Universal, Sony to Launch New Services

Quick.. look outside... are pigs flying?

Call hell.. is it cold? Can you see your breath?

Good start.
What about $9.95 a month for 100 downloads? Sorry but $1 a song is still too much if you ask me. Music isnt a rare commodity and they keep charging more than what its worth.

said by wildxgod:

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Good start.
What about $9.95 a month for 100 downloads? Sorry but $1 a song is still too much if you ask me. Music isnt a rare commodity and they keep charging more than what its worth.

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I think $1 per song is very reasonable. When you consider that many people are stuck paying $18 for a CD with one or two songs on it that they want, 1 or 2 dollars is cheap.

What would you consider a fair price??

Anyone care to comment on this Liquid Audio encoding?
What bitrate? How good does it sound? Can it be ripped
back off CD like a wav file? How big is the filesize?

Before I shell out 10 bucks a CD I better be able to test the audio quality. I think I would actually pay 10 bucks a CD as long as they bundle it with the CD cover & label. I'd rather pay that then trying to download off of WinMX considering you never know what you're gonna get i.e. crappy mp3's or incorrect song version etc....

said by wildxgod:

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What about $9.95 a month for 100 downloads? Sorry but $1 a song is still too much if you ask me. Music isnt a rare commodity and they keep charging more than what its worth.

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I'm inclined to agree with you but before they see any kind of money then those rippable mp3s better be top quality, full tracks, not some crappy bitrate, partial. And I better be able to listen to that custom created CD on whichever media of my choice strikes my fancy....Rio,CD,mobileCD player,pc, etc.

$10 a month for up to 100 downloads.
Lets face it, P2P is not going away anytime soon so its gonna be hard to compete with a free product. I would pay $10 a month knowing I could d/l 100 songs and get rid of P2P. Their pricing scenario would have sounded a lot better to me in 2000, but because it took them so long to get their act together a lot of ppl have become accustomed to not paying anything. They have dug their own hole.

Think about it, if they offer music online what are the company's real expenses? They have bare expenses, no cd covers, co inserts it just an MP3 track which can be d/l over and over and over. CD singles used to be $1 and we were getting a physical product.

Finally, a step in the right direction.

About $1 per song is right I think. Look back at 1984, a 45 cost $1.99 back then. You got 2 songs. That makes it $.98 per song back then. Two cents inflation over 18 years is not too bad.

diff is the record label had to charge that to cover some of the costs. they still had to buy 45's and press them. in this situation they throw songs onto a server and go home.

said by PhillySteve:

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I think I would actually pay 10 bucks a CD as long as they bundle it with the CD cover & label.

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Seems like this isnt going to happen. Now your going to get content only - $10 for the album and you have to supply your own cd, jewel case, and art...

which brings up this question. according to Confessions of a Record Producer by Moses Avalon, heres where the $ from a CD purchase goes:

* Retailer: $5
* Record label: $4.92
* Distributor: $2.40
* Giveaways: $1.80
* Duplication/recording: $1.10
* Artist royalty: 83 cents
* Songwriter license: 60 cents
* Producer royalty: 27 cents
* Musicians union: 8 cents

Now - if online purchase for $10 an album is what they propose... you can cut the $2.40 for distributor, $1.10 for duplication/recording, and thats about it... unless the Record Label is giving up their $4.92 cut (doubtful)... That leaves the price at $13.50... is it just me or does something not add up here? whos taking the hit for $3.50 cents?

Servers aren't free --- and neither is the bandwidth needed to distribute this --

is bestbuy.com ready to service one million simultaneous downloads when a #1 single goes up for sale? No way!

i wonder if they have thought that through completely...

Would you buy a CD? It seems that one of the arguments being raised is that there is only one or two good songs on a CD.

Anyhow a dollar a song seems reasonable to me.

Additional questions on the same topic:

When I burn these tracks to CD, will I be able to play them off my CD-ROM drive using common technology like WinAMP? Or will I be required to download proprietary software LA software?

