What's a fair price for unlimited downloads?
Today, U.K. Internet service provider Virgin Media announced plans to begin offering unlimited song downloads for a monthly subscription fee. The songs will be DRM-free MP3 files, which means they will never expire, even if the user switches ISPs. Universal, the largest record label in the world, is so far the only label to sign on, but the other majors will probably follow.
The deal was announced along with a threat to crack down on illegal downloaders (perhaps through some sort of BitTorrent monitoring, although Virgin claims it won't be doing the monitoring itself), but the companies left the most important question unanswered: how much will it cost?
The labels won't want to settle for less than they're getting through iTunes and other download stores, so Virgin will have to guess how many songs will be downloaded per month, then divide that number by the number of subscribers. After some initial heavy usage, I can imagine users downloading about two albums per month. So I could imagine a rate of about $40 per month. That seems fair compared with subscription-based streaming services like Rhapsody, which starts at $12.99 a month.
But what's fair to the industry may not seem fair to users, who have been downloading free music for almost a decade now. People have proven willing to pay for downloads when they get some other tangible benefit--in the case of iTunes, it's the ease of transferring purchased songs to their iPod or iPhone. When the only extra benefit is a clear conscience and less chance of being sued, I think a lot of users will take the risk and stick with free.
Would you pay a monthly fee for unlimited downloads? If so, how much?
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Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff. 
How many of your average Joe-Schmoe consumers can even name the label an artist they like is on? How many care? In reality, Virgin offering this service means a few artists any given person likes being available for unlimited downloads, but what about the majority of music the average person listens to? That's spread across the big four labels, which translates to a whole lot of music not available via this service.
So more specifically, the question is: how much would you be willing to pay for unlimited downloads of Virgin albums? My answer to that is nothing. And $40 is completely absurd without the support of at least the other big three labels.
It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that this will fail miserably.
And you are not locked into a subscription that you forget about after 6 months, but keep paying on.
Now that iTunes and Amazon, as well as others are now pretty much DRM free one can easily transfer their music to their non-Apple branded digital music playback device.
You see, it's not a question of "How much would people pay?" Most people will pay nothing to download music.
The answer is obvious. Virgin should create a site where people can download all their music in a high quality, DRM free format. Prior to downloading a file, the user could be required to view an ad. Revenue from the advertising could be shared with the artists.
People won't pay to download music, but they will spend 15s-30s watching an ad, if they get the download free afterwards.
I'm not advocating anything illegal, but there's no need for anyone to pay this kind of money, and I suspect that very few (if any) savvy music lovers will.
Yes! For one month, once.
I am not trying to discourage people from abusing a system like this but just trying to save you $40. If you just want to abuse it then there really is no point in signing up in the first place.
If they offer truly unlimited music downloads and someone downloads say 10,000 songs in a month and then cancels, that is playing by the rules. To say it is abusive is retarded beyond description.
If you want to support artists, download an album via bittorrent and send the band a check for $1.00. That is 5-10 times more then they would get if you walked into a store and bought it. Then go to their show if they come to your town, that is how they really make money.
And I totally agree with your suggestions about how to support your favourite artists. I was merely pointing out that you don't do anybody any real favours by downloading 10000 tracks in a month on this even if it is legal.
If it is truly unlimited, then there really is no way to abuse the system. Of course it probably won't be, but the cut off will have to be a fairly high number of downloads or it will fail.
Perhaps someone who thinks the crap they spew out today is worth downloading then someone might continue with it. Most won't.
As a consumer who will only by legal, DRM-free music, at $1 per song, I buy only songs I know I like. At $0.25 I would buy whole albums and experiment more. I'm certain I would ultimately spend more than I do now and I would also discover artists that I'm not exposed to now. Win-win-win.
Good idea! I am going to swipe car from a dealer, and send a check to the workers who made the car! Anyone know their addresses?
Eric
Comparing a digital copy to a physical object is ludicrous and only shows your lack of understanding.
Record companies are thieves, the musicians only start getting pennies on the dollar after they pay back the production and promotion costs.
