Why the fuck should they cost more?<\/p>\n
One small step for mankind, and one half-step back.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be like Neil Armstrong getting to the moon and not getting out.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean if you’re going to go all that way…<\/p>\n
This is the kind of bullshit pussyfooting that got the labels into hot water to begin with.\u00c2\u00a0 If anything, tracks should cost LESS!<\/p>\n
Oh, if you buy the complete album, you get the old price.\u00c2\u00a0 But who the fuck wants a complete album of dreck by lame acts like the Good, the Bad & the Ugly that played this press conference?<\/p>\n
You want to sell more tracks at the iTunes Store?\u00c2\u00a0 Make them a quarter.\u00c2\u00a0 Or fifteen cents or a dime.\u00c2\u00a0 Then watch sales go through the roof.<\/p>\n
Do you see cell phone prices rising?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you see T-Mobile canceling family plans or making you include every last living relative to get them?<\/p>\n
You don’t make half steps.\u00c2\u00a0 You go all the way, or not at all.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not willing to bet the company, then you’re not willing to win.<\/p>\n
Take the case of Compaq.\u00c2\u00a0 State of the art computers, using the highest quality many times tested parts, for a high price.\u00c2\u00a0 Good plan for a while.\u00c2\u00a0 But then Dell sold hardly tested parts in machines at a low price.\u00c2\u00a0 So did Compaq lower their prices A LITTLE?\u00c2\u00a0 No, they changed their business plan, and sold what Dell did at similar prices.\u00c2\u00a0 And the company ultimately merged with HP to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 And HP was doing badly against Dell until computers became commodity items and people preferred to buy them at their local retailer rather than call Dell and wait for a shipment.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, business conditions change, and you have to adjust.<\/p>\n
This is not a new movie.\u00c2\u00a0 It started unspooling in 1999.\u00c2\u00a0 People can download music from the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 And then they started owning hand-held players en masse.\u00c2\u00a0 Where’s the mystery?\u00c2\u00a0 CD sales have dropped since the turn of the decade.\u00c2\u00a0 Now they’re in free-fall and you RAISE THE PRICE???\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, if you’re gonna buy the whole album you might as well purchase the CD, you can rip it at ANY BIT RATE YOU WANT, and there’s NO copy protection!<\/p>\n
Unbelievable bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 EMI deserves to go out of business.\u00c2\u00a0 As for its lame competitors, they’re so paralyzed that they won’t even make a move.\u00c2\u00a0 Edgar Bronfman, Jr. wants higher prices WITH the DRM.\u00c2\u00a0 And Sony BMG is just trying to stay afloat, with an internal war aflame, with the Sony half fighting for its life.\u00c2\u00a0 And Universal is so arrogant, it somehow believes since it’s got the largest market share with the biggest selling acts, it’s somehow immune.\u00c2\u00a0 RIDICULOUS!<\/p>\n
Start with the publishers.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got to go to a percentage rate.<\/p>\n
Go to the deals.\u00c2\u00a0 Give the artists a fair shake, or soon none except for the most vapid no-talents will sign with major labels.<\/p>\n
Then rejigger the economics so you can sell tracks at a cheap price.<\/p>\n
Or, wake up to the future and realize more people want more music at a cheaper price and sell it to them this way.\u00c2\u00a0 In quantity.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably as licensed P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 But not track by track, even album by album, this is even LESS than the labels had before.<\/p>\n
Record labels?\u00c2\u00a0 Your business model has changed forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Why don’t you wake up and acknowledge this.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t give the people what they want at what THEY feel is a fair price, they’re just gonna continue to steal.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s nothing you can do about it.<\/p>\n
Like the iTunes Store is working.\u00c2\u00a0 When Steve Jobs HIMSELF says that less than three percent of songs on iPods are purchased at the iTunes Store.\u00c2\u00a0 I would have at least said this was a step in the right direction if the price had stayed the same.\u00c2\u00a0 But really, this is no different from these lame-ass labels adding a track or two to a CD a fan already bought to entice some casual buyer to purchase it months down the line.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels have fucked their customers for years, and they’re now paying the price.\u00c2\u00a0 Half-measures like this will not solve their problems.<\/p>\n
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Why the fuck should they cost more? One small step for mankind, and one half-step back.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be like Neil Armstrong getting to the moon and not getting out.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean if you’re going to go all that way… This is the kind of bullshit pussyfooting that got the labels into hot water to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-music-business","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-c6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}