The ideal online music store...

[iceman]

Would:

-Allow purchases of individual songs

-Credit back the price of a song if you purchase the album the song came from

-Send you the actual CD after you have purchased and downloaded the album.

Sort of a combination of itunes and Amazon that satifies the immediate gratification issue, doesn't rip you off, gives you a lasting backup copy and suppplies cover art, liner notes, etc.

Who wants to get rich with me?

[half-fast]

50 cents a song

[iceman]

You'd be out of business in a day at 50 cents a song, the labels want that much up front, but thanks for playing.

[half-fast]

that's why I won't buy music online. at a buck a song, you're paying more than you would for a cd, which is overpriced to begin with.

[Woodsy]

that's why I won't buy music online. at a buck a song, you're paying more than you would for a cd, which is overpriced to begin with.

$9.99 a cd is better than the 15+ most stores want

[iceman]

I can't really argue with that, except that a buck a song usually ends up costing about the same as a cd would. Whether music is overpriced from the start is a different issue and not one I can control, although I tend to agree with you.

[meatdrink9]

I like your concept ice. My uncle has stumbled onto another one sort-of by accident.

He's got a huge library of music is well known for his selection and taste of music. He's also a total technophile. His brother got an ipod after him and then sent it to his brother (Atlanta to Minneapolis) to have him load it with music he thought he would like. A friend heard his ipod and saw what was on it and before long he had purchased an ipod and it was on it's way to my uncle. Then my mom did the same, and so on. I think he's stocked 30 plus ipods now. If you could figure out the legal aspects of this scenario maybe you could have a site where you could pick stuff you wanted loaded onto the ipod and then based on your picks the site could make suggestions for you (much like amazon). Then you ship off your ipod and it comes back fully stocked for a flat fee.

[DJSapp]

www.allofmp3.com

Fifteen thumbs up, but you are supporting commies by shopping there.

With all the money you save, buy a stack of CD-R's and a printer to burn a hard copy and print the cover art to sit on your shelf.

[iceman]

www.allofmp3.com

Fifteen thumbs up, but you are supporting commies by shopping there.

With all the money you save, buy a stack of CD-R's and a printer to burn a hard copy and print the cover art to sit on your shelf.

I'm well aware of allofmp3.com and I know some folks who swear by it, but when you consider that you're dealing with Russian mobsters and your payment options are credit card or paypal, neither of which is close to secure, you might realize that there are good reasons not to use it. Also, cd-r's are notoriously unstable so they don't make great backups and the cover art and liner notes won't be a neat little package like you get with a cd.

The preloaded ipod is a cool idea, MD, although I'm betting there are a lot of obstacles to doing it. The main obstacle with my idea would be price, but that can be a pretty big obstacle (see djsapp's post, he's in bed with the mob to save a few bucks!)

I don't know for a fact that allofmp3 is the mob, but think about it. Also a friend in the music business says that their claims that it is all legal are lies, which if true means that you are paying for bootleg downloads and who the heck would do that when you can download stuff for free?

[Julio]

Does anyone have any experience with emusic.com Seems like a pretty good deal. Pay a flat fee per month and get a set number of downloads. Basic package, $9.99 gets you 40 songs per month, that's less than $.25 per song. Best part, you can do whatever with the MP3's, put them in ipod, burn cd's, etc. Anyone try it?

[Cornholio]

I just ran a few numbers... just for grins-

If you want to get the CD out the door for store price, it's a little tight. I made some wild guesses about how much you'd pay the Big Music Companies per song. Also, I think you'd need mad cash up front to negotiate mass licensing. The kind of lawyers you'd want would be "eating regular," as my grandpa used to say.

It's a great idea, though...

[aspenskibum]

Does anyone have any experience with emusic.com Seems like a pretty good deal. Pay a flat fee per month and get a set number of downloads. Basic package, $9.99 gets you 40 songs per month, that's less than $.25 per song. Best part, you can do whatever with the MP3's, put them in ipod, burn cd's, etc. Anyone try it?

i have a freind who swears by it, in fact hes trying to get me to join, because for getting a freind to join you get another free 50 songs. Not a bad way to do things.

[Shepherd Wong]

The main problem is it is too easy to get it for free.

[milton]

i have a freind who swears by it, in fact hes trying to get me to join, because for getting a freind to join you get another free 50 songs. Not a bad way to do things.

bizzump.

Just signed up for emusic.com Good shiznit. 192kbs mp3s with no DRM. .25 cents a song, unlimited burning/ripping/playing. If you're not looking for the latest Foo Fighters, this may be for you.

[aspenskibum]

bizzump.

Just signed up for emusic.com Good shiznit. 192kbs mp3s with no DRM. .25 cents a song, unlimited burning/ripping/playing. If you're not looking for the latest Foo Fighters, this may be for you.

yea, i am tempted to sign up, also i have been thinking, if you get a freind to join via your email you get 50 free songs (as allready said)
maybe it would be worth the trouble to organize some kind of maggot emusic chain mail type thing, everyone whos interested puts thier email in a thread, and butloads of free songs for all.
seems like one person would at least have to be the last person and get nothing though, appart from the 50 free songs for joining.

