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iTunes 6.0 Sucks (continued)
Thanks everyone for all the suggestions (including Jackson who not surprisingly suggests going back to vinyl).
I have done two things
1 - set up an account on emusic. I bought the Great Lake Swimmers record from them already. And get this. I paid $191 for the ability to download 90 songs a month (1080 songs per year). That's $0.18 per song or roughly $2 per record. If I can find most of the music I want to buy on emusic (and I don't yet know that I can) this is going to be the place I buy music from now on.
2 - set up an account on allofmp3.com. I gave them $10 via paypal and so far I've bought 5 songs for a total of $0.19. Roughly 4 cents per track.
All of this musis is DRM free. I am going to add another New Year's Resolution:
11 - Stop buying music from iTunes.
Thanks everyone who helped me make this one a reality.
UPDATE: Apparently allofmp3.com is not legit. So I am going to stop using them. They got me for $10. That sucks but stealing music is worse. I don't and won't do that.
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Posted January 5, 2006 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
You might want to be careful with alot of outfits like allofmp3.com. Most rumours are they are run by the russian mob. Just because you pay them for music does not mean you are legally downloading a song. Most likely, you are paying them to procure illegally downloaded music. Might as well just use any other P-to-P download source and not pay anything ;).
Posted by: Alex Gadea | Jan 5, 2006 6:13:15 AM
Fred
Keep us posted on the eMusic service - it looked interesting, but I'd rather wait for somebody else's experience before I give them my credit card details for a free trial.
I've heard the same about allofmp3.com as Alex - maybe an urban myth, but it sounds a bit TOO cheap ...
Posted by: Ric | Jan 5, 2006 6:49:37 AM
Buying music from allofmp3 is the equivalent of getting your song from kazaa but paying for the priviledge.
Aside from the fact that I know the music industry does not endorse these guys and that they have been trying to shut them down, a little bit of music economics might be in order.
There is a mechanical statutory license fee of $8.08 for each song that is sold (mechanically transfered) that goes directly to the publisher (not the record company). The publisher is usually 50% a publishing company like EMI publishing (the biggest), and %50 the songwriter (which is usually the artist). So anything that charges, less than $0.08 per track *cannot* be legal. These are fees set by the library of congress and are non-negotiable. Of course, in actuality there are lots of other costs and 0.08 wouldnt pay the record company or the performer (which may be different from the artist) anything. This is just some context.
So the bottom line is that by buying music from allofmp3.com you are actually *paying* criminals who are taking money totally outside any legal framework.
They are an offshore con.
Posted by: Hank Williams | Jan 5, 2006 7:18:15 AM
Just re-read my post and realized I made a mistake and I need to make a couple clarifications.
1. mistake: the publishers mechnical fee is $0.08 not $8.08 per song.
2. Clarification: I realize that $0.19 is not less than $0.08, but my point is given the statutory fees, you cant sell a current song for $0.19 and make money. Thats $0.10 to split between the record company and the "distributor". I cant go through it now, but the economics dont work.
3. Clarification: emusic does give you alot for your money. But they are a subscription service operated by one of the majors (universal music I believe), and they operate on two assumptions.
a. That generally you will download far less than your subscription maximum, making the per song pricing much more expensive (this is the way most subscription services operate. One month of not downloading anything is pure profit)
b. The emusic catalog is old or "long tail" content for which there is no current marketing spend. They wont do this with black eyed peas, or springsteen, or metallica, etc.
Posted by: hank williams | Jan 5, 2006 7:30:02 AM
good choice fred. emusic rocks. now i wish i sent you a subsription invite, so i could have got my free 64 downloads for winning them a new customer :-( ;-) if you are reading this ric let me know. i have been a subscriber for two years or so, and the experience is goodness. it would be cool to send you an invite, likesay, to get the free tracks...
maybe its time to drop your i-tunes sidebar, and go with the lastfm rick?
i may be wrong, hank, but it seems to me Fred's tastes veer to the "long tail" anyway. i havent seen him pointing to mariah carey lately.
Posted by: james governor | Jan 5, 2006 7:51:49 AM
DOH! that iTunes list *is* lastfm. too fast too dumb...
Posted by: james governor | Jan 5, 2006 7:53:01 AM
Funny, I just tried allofmp3 last night as well and was very happy with the two albums I downloaded, but I think 10$ of my money is probably enough, but only because this is fog-grey.