Will I be able to play the CDs I burn these tracks to in my car? On my home audio CD player?

If I can convert these files to WAV and burn 'em to CD to play them on my personal audio devices, then this is all on the right track.

at $10 a month from a cple of million people im sure they could cover all costs. lets say 1MM people sign up at $10 a month, your talking $120MM a year in revenue. They wont have as much overhead as they would when they had to press cd's. $120MM a year is not bad if u ask me, especially considering the alternative $0 revenue a year.

however, i must say that it's too little too late. sorry, but the majority of people who would be the market for this are the same ones who know how to use the p2p apps. the only way this could work is if broadband was extremely available, and this was advertised to the majority, not online but at places such as movies, and on the radio, etc. like crazy...what will happen is as soon as this fails guess who/what gets blamed.
edit: in bold.

At one dollar for a burnable and transferable song, I would use the service. I've never bought an alblum with more than 3 songs that i really liked so the average cost per alblum minus the 5 to 7 tracks that i would typically ignore would be three bucks.

That would be well worth my hard earned cash.

Hmmmm....

Record company Download way:

I pay for $10
I pay for the download connection.
I pay for the blank CD.
I pay for the case.
I pay for the Burner.
I use *MY* time to burn the CD. (substantial for entire CD)
I have to make my own label.
I have to make my own sleeve.

Record company retail store way:

I pay average of $15

Current download way:

I pay NOTHING
I pay for the download connection.
I pay for the blank CD.
I pay for the case.
I pay for the Burner.
I use *MY* time to burn the CD. (substantial for entire CD)
I have to make my own label.
I have to make my own sleeve.

Comments:

Does anyone see this as a way for the record comapnies to may even MORE money? I like the idea of being able to download singles but they have to cut us some more slack on full albums.

If I can buy a CD for about $15 and this is via a retail store that is taking a cut of the profit then what are they really knocking off the price? They will only have to pay for bandwidth and web page design and once that is set up the profit will be even greater than it is now.

I find this offer insulting - insulting of our intellegence!

Not only do they save on the cost of materials (no CD, no case, no insert, no label ect...) but they do not have to ship to the store and they do not have to share the profit with the local retail store.

IF THEY CAN MAKE A PROFIT SELLING THE SAME ALBUM ON CASSETTE FOR ABOUT $8 WHICH COSTS THEM ***MORE*** TO PRODUCE THAN A CD THEN WHY IS CHARGING US $10 TO DOWNLOAD A CD A FAIR DEAL????????

said by wildxgod:

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They wont have as much overhead as they would when they had to press cd's.

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they already have all the equipment to press cd's -- it's a sunk cost and they aren't getting that $ back...

the plastic circles, jewel case, and insert cost next to nothing...

now add the additional $ for bandwidth, server space for "tens of thousands of low-priced singles" (Marketwatch), and they still have the costs of recording, promotion, retailers cut, artists royalty, songwriter license, etc, etc...

dont get me wrong - its a step in the right direction - i just dont see how it adds up without the RIAA and/or the label losing $ and i dont think they plan on doing that

said by jrb531:

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but they do not have to ship to the store and they do not have to share the profit with the local retail store.

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They still have to "share" profit with the local retail store. Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com, and Samgoody arent going to just be selling these off of their websites for nothing.

I believe Liquid Audio has been doing this already for some time - go to »www.liquid.com

If I remember correctly, there have already been Sony music tracks for sale as early as 6 months ago. I think this is old news.

Sony god they are the biggest liers and turd makers when it comes to costumer service. yuck!

Think of all the revenue thats been lost due to Sony's own greed...along with the notion of satisfying those at the RIAA.

WHY ON EARTH COULDN'T SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAVE BEEN BEEN PLANNED OUT DURING THE TIME NAPSTER WAS IN THEIR HEYDAY???

true - i dont buy many cd's

but there are some that i do buy because i appreciate the artists entire presentation. part of that presentation is the album art as well as the songs that arent top10 hits. $10 to get just the content and then i have to burn it myself?

and i still dont see how they are going to recoup the cost... lots of people will buy even fewer albums (if any) now that they can get the #1 single for a dollar. used to be you had to pay 16.99 to get the #1 single plus the additional garbage...