This means that even after the record companies get paid back for any upfront costs, the bands are still getting raped.
Of course all of this is wasted since you actually don't understand that copyright infringement is not theft and artists get ripped off from major labels.
Production, distribution, and marketing is so cheap these days that the record labels are 100% useless and only serve to inflate the cost of music because they have to pay people who are wholly unnecessary.
I agree. Your ignorance is impressive. Here is the thing. Just as the autoworkers agreed to work for the auto makers, so do the artists agree to do work for the labels.
You can argue about digital copies vs physical products, but they are really quite similar once they both enter the marketplace; they are product.
If I wish to be an "artist" I will release my art on my own. It is very simple to do in this digital world. According to Bittorrent users, it is then ok for one person to distribute that file to as many users as he wishes, with zero payment to me, the artist.
If I wish to be a "star," I use a major label to distribute my "product." someone stealing my product does not benefit me either.
Sorry, regardless of how you rationalize it, illegal music "sharing" does not do artists any good, aside from perhaps getting some PR out of it.
I do not like labels, but I loathe thieves.
Eric
You have absolutely no credibility since you don't have the intelligence to differentiate copyright infringement with theft. I realize you were handed talking points to regurgitate, but even you should know the difference.
The band pays 100% of the production, distribution and marketing costs, why should people not directly support the artists and refuse to give the majority of the money to the very people who didn't earn it
Music sharing does lots of bands good. Metallica would have never got a record deal had they not encourage tape trading.
In this model you get everything you want, free downloads, streaming, drm free, all titles available. Here is the money maker, the rotating library! Your customers will stay to get new music plus download songs they didn't get the month before. It will work you just need to focus on the rotation of songs and how to keep the audience happy but not give them to much.
Most people don't like to sit down for hours downloading music but from time to time if they hear a song they like streaming and want to download the song, it's available with a single click.
The concept is indeed difficult for me. Taking pictures of the car and building one's own would be just fine, keeping in mind he could be sued if he used patented technology. The likelihood of building a car by hand that compares with the original would be nearly nil.
Also, if one took a picture of the notes in a song, or perhaps the 1's and 0's that make up the digital version, he could proceed to get the instruments and recreate the song as well. That would not be illegal.
What thieves tend to do is rationalize or justify their actions. A car thief might say, "I only borrowed it for a bit," whereas a digital thief will say, "copyright infringement is NOT stealing," or ""I am only listening to it for a while, so why pay?"
If you go to a show for a smaller, unsigned band, do you buy a CD to support them, or do you go find it on bittorent and mail them a check? Just wondering how things work in your world.
Call it what you will to ease your conscience. I am sure many bands thank you.
Eric
- by kyussmondo September 14, 2009 10:42 AM PDT
- I would pay for unlimited downloads. Who wouldn't? It makes perfect sense for the consumer.
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(29 Comments)For the providers (iTunes, Virgin Media etc.), labels and artists it doesn't seem sustainable. How would the providers distribute the monthly revenue, would it equally break it up between the majors? One record company may argue that they have better material or sell more so deserve a bigger cut. Plus they will be getting the same regardless of whether people get a thousand albums or just one album. At least with pay per download you can easily see who the money goes to and if they sell a lot then they get more if they sell less then they get less. The artists get screwed either way but would most likely get a smaller cut as the label would probably be getting less.
It also doesn't scale well. Assuming iTunes went subscription and assuming the amount of users stayed the same then those users will probably start using a service like iTunes a lot more. The costs would go up but the revenue would remain stagnant. It makes no sense. It would cost Apple a small fortune to maintain the service for huge growth in usage. If people download at the moment then the revenue will rise to support the rising costs. Web 2.0 has forgotten the basics of accountancy and business. Facebook, YouTube, all of them are haemorrhaging cash with only wealthy investors keeping them afloat while they try and find a revenue model. Apple has a good understanding of this and that is why Apple will never offer iTunes Music Subscription. I doubt the labels would allow it anyway. The only way I see Apple offering it is if Spotify or another service can make an impact, but Napster and Rhapsody have already tried not to mention Spotify having cash problems themselves.