Wikipedia has a nice explaination of what might be going on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllOfMP3.com
Posted by: Jevon | Jan 5, 2006 9:46:25 AM
Esh, I have been using allofmp3 along with itunes for awhile, I didn't know allofmp3 was that murky. I Will have to try out emusic. As for the "long tail" of music I am completly fine with that, generally that is great for the stuff I listen to, thats why I have never really minded iTunes going to multiple price points as long as the price point might be lower for the long tail music, I don't mind it being higher than .99c for the new popular stuff.
Posted by: Cyanbane | Jan 5, 2006 10:20:09 AM
I'm not sure if using allofmp3.com actually counts as "stealing". Apparently, they are operating within the confines of Russian distribution law. Also interesting is that they are supposedly doing their part of setting aside money for the record labels from each order (based on their broadcast fee), yet the labels have not collected the money. My guess is that the labels don't want to add legitimacy to the service by collecting their money. None the less, the money set aside for the labels continues to grow. I do find it interesting that the label's haven't attempted to shut down the service even though it's been around for a few years (it's been steadily improving too).
Posted by: Toby | Jan 5, 2006 10:23:19 AM
Fred,
I know Jackson and I give you a lot of grief on this subject, but as a life long musician/recording engineer wannabe, I appreciate the integrity you demonstrate by NOT stealing music. On behalf of all struggling musicians out there, I thank you.
Posted by: Tony_Alva | Jan 5, 2006 11:14:01 AM
IANAL, but from what I know Russian copyright law is kind of a backdoor for services like allofmp3.com and mp3search.ru. Not that I like it, but failure of music labels and their russian representatives to shut those sites down seems to prove the point.
So, strictly speaking, these services are legal, but your acquiring of music from them is not. You are an US citizen and hence subject to USA copyright law.
Well, music at 0.08c per record may seem too cheap to be legal, but Fred, you are an MBA and you sure know that dollar here and dollar ther are two different dollars.
The same musical CD costs me ~30-40% less in Russia than here in Canada (and that is before horrible taxes are factored in). Round trip plane ticket across Atlantic costs 800$ if you fly Russia-Canada-Russia and 1700 if you fly Canada-Russia-Canada. And, if you do not believe my words, take a look at Economist's Big Mac Index and see for yourself.
Posted by: Artem | Jan 5, 2006 9:36:24 PM
Just as a point of clarification to Hank's post, eMusic is no longer owned by Vivendi Universal. The company has been independently owned by NY-based Dimensional Associates for the last two years.
Also, stating "The emusic catalog is old or "long tail" content for which there is no current marketing spend" is incorrect since many of the independent labels eMusic features spend large amounts of money marketing new releases, e.g. Fantasy/Concord, Rykodisc, Naxos, etc.
It is important to note that eMusic does not feature any major label content. What the service does have is a very large catalog of current releases and back catalog from hundreds of of great indepdendent labels.
Posted by: Chris McBride | Jan 6, 2006 11:24:50 AM
the .08 is "mechanical" fee the service pays to the publisher. but the service also pays an additional fee (usually around .70) to the distributor...
Posted by: Johnny | Jan 6, 2006 11:30:38 AM
Everybody - thanks for the info re eMusic (and allofmp3).
Fred - thanks for hosting the topic!
James G - my email is ric[dot]hayman[at]internode[dot]on[dot]net - I take it I need to actually subscribe for you to get your freebies?
Posted by: Ric | Jan 6, 2006 11:45:30 AM
I download illegally and excessively via soulseek but I don't feel remotely badly about it.
This is because I also go to live shows whenever I get the chance (and more money is made from that than album sales) and I also own about 1300 CDs, and buy at least one, if not many more every week.
Posted by: Casey | Jan 11, 2006 7:08:23 PM
Fred:
I've been meaning to point you to the goodness of emausic for a while. The straight-up MP3s are great but you will love the catalog. I've been getting a significant number of my new music finds from you over the past 6 months, and most of what you've been into is there: M. Ward, B&S, Portastatic, Josh Rouse, etc, etc.
One more: eMusic focused some effort on editorial this year. Worth reading and following the editors and reviews.
Enjoy it.
Posted by: Dave Hyndman | Jan 16, 2006 1:55:45 PM
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