If they set up their own download servers they do not have to share profits with anyone. If they want to pay someone else to administer the downloads and collection of cash then it would still be far less that the cut a retail store takes for physical sale space as well as knocking out delivery costs.

Yes there will be some costs for distribution in a digital format as well as collection of revenue but it will always be far far less that what it costs for them now to burn the CD, package it, ship it to the store, deal with damaged CD returns ect...

Ever download a song from P2P that was poorly recorded or edited? There's much junk out there.

Also, I don't think $8 magnetic tapes can compare in sound quality.

Not much format info on there other than you have to use their player and compatible portable devices, and you must buy the "plus" version for CD burning. There also appear to be provisions for limits on file life; and where, when, and how the file can be moved. Nothing about quality.

Has anyone here actually used the service to know?

said by buddasahn:

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WHY ON EARTH COULDN'T SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAVE BEEN BEEN PLANNED OUT DURING THE TIME NAPSTER WAS IN THEIR HEYDAY???

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This is why not: »Don't Mess With the RIAA

I have to disagree here.

Overall I think it will be cheaper AND faster to buy music this way. This seems to be going in the direction I was hoping for.

In reality, here's how I see it:

10 songs (about 45-50 minutes) for $10.00

Download time 20-60 minutes (depends on encoding)

I pay for the blank CD - if I've actually paid for it. I have hundreds of blanks at home all of which were free after rebate. Average cost of blanks I've bought over the last 2 years - about $.02 each

I "pay" for download connection - I'm already paying for it for my internet access... it costs me nothing extra.

I pay for the Case - again only a few cents

Label/Sleeve - if I care enough to print them for the CD figure about $0.50 - 0.75 - for me I won't even bother usually.

I already own the CD-RW drive so there is no cost, and the burning time for a 50 minute music CD is about 4 minutes on my system.

In the record store Bricks & Mortar model, I have to get in the car and drive to the store (about 5 miles each way - in a congested area) - that takes about 15 minutes each way and uses up enough gas to nearly offset the costs of my blank CD, case, and printed label/sleeve.

Then i still have to pay $18 for a CD.

I'm NOT a big supporter of the record companies, but this sounds like what I've been hoping for.

Give the consumer the ability to buy individual songs for a reasonable price, transfer them to CD if desired, and pass enough of the savings along to make it attractive.

I don't care if the record companies make more money... utlimately this model will make it cheaper to own the music you want, and not have to pay for the other songs on a CD that are dreck.

Maybe it will even encourage an improvement in the overall quality of popular music from where it is today.

It has nothing to do with quality but fairness.

For example (numbers not accurate)

Sony sells a tape for $8 that costs them $2 to produce.
Sony sells a CD for $15 that costs then $1 to produce.
Sony allows you to download a CD for $10 that costs them 50 cents to produce (costs related to collection and transmission of the CD over the net)

Quality does not enter into this in any way. When the record companies were put on the spot (congressional hearings awhile ago) and were asked why they charged more for a product (CD) then costs them less to produce (over a cassette) they told us that "perceived value" dictated cost.

In other words a CD is better quality so they charge more and the cost to produce said produce has NOTHING to do with the end cost. While a free market allows a company to sell a product at any price they wish they are NOT allowed to fix prices as they do now.

If the auto industry worked the way the record industry works then Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota ect... would all charge the EXACT same price for each line of cars (IE entry cars would all cost $10,000 for example)

All these record companies charge the exact same price? Give me a break... they price fix pure and simple and this is against the law.

Also... CD's of more popular artists would cost more than Cd's from little know artists. While there is some price difference at some stores most stores IE Best Buy charge the same for ALL Cd's.

Record companies as so out of touch with the real world.