Paying 5 Cents Per Song?

[clayj]

Read up on the AHRA. We have the same levies in this country, too - it's just that here the law was held not to cover computer media, just audio media. That's why if you have, e.g. a standalone stereo component CD recorder it requires you to use special "audio CDRs" that are more expensive than data blanks because a levy that's imposed on them and paid to the recording industry. The same law covers audiotape and such.

-vga4life

Ugh, that disgusts me, as well... I don't burn music CDs (all I burn to disc is DATA, my music is already on the CDs I bought in the store), so was not aware of this.

It's hardly a shock to hear this proposal come from the ivory tower of a university, where supposedly smart people actually have little or no clue about ANYTHING. But I'm not paying any damn 1% tax on a new PC because of the illegal actions of others. If that ever happens, someone's getting a beating.

 

[Yvan256]

Edit: On a side note though, im only paying $.05/mb for my music downloads currently, so i dont really care if this ever comes to light.

If you're talking about allofmp3.com, they've been declared non-illegal, but still not legal either. It's a loophole in the law, and it's still not moral.

Why keep paying 5 cents per MB for downloads when the artists won't get anything from it anyway.

 

[network23]

Yep.. drop the price and get more people into the fold downloading legaly. Make up the difference on volume.

That may work for increasing revenue of the song sales, but does nothing to address the cost of the delivery method! It costs Apple over $.20 a song to maintain the infrastructure that is the iTMS. That cost should remain constant, maybe dropping as hardware costs drop, but delivery costs will not drop with increased sales. Where would the money come from to pay for that, especially if it is expanded as mentioned in the article to become a repository of ALL music?

 

[Yvan256]

Music downloading is an inferior medium, and it should be treated as such, but 5 cents an album is just rediculous.

Actually is 5 cents per track, not per album.

And the current form may be inferior, but if you could purchase lossless tracks at 5 cents each, CDs would actually become pointless.

 

[rhpenguin]

Why keep paying 5 cents per MB for downloads when the artists won't get anything from it anyway.

The fact that i get exactly what i want to download in whatever format i like seals the deal for me. If its an artist i do like though and theyre worth supporting, i do pick up their cd or vinyl (which is my truly prefered method of listening to music).

 

[Rower_CPU]

Ugh, that disgusts me, as well... I don't burn music CDs (all I burn to disc is DATA, my music is already on the CDs I bought in the store), so was not aware of this.

It's hardly a shock to hear this proposal come from the ivory tower of a university, where supposedly smart people actually have little or no clue about ANYTHING. But I'm not paying any damn 1% tax on a new PC because of the illegal actions of others. If that ever happens, someone's getting a beating.

Let's play with some math, shall we:

Let's pick a typical consumer machine, such as the mid-range iMac G5 - $1499

1% tax = $14.99

20 songs at 5¢ each = $1.00

Total - 1499 + 14.99 + 1 = 1516 (rounded up)

OR

iMac G5 - $1499

20 songs at 99¢ each = $19.80

Total - 1499 + 19.80 = 1519 (rounded up)

Seems like these university types might just have a clue or two.

 

[ncoffey]

First off, drop the computer tax idea, that's just stupid. A lot of people who use computers in the business world would be pissed. (And rightly so) If I buy 10 computers to use as part of a simulator why should I have to spend all that money on music?

Second, at 5 cents a track I would not only download tons more music I would spend a lot more money too. Right now I am very selective about what I buy online because a dollar is a lot of money. (relative to what I feel a song is worth, hence the expression, "I'll sell it for a song") I think it would make a lot more people buy into DRM too. (Not that I want it to. I want an allofmp3 type setup) I'd be happy paying for higher quality and fewer restrictions though. The $1 price point could be for a Lossless track, say. (Of which I'd probably end up buying quite a few given my tastes in music)

 

[Lacero]

This is a great idea, a band could pay thier own studio costs, put the music directly up for download and then who needs the record companies??
I don't mind right now paying $.88 a song, I do have a problem that very little of that actully goes to the musicans.

Now the greedy record companies want a piece of artists touring money as well. The folks killing music right now are the record labels not the downloaders.

 

[Lacero]

The most important incentive, remember, should be for musicians to produce good music. 10% of 5 cents (or whatever the artist sees of the retail price) is nothing, and how would they calculate distributions of cuts of the tax?

A system like this would eliminate the "label" entirely. I have many musician firends who are constantly recording albums with their own funds, since that has become astronomically less expensive in recent years. If they were able to sell their songs easily and cheaply, and on a massive scale, they'd be able to make money (if there was the demand). Additionally, I believe piracy would shrink if all music was available for cheap and the consumers felt that the artists were getting their fair share.

