What would make you pay for music downloads?

[Gustav]

Good question! Of those parameters, the cost, liner notes, cover art and the jewel case, what is the most crucial to you? I.e., would you consider a download if the price was lower than the used CD but no liner notes, etc? Or do you need a lower price, liner notes and cover arts for a download to be even considered?

Thanks for answering!

Rikard

well, there is another problem with online downloading. Buying CDs, whether new or old, is not just buying for entertianment, but to certain extend an investment as well. Used CDs have a "resell value" which might be higher or lower than the retail value. So, after so many years, there is a possibility that i can unload my CDs and get money in return. However, for online downloads, you can't really re-sell these, you downloaded it, that's it. Am I right? I don't think you are allowed to sell the download to others! (unlike with CDs)

[Mark]

Interesting post, Sef, but I take issue with your assertion that the download is a dodo in waiting.

Think about it. Downloads are cheap to make (just one original rip from a CD or, better still, studio master), and you can sell the result infinite times. They don't impact the environment like CD production does, and can be delivered, stored and used in numerous convenient ways. Yes, the rather dubiously named 'file sharing' will always be a problem, but I suspect that big publishing houses will eventually introduce some kind of region coding, a la DVDs, to minimise the problem - though they'll never complete prevent it: too many hack-savvy techno-nerds out there with too much time on their hands.

Like it or not, CDs will be for 'enthusiasts' ('dinosaurs', in the eyes and ears of tomorrow's young) only in roughly 25 years or fewer. And why not? Everything moves on - that's just a fact of life.

[bhodges]

Legal downloading is potentially especially good in the case of out of print CDs. BIS tends to keep all its discs in print, but for other labels which have a large back catalogue, the ability to download hard to find CDs cheaply and at a reasonable quality should appeal to many.

I forgot about this point, with which I agree, also.  Many CDs go out of print very, very quickly, and barring a good source of used ones (or a service like Arkiv), downloads could conceivably be the best solution.

--Bruce

[Sef]

Interesting post, Sef, but I take issue with your assertion that the download is a dodo in waiting.

Think about it. Downloads are cheap to make (just one original rip from a CD or, better still, studio master), and you can sell the result infinite times. They don't impact the environment like CD production does, and can be delivered, stored and used in numerous convenient ways. Yes, the rather dubiously named 'file sharing' will always be a problem, but I suspect that big publishing houses will eventually introduce some kind of region coding, a la DVDs, to minimise the problem - though they'll never complete prevent it: too many hack-savvy techno-nerds out there with too much time on their hands.

Like it or not, CDs will be for 'enthusiasts' ('dinosaurs', in the eyes and ears of tomorrow's young) only in roughly 25 years or fewer. And why not? Everything moves on - that's just a fact of life.

Take your point Mark, but my opinion on downloads could easily be extended to CDs too. If the technology existed for you to play what you wanted, in whatever format you desired, wherever you wanted to listen to it, for a subscription fee - would you do it? Because it's only a matter of time until it will be available IMO. A lot of people would have to get their acts together of course, and the technology will only be developed over time, not overnight. Still, it's a grand vision!

[rickardg]

a sad euphemism for theft, both illegal or immoral.

Please don't call it theft, it just makes the tone of an already inflamed debate even shriller. Nobody seriously belives that it is, not even the RIAA and whatever they are called. When they sue people they don't sue them for theft but for copyright infringment. It might be both illegal and immoral but it isn't theft. 

[not edward]

For me:

For material that's not available on CD, a minimum of 192kpbs.
For material that is available on CD, flac is essential.

Pricewise, I wouldn't want to pay much more than $1 per 15 minutes of material, and I'd want it tracked appropriately (no patching files together to produce an unbroken stream of sound).

[Morigan]

I agree that if I wanted to buy music files, lossless would be ideal: I would essentially get CD quality. Now, the problem that might be stopping e-music dealers is the high bandwidth required to download such files. Even the FLAC or APE formats are kind of heavy.

Anyway, as someone who litterally grew up with a computer, I'm not really ashamed to say that I'm a bit of a pirate. After all, it is through "illegal" downloads that I have discovered classical music and that I have made my repertoire so broad. It also led me to buy many CDs and DVDs. However, I'm buying more and more now that I have more money to spend... But it's quite hard to resist when I can find good lossless rips of particular recordings on sharing networks like eMule.