[3eyedsmiley]

What about a music service that allows you to choose between unlimited downloads for fixed price or buying songs a la carte? SO then if you only periodically buy songs, you choose the latter and if you dl lots of stuff you do the former.

Yeah dealing witht he mob isnot a happy thought. They could easily be draining money or somethjing. Be afraid. Very afraid.

If they do manage to extort money from you, the Russian police won't care. From what I heard, they DO care about caviar (mmm).

[ljm]

What about a music service that allows you to choose between unlimited downloads for fixed price or buying songs a la carte? SO then if you only periodically buy songs, you choose the latter and if you dl lots of stuff you do the former.

Yeah dealing witht he mob isnot a happy thought. They could easily be draining money or somethjing. Be afraid. Very afraid.

If they do manage to extort money from you, the Russian police won't care. From what I heard, they DO care about caviar (mmm).

If you're talking unlimited streaming for a fixed price with the option to buy songs at less than .99 then Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and Napster too (even tho I hate Napster) fit that qualification.

MD9's idea is good, but not feasable legally methinks. I think a good thing would be to allow DRM downloads of a CD and send the actual CD in the mail for a few bucks cheaper than the actual CD. For instance, Rhapsody right now has a promo where all CD's cost 7.99 to download. It would be sweet if I could pay 9.99 or 10.99 and download them instantly and also have the CD shipped to me. Theoretically it seems they wouldn't have to pay record companies any extra for that.

Overall, I am a fan of the subscription model. I think people need to get used to it, and devices need to be more universally compliant. I'm well aware that iPods are the coolest audio players out there, but I can't bring myself to buy one. As soon as I can listen to my subscription service easily on my home stereo, in my car, at my computer, and on my mp3 player I'll be completely satisfied. No one complains about renting movies for most of their viewing, I just think consumers need to think about it differently. I still buy my absolute favorite music, but am exposed to so much new music via subscriptions.

Wow, that's kinda long... Full Disclosure: I do marketing work with one of the online music services, so I spend a lot of time thinking about this shit.

</rant>

[shirk]

I like your concept ice. My uncle has stumbled onto another one sort-of by accident.

He's got a huge library of music is well known for his selection and taste of music. He's also a total technophile. His brother got an ipod after him and then sent it to his brother (Atlanta to Minneapolis) to have him load it with music he thought he would like. A friend heard his ipod and saw what was on it and before long he had purchased an ipod and it was on it's way to my uncle. Then my mom did the same, and so on. I think he's stocked 30 plus ipods now. If you could figure out the legal aspects of this scenario maybe you could have a site where you could pick stuff you wanted loaded onto the ipod and then based on your picks the site could make suggestions for you (much like amazon). Then you ship off your ipod and it comes back fully stocked for a flat fee.

My cousin has a DJ friend in Montreal that does the same thing. Tell him what you like and dis-like, mail ipod to get musical goodness. Apparently he is doing lots and lots of them.

[hev]

I have thunk on this topic a couple times and I think icemans conclusions are sound. A few conclusions I have come to myself..

One of the problems with the pay per download strategy is that the credit card folks are skimming the max off the top on those small transactions.

Technology is definately feasable to allow users to purchase the right to download/listen to songs in addition to caching copies on a device. This creates some potential bandwith issues but provides users with there own backup as long as your in biz.

Subscription services including satelite do provide good oppurtunity for new music exposure but typically have been a seperate business pursuit.

So what I think would be cool would be coming togethor on all fronts. Moving towards a subscription based model where you have the oppurtunity to buy a sliding scale of rights on each track. listen once, xnumber, or infinite. you could use some credit system to track it all based on subscription packages (think cell phone minutes) even better i think you need to bring the service to all fronts. hear a cool song on your satelite radio in your car. press a button and you now own the right to download and play that song at any node.

[mrryde]

OK I will give emusic a shot, first PM will get the referral

[mrryde]

Thanks LJ

[Spats]

I don't know for a fact that allofmp3 is the mob, but think about it. Also a friend in the music business says that their claims that it is all legal are lies, which if true means that you are paying for bootleg downloads and who the heck would do that when you can download stuff for free?

It's legal in Russia. The legal issues over importing the music you've purchased into other countries are murkier.

I'm sure the RIAA believes it's illegal, but then again, the RIAA believes that cassette tapes and the VCR should be illegal. (Cue Jack Valenti's infamous comment: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.")

This gets into issues of free trade and morality: is it OK for a company to charge people one price in one city, state, or country, and a substantially higher or lower price in another? And if they do, is it OK to prevent people from going where the product is cheaper to buy it? American seniors go to Canada to buy prescription drugs because they're cheaper there...is that illegal? Immoral?

[shamrockpow]

I just ran a few numbers... just for grins-

If you want to get the CD out the door for store price, it's a little tight. I made some wild guesses about how much you'd pay the Big Music Companies per song. Also, I think you'd need mad cash up front to negotiate mass licensing. The kind of lawyers you'd want would be "eating regular," as my grandpa used to say.

It's a great idea, though...

8.5 cents per song according to Mark Cuban here:
"Time to allow hard drives pre loaded with Music….and change Harry Fox"
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000273069815/

He's also a bull on comprehensive music download kiosks:
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000000038844/