because the credit card companies refused to accept any of their charges. But it looks like the past couple of days they have began accepting credit cards again, and they're running a 20% bonus sale.
Oh really? My account ran out so I bought some UKash stuff which I was going to convert to the thing that they do accept. Oh well, I'll use that up and then go back to a card if AoMP3 are still in business
So let's say allofmp3 buys a CD for $15 and digitally duplicates it an infinite amount of times at very little cost which means they can sell it for super cheap. Now compare this to a major label who, to crate that $15 CD that allofmp3 bought, probably spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on things like artists' wages, recording/mixing time, advertising, manufacturing, distribution, etc.,. $15... $500,000.... $15... $750,000... $15... $1,000,000...
Hmmm....
I'm not sure, but I think I see why allofmp3 is able to sell songs for so cheap.
I just don't understand how Universal, for example, can sell songs at the same price point that allofmp3 is and expect not to quickly go out of business. Can you help me out here? Do you have any hard numbers? Any business analysis? Maybe a business model you can walk me through?
Lethal
Brilliant. Why don't you e-mail Steve and let him know how much more profitable Apple would be if they started selling iPods for $15 and towers for $60.
For your average artist on a major label how many individual tracks and CDs would have to be sold at what price point and over what period of time to recoup all of the costs associated w/creating and distributing that artist's work? And since it's pretty much a given that the majority of a major's artists will lose money for the label how do you adjust your projected price points and sales estimates accordingly so that you still remain profitable as a company?
Like I said, anyone have a specific business plan? Hard numbers? Plausible ideas?Anyone? Anything other than big corporations are evil? What about a way to generate more ad revenue thus being able to lower prices? For example, would you be willing to watch/listen to a :30 second commercial every time you purchased a track if it meant you'd pay 80 cents instead of 99 cents at the iTMS? Or do you think the forced commercials would turn people off from shopping there even though the prices were cheaper? Or what about ad banners built right into iTunes? In what other ways could a record label generate enough revenue that it would depend less on music sales and thus lower prices?
Lethal
Slightly off topic, but you seem to be advocating cross-subsidisation here. Why is it right that the success of one artist should be used to pay for the failure of another? If the major labels didn't produce so much crap, then the music that people would want to listen to would be cheaper as they don't have to pay for the costs of producing rubbish that people don't want - and the company would still be profitable.
Or to put is another way, the company takes a risk - why should we insure their risk by paying more for the music we want?
The first thing to keep in mind is that if consumers weren't buying crap companies wouldn't be selling it. The second thing to keep in mind is that having more losers than winners is the nature of the beast whether you are talking about music, books, or TV shows. There are too many variables and it's too subjective a purchase to be able to accurately say how these things will do before they hit the market place. It's a crap shoot. How many people predicted the cult success of "Clerks" or the absolute failure that was Daikatana? It's not like people are walking around going, "Gee, where can I find something that's gonna really tank and be a detriment to my company?" If you can accurately and consistently predict how well a musician, movie, book, video game or TV show will do out in the market place based on only preliminary data then get yer butt to LA or NY 'cause you'll be rich in no time flat.
Paying more for the music who wants? Do I want the same music as you? Do you want the same music as CanadaRam? Do we really want to be limited to only mainstream acts that only appeal to broad demographics? Personally, if the success of B. Spears means that a few more unknown artists get their shot at the big time then I'm all for it (Or for a slightly different example, the success of a big budget, cookie cutter action film means Studio XYZ has enough money in the coffers to buy and distribute an Indie flick that you absolutely love, but never would have heard of if it wasn't for the cliched action film that you hate). Until the label signs the artist, spends the money and gets a CD on store shelves they don't know if they have a dud, stud or something in between. Just like in pro sports. Some guy make look awesome on paper and may have torn it up in college, but until he suits up and plays some pro games you don't know if he's a star or a very expensive bench warmer.
To varying degrees this is common throughout business. I mean, Apple uses the profits of it hardware sales on software development. iTMS is basically a loss leader designed to sell iPods. Hell, the success of the iPod has been a windfall for Apple. Should Apple only take that iPod generated revenue and spend it only on iPod R&D? Or should Apple take some of that iPod generated revenue and spend it on R&D for other Apple products as well?
Oh, and a third thing to keep in mind is that just because you think it's good doesn't mean it will sell and just because you think it's bad doesn't mean it won't. And when it comes down to brass tacks a business w/o sales isn't a business for long.
Lethal
EDIT: I don't think it's really that off topic as the thread was moving this way anyway. I'm very intrigued by the new, successful business models that are slowly appearing (especially since I'm working on an independent documentary part time), but there is a reason the why the "tried and true" methods are tried and true and why large companies are cautious to move away from them. I'm not meaning to be argumentative (although I'm playing a bit of devils advocate), but I would like the discussion to get deeper than the cliched "they are greedy dinosaurs that can't get w/the times."