 

[clayj]

But Rower, I don't pay to download music. Ever. I don't buy bits. I buy containers of bits: CDs, DVDs, books. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the physicality of objects... I believe in what they represent, which is my personal unrestricted use of them as long as I don't violate copyright law. I don't want some technocrat or engineer or academician setting rules for where or how many times I can read a book, listen to a CD, or watch a movie on DVD.

Therefore, I am opposed to any scheme that increases my cost as a means of compensating for the illegal/unauthorized actions of others. I don't believe in extra sales taxes on computers, and I don't believe in surcharges on blank recording media. These costs exist (or could exist) solely because of other people not playing by the rules and some well-intentioned but moronic person trying to make up for it by punishing me, who follows the rules.

 

[Rower_CPU]

But Rower, I don't pay to download music. Ever. I don't buy bits. I buy containers of bits: CDs, DVDs, books. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the physicality of objects... I believe in what they represent, which is my personal unrestricted use of them as long as I don't violate copyright law. I don't want some technocrat or engineer or academician setting rules for where or how many times I can read a book, listen to a CD, or watch a movie on DVD.

Therefore, I am opposed to any scheme that increases my cost as a means of compensating for the illegal/unauthorized actions of others. I don't believe in extra sales taxes on computers, and I don't believe in surcharges on blank recording media. These costs exist (or could exist) solely because of other people not playing by the rules and some well-intentioned but moronic person trying to make up for it by punishing me, who follows the rules.

Just because you don't doesn't mean other people don't - according to the iTMS download stats, many people don't.

Ultimately, I think this will get shot down by the labels, but it's a fun idea to play around with.

 

[Lacero]

Apple™ is in the best position to dethrone the music labels and bring about a complete change in how music is produced and distributed. The internet economy will make this happen.

 

[railthinner]

Let's play with some math, shall we:

Let's pick a typical consumer machine, such as the mid-range iMac G5 - $1499

1% tax = $14.99

20 songs at 5¢ each = $1.00

Total - 1499 + 14.99 + 1 = 1516 (rounded up)

OR

iMac G5 - $1499

20 songs at 99¢ each = $19.80

Total - 1499 + 19.80 = 1519 (rounded up)

Seems like these university types might just have a clue or two.

How do you fill the gap if you purchase 1000 five cent songs on you $1500 computer?

 

[Rower_CPU]

How do you fill the gap if you purchase 1000 five cent songs on you $1500 computer?

That's for the labels/artists/Apple to figure out.

I think 5¢ a song is probably too low for this very reason. If it dropped to 50¢ or so it might be more worth their while.

 

[railthinner]

Start making music for the sake of making music. Music shouldnt be about money.

It's not strictly about money or the bling with a lot of artists, but the days of trading baskets for furs is passed and most of us wouldn't get by very well without some cash in a modern society. Maybe artists and musicians shouldn't have to pay for anything. There's an idea. Put an extra tax on every good to support the arts. That'll work.

 

[vpalvarez]

<qoute>
Pearlman proposes putting all recorded music on a robust search engine -- Google would be an ideal choice, but even iTunes might work --
</qoute>

This seems to indicate that there would be only one place to download music (article says Google or iTunes) that would be a supreme advantage for Apple, they would be the only game in town...which would traslate into the iPod being the only game in town as well...while this is very attarctive for Apple the probability of all the other competitors being OK with it is miniscule (including MS). So I don't see this ever happening ... as for the tax I wouldn't care much b/c when you do the math after spending money on 21 songs the tax on your $2000 computer goes away, (21 X .05 = $1.05 as opposed to $21 in the current scheme) the only people that this tax would hurt are those that buy less than 21 songs over the life of their computers (If they spend $2000 on a computer..which most PC users and must Mac users do not. (high end PB and high end PM are the only ones that I can think of over $2000).

But like I said at the beginning this seems very unlikely. And I think that the loss that the record companies take on illegal downloads may be equitable to the loss that they would take on a 5 cent pricing scheme. The best idea that they would have, in my opinion is to continue to fight illegal downloading and take a dollar per song. B/c if they end up stopping illegal downloading they will be left with a dollar per song in the end instead of 5 cents. Don't take this to think that I believe they will ever stop it cause they probably won't. But the quality of P2P music downloading software is going down alot. And people will eventually get tired of the spyware and lack of content in these services.


This is just my opinion I coud be wrong...

 

[Lacero]

I would pay the 5 cents per song, but I would not pay a 1 percent tax on internet services or computers. Although drastically reducing the price of a product usually does not make sense, it does in this case. I'm sure the music industry would make a lot more money than they are now... then they can sue people for $150,000 because they illegally downloaded $50 in music.