Also, Canadian legislation about copyright infringement on the Internet is very, very vague.

[Mark]

If the technology existed for you to play what you wanted, in whatever format you desired, wherever you wanted to listen to it, for a subscription fee - would you do it?

No, I wouldn't. Nor would a lot of people. Don't underestimate the psychological hold over consumers that's engendered by the concept of 'ownership'. Part of the reason DRM has been so heavily criticised is because it restricts the perceived rights of the 'owner' - by which I mean, of course, the purchaser. People want to feel that once they've paid their money, they've 'bought' something. If they want to rent music or films, services already exist to cater to that. But I don't use these. I'm old-fashioned. I like to 'own'.

Please don't call it theft, it just makes the tone of an already inflamed debate even shriller. Nobody seriously believes that it is, not even the RIAA and whatever they are called. When they sue people they don't sue them for theft but for copyright infringement. It might be both illegal and immoral but it isn't theft. 

Sorry, but just because the majority of consumers plus the quangos set up to protect the rights of multinationals (don't kid yourself that the RIAA and other similar bodies exist to represent the interests of artists - that's just naive) don't regard file sharing as theft in legal terms, morally, acquiring something you haven't paid for but which is available for purchase elsewhere is theft, pure and simple. What next? Car sharing? Wallet sharing? It might not sit well with people to think of themselves as thieves, but all of us who share files of copyright-protected material which should be paid for are no better than common thieves. Sorry if that jars with anyone's 'I'm not so bad' self image. We're all guilty. Including me.

[Sef]

No, I wouldn't. Nor would a lot of people. Don't underestimate the psychological hold over consumers that's engendered by the concept of 'ownership'. Part of the reason DRM has been so heavily criticised is because it restricts the perceived rights of the 'owner' - by which I mean, of course, the purchaser. People want to feel that once they've paid their money, they've 'bought' something. If they want to rent music or films, services already exist to cater to that. But I don't use these. I'm old-fashioned. I like to 'own'.

I feel it make take a lot to convince you! You don't own the music in any case. You may own the media, but as we both probably remember from the good old days of LPs, just because you owned the LP it didn't give you the right to walk into a shop and demand the same thing on CD for nothing. Even now that it is possible to record from an LP to a CD it's of dubious legality. Not wanting to labour the point, but the (theoretical) subscription service I had in mind was paying for unlimited access to all music, realtime, anyplace, as much as you want. Now if the quality didn't suffer, why wouldn't you want that? Environmentally sound, takes no space, fantastic choice. After all you can't take your bit of plastic with you....

[Mark]

Not wanting to labour the point, but the (theoretical) subscription service I had in mind was paying for unlimited access to all music, realtime, anyplace, as much as you want. Now if the quality didn't suffer, why wouldn't you want that? Environmentally sound, takes no space, fantastic choice.

And then the service goes bust, as happened recently in the UK with Virgin's subscription service. Okay, it wasn't as high-tech as the one you propose. But it did leave customers with a lot of 'rented' music they could no longer play through no fault of their own. Sign up for subscription? Sorry, no thanks.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I have a subscription to Rhapsody, which isn't too bad. Lots of stuff in print is there. You can listen at home or at work and if you want you can even buy the music as downloads. The cost is $12 per month which is a bargain considering there are a lot of MET Operea broadcasts that you can listen to but cannot buy commercially.

[rickardg]

What next? Car sharing? Wallet sharing?

I'll save my long rant for when it's on topic.

[Mark]

I'll save my long rant for when it's on topic.

PM me. I'd love to hear it.

[Sef]

I have a cheap Naxos subscription ($20 a year). There is a subscription that streams in CD quality for $25 a month or so, so quite expensive. I can listen at home or at work but this is what got me thinking about it all. They don't let me download, but if I could get at the content from anywhere (including my car) then why would I want to download?

[Mark]

I have a cheap Naxos subscription ($20 a year). There is a subscription that streams in CD quality for $25 a month or so, so quite expensive. I can listen at home or at work but this is what got me thinking about it all. They don't let me download, but if I could get at the content from anywhere (including my car) then why would I want to download?

