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

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Where DOES one buy legal downloads of normal pop chart tracks? I know about Beatport, Kompakt-mp3 and so on for the bobbins, but I've heard that the itunes store only sells 128-bitrate quality tracks (!!!!! - can this be true? how...unutterably rubbish) and I can't think where else sells mp3s.

I would buy a song online if I couldn't find it in decent quality anywhere else (most likely if I want to DJ with it - right now this applies to 'Bird Flu', which reminds me, Tom, could you gmail me your mp3 of it please?) and wasn't being sent a promo.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i have been thinking of writing a DRM screed on my LJ - best place for it as i don't imagine anyone is that interested. i wouldn't want to take up FT space for it at least.

i am a bit scandalised about how much reckid ppl be ripping off their artists with a "digital discount" - ie that they end up getting LESS for digital stuff. boo.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I have a love/hate relationship with legal downloading; on the one hand, iTunes annoys the crap out of me by being vert restrictive about what you can do with your music once you've purchased it and often the download screws up whilst I'm purchasing something and the track will come down mashed. On the other hand, there's no 24-hour record shop near me and I do prefer to get hold of music legally when I can afford it.

any e-music subscribers?

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

my colleague keeps telling me how good value it is. (and good bitrates too)

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I use emusic, mostly for downloading back catalogue stuff which is hard to find elsewhere (if you see what I mean). I subscribe because a) it's very very cheap and b) it's DRM free. But: it is a real chore looking through all the stuff on there because you really need to know what you're looking for, and there are very few reliable means of directing you to interesting stuff.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I find it difficult to imagine I will ever consistently buy "albums" in electronic format. On the "positive" side, because I like the packaging and the physical object; on the "negative" side, because it really is quite rare to get a full album without a few duff tracks. "Album" prices would need to offer *substantial* savings over the $1/track price I mentioned above.

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.