 

[rhpenguin]

It's not strictly about money or the bling with a lot of artists, but the days of trading baskets for furs is passed and most of us wouldn't get by very well without some cash in a modern society.

Very true

Im looking at it like this. Ive been working on a CD for the last few months with my band and were taking the i guess "open source" route of getting it done. We have bought our own recording gear and doing our recording on our own time (managing work/play) and we want to make it available to all for free when done to whoever wants to listen.

Thats what i mean by music shouldnt be about money but more about the music.

 

[Doctor Q]

I understand the concept, which is much like having computer purchase fees that cover the costs of recycling, or having everyone pay taxes for maintaining city streets, whether they use those streets or not (even though music is not as much of a necessity as sidewalks).

Economically, however, it would be a major shift, even if the average consumer broke even before and after the switch, because it would change who has how much money when. It it no surprise that vested interests will oppose this idea.

 

[andiwm2003]

I understand the concept, which is much like having computer purchase fees that cover the costs of recycling, or having everyone pay taxes for maintaining city streets, whether they use those streets or not (even though music is not as much of a necessity as sidewalks).

Economically, however, it would be a major shift, even if the average consumer broke even before and after the switch, because it would change who has how much money when. It it no surprise that vested interests will oppose this idea.

i'm absolutely against the 1% fee. it's like charging 1% of your car to cover shoplifting at walmart. since when can private enterprizes take away money from private citizens without providing any product or service?
(the goverment is supposed to do that but not private companies. )

Seriously, you cannot make people pay for theft if they have no part in it. The record labels had 10 years to fix the proplem of stealing songs and all they come up with is take money from people in other parts of the economy.

it would be o.k. if the only purpose of a computer was playing music. but thats only the least important use of a computer (for many people).

where does this stop? do we pay 1% for all DVD players, 1% for all radios and TVs, 1% for all speaker systems, another 1% on computers for software and game theft, 1% for glasses because you can use them to read stolen books?
lets just increase the sales tax by 1% and hand the money over to certain industries (music, software, gaming, books...).

sorry for the rant but i feel that's just unjust

andi

 

[dotdotdot]

That's for the labels/artists/Apple to figure out.

I think 5¢ a song is probably too low for this very reason. If it dropped to 50¢ or so it might be more worth their while.

It already did drop to 50¢ - RealMusic offers 192 KBPS AAC downloads at 50¢ which I believe can turn into a .m4a w/ Hymn or JHymn and put on an iPod...

 

[Dano]

i'm absolutely against the 1% fee. it's like charging 1% of your car to cover shoplifting at walmart. since when can private enterprizes take away money from private citizens without providing any product or service?
(the goverment is supposed to do that but not private companies. )

Seriously, you cannot make people pay for theft if they have no part in it.

Well technically you do pay for theft at Wallmart through inflation. Its part of their pricing schemes, they expect a certain percentage of theft and compensate for this by raising prices. I wouldn't be surprised if 1% of the cost of say a CD is to compensate for shoplifting.

I am not sure why everyone is freaking out about 1%, that was like $15? Whoopdido, if your paying 1500 for a new computer whats another $15 to download 5c songs. I do believe this wouldn't be good for a business at all, maybe a form of exemption could be put into place.

Personally it sounds like a good idea but there are waaay too many minor problems and possible loopholes in this scheme for it to be viable.

 

[wdlove]

In today's climate I don't see this happening. The music companies are greedy. My hope is that Steve can hold off any increase in the current 99 cents.

 

[ScubaDuc]

Doesn't the EU, or at least Germany, charge a fixed rate for CD-Roms and CD burners to compensate for piracy? Again, why have the honest subsidize the dishonest.[/QUOTE]


Yes, it is so also in Belgium and France. However, I am subsidizing the recording industry every time I burn a CD to back up files, making a video CD, etc. It is not a fare system either.

The law here requires that all CDs and Programs may be copied for personal use/back up purposes but they are in court arguing if a tape can be considered a back up copy.

Before I used to buy music when I went to the US, now that I can't play CDs in the computer and are not sure if they will play on my car stereo (even though is just 5yrs old) I just get it in Brazil where legal CDs are a lot cheaper and I can still make a back up copy for safekeeping

I can't see why we should let the recording industry dictate, in the name of piracy, where, with what, and when we play the music we legally purchase.

 

[Rower_CPU]

It already did drop to 50¢ - RealMusic offers 192 KBPS AAC downloads at 50¢ which I believe can turn into a .m4a w/ Hymn or JHymn and put on an iPod...

So there's precedent.