Digitalism

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I will come clean right from the off and say that yes, this is background research for work. But I will just be absorbing the info myself and not giving any of it directly to THE MAN.

[Poll #940984]

I'm also rly interested in thoughts on digital music and its marketing and pricing in general, especially FORMAT - which appeal more to buyers? Single? Album? Either with lyrics/videos/art bundled up? Single plus a free B-Side? 4-song EP package? "Subscription" to new/work-in-progress artist tracks? (Much mooted this, rarely-actually done?) I get the feeling that the major labels' thinking is still VERY tied to what they're used to in terms of physical sales.

Anyway this is the future of pop distribution and access, so let's talk about it!

Comments

Coincidence.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I was attending a werk conference this morning mentioning these very things.

1) With my newly acquired technology I am in the position to capture streams on my mac straight off myspace or wherever. Anyone can do this with Audacity or freely available software. It's a bit of faff but no more than taping something off the radio. I tried buying a song off Tesco Downloads once and it wouldn't play on my old PC. *flicks the Vs at buying downloads*

2) A while back on here I attempted to remember the breakdown of yr 79p download; this morning refreshed my memory:

79p => 13p VAT + 8p to retailer + 47p to record label + 7p to artist + 1p to PRS + 3p to publisher

Our MD expects the price of a download to drop to about 29p in the next three years. emusic already offers it at around this level (say if you bought the maximum amount allocated to you for your monthly subscription) so it's not a ridiculous target. At the moment the big copyright tribunal is fighting over whether the above is reasonable or not (BPI are sueing PRS because they would like our slice to be more like 4-5p and their slice to be more like 50p).

There you go.

Re: Coincidence.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Interesting. PRS money is for who exactly?

Capturing those myspace streams and bang! right into iTunes is great, isn't it?

Re: Coincidence.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

PRS money goes to the songwriters (eg Cathy Dennis) as opposed to the artist's slice (eg Kylie)

Grr I've got confused above about the Copyright Tribunal stuff - the figures should be percentages or something. No-one really understands what's going on with it, only that we're trying to settle out of court :-)

Re: Coincidence.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

urg, then where does the publisher money go? songwriter also?

you always hear how the people who actually make the money are the songwriters, and that breakdown (7 to Kylie, 1 to Cathy) suggests something different (Ringo gets 7/4p for playing drums on 'Let It Be', Paul gets only 0.5p for writing the song! (plus his 7/4p))

Re: Coincidence.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The publisher money can go wherever the publisher sees fit! If a songwriting band member has an exceptionally good publishing deal (eg Radiohead) then they will see a fair bit of the publisher's slice as well as their artist slice, once they've paid their original publishing advance off. Alternatively the publisher will rub their hands with glee and buy an porsche.

Other non-digital royalty areas are EXTREMELY lucrative for songwriters. Kylie gets 0p for getting her song played on the radio/telly. Cathy Dennis gets £££many. Online stuff is handled differently - there are separate royalties for BUYING music (79p breakdown described above) and separate royalties for PERFORMING music (ie using Kylie song in the background for your website or myspace to encourage people to visit it). It's the latter bit that we're being sued about (apologies, I got mixed up earlier).

MCPS handles the Buying A Product side of things (CDs, DVDs), and this part of the music industry is going down the sh1tter. Sales of physical products are falling and there was no 'instant replacement' scheme for online royalties this time - unlike when CDs arrived and it was merely a matter of changing the shape of the case. It all works differently and the major labels are feeling the pinch because they didn't respond quickly enough.

Re: Coincidence.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

there's a Top 100 Trance compilation on iTunes for only £9 or so works out at around 12p a track i think. i didn't recognise much of what was on it tho.

Re: Coincidence.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

But you have to have the rubbish tracks as well, yes? Actually I'm not really convinced by the "downloads mean you can pick the tracks you want" argument. I buy albums because I want to hear tracks I wouldn't normally hear, because I don't know about them already & they're not on the telly.

Re: Coincidence.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

the main thing is that you get to hear (hopefully) enough of the tracks via preview option to decide whether you want them or not. esp. useful with albums.

Re: Coincidence.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

"Our MD expects the price of a download to drop to about 29p in the next three years"

hurrah this seems about right. i still firmly believe it will go "cheap and DRMd" or "50p more if you want to do anything with it".

Re: Coincidence.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Conspicious absence during entire conference re: DRM. NO MENTION of it at all...