That's all well and good. I'm just worried about the instability of the corporate world and its 'profit over people' approach to everything it does. Subscriber numbers drop over two successive years? Fuck it - we'll just bin off the service. Doesn't matter that people have paid for equipment to stream content in their cars, home, offices, treehouses. We'll end up with another batch of suckers like those who backed HD DVD and spent £500 on machines to play a format that's now defunct. But as you say, if enough corporate will by enough businesses existed to make this utopia possible, I guess some people would buy it. Just not me.

[Sef]

I guess that I'm not being clear. This becomes the way that music is distributed. No more CDs, no downloads, a completely new Paradigm. It's not a service akin to anything that you see today. In the same way that if EMI goes bust the music will still exist. As I said, a lot of people and companies will have to pull their fingers out and change their mindset. If we're still around in 20 years then it will be interesting to see how things evolve. These are exciting times.

[Mark]

I guess that I'm not being clear. This becomes the way that music is distributed. No more CDs, no downloads, a completely new Paradigm. It's not a service akin to anything that you see today. In the same way that if EMI goes bust the music will still exist. As I said, a lot of people and companies will have to pull their fingers out and change their mindset. If we're still around in 20 years then it will be interesting to see how things evolve. These are exciting times.

That's a brave new world you're suggesting, and I think we're still a long way from realising it. The logistics alone are frightening. It'd be like trying to create the internet all over again: whereby, if one service provider took a hit (i.e. went bust), another could step into their place seamlessly and assure continuity of service. Awesome idea. Bound to get screwed up by greedy accountants, though.

[eclassical]

I agree on what is said above by several posters, regarding back catalogs. I would go as far as suggesting that you shouldn't be allowed to keep the copyright on a catalog which you have no plans on making publicly available for sale. It's better for the public that the recordings in back catalog are transfered into public domain than that nobody gets a chance to purchase them IMHO. You shouldn't hold copyright and withhold the music from the public.

But this is a bit off topic and to bring this post back on topic, I see that many seem to have a need for lossless downloads to a price significantly lower than that of the physical CD, and with the extras (booklets and cover arts). That is really helpful input. I will definitely forward it towards the labels. We have recently started to use 320kbps* for our MP3s so FLAC would be the next logical step, no doubt.

I can see both good and bad things with subscriptions. Personally I think, biased as I clearly am, that purchasing the file provides for more freedom and control. On the other hand, knowing how much to spend each month on music via a subscription could be a great thing too. I'm not sure which model gives most for the buck spent - I guess it depends. And DRM would, as Mark pointed out, render the subscribed to music useless if the subscription service went out of business. I think eMusic has an interesting model with DRM-free subscriptions (kind of). DRM is a different discussion altogether I think.

Gustav asked:
"However, for online downloads, you can't really re-sell these, you downloaded it, that's it. Am I right?"
Well, the copyright laws mostly won't permit this in most countries. Personally I would think that should be OK but I don't write the laws You need permission to sell digital files in most countries. It is a bit silly since you can re-sell your CDs, but it's really hard to compare the two (you could in theory re-sell your file over and over, which is not true for a CD).

And finally some bait:

Is there any truth in the claim that people would pay for a download mostly because the debate on file sharing has given the people guilt over ripping off artists, "stealing" etc?

Keep the comments coming please!

Cheers
Rikard

* Starting with new additions a while ago and slowly converting the old catalog

[Mark]

I think eMusic has an interesting model with DRM-free subscriptions (kind of).

There's no 'kind of' about it. All their stuff is subscription based, BUT you get to keep the files if you cancel your subscription, with no restrictions or limitations of any kind on playback or file movement. Now that sort of subscription model works for me - indeed, the 300+ albums I've downloaded from eMusic are testament to this.

[drogulus]

     I prefer to use services that don't tie you to a proprietary downloader like Amazon does, but the killer is a proprietary player and format. I cancelled Rhapsody when I realized how restrictive it was. I don't want to rent, I want to own, just like with CDs. In the end you want to use the files the same way you do with your rips, and if you can't you'll go elsewhere. So I'll put up with the Amazon downloader since once I have the files I can use them how I want. Actually, their downloader is OK. They will need to let you redownload, which they don't permit at the moment, but that's because it's still in beta, I think.