My main point was that in a digital world, you could make more money by selling more units at a lower price. Which is better for the artist, one person buying an album for $10 or 10 people buying it for $1 if their income is the same? My guess is the later if the artist is concerned about actually having their music heard.

Quite frankly, I would not buy most of the albums I have gotten at eMusic if they had been $10. I would be buying less music from fewer artists and I would probably take fewer chances on unknown artists. Maybe I am not typical, but my exposure to newer and lesser-known artists has increased greatly thanks to eMusic. As a result, they are getting some money from me that they would not have gotten otherwise. I guess that a lot of eMusic subscribers end up buying stuff there that they would have never even looked at elsewhere.

If you don’t like eMusic, get your label to leave or get off your label. If the discontent is widespread, then eMusic will have to change its game. Personally, I think it would be better to let artists and labels set their own pricing, even if it is based on a number of downloads in a subscription model. Obviously, albums comprised of a few long tracks end up being priced too low, while those with lots of short tracks become relatively expensive.

At the end of the day, though, there are more people who want to make music than the market will support as full-time professional musicians. It would be a wonderful world if everyone who wanted to be a musician could make a living doing so, but the fact is it is a field where supply always exceeds demand.

Almost added an entry on that, but while Ars is right to note the lack of specific information and support for the “eMusic labels exodus” story, they don’t have any details of their own. eMusic claims their customers spend more than iTunes customers, but there’s no comparison with other competition, or sources, or specifics. Nor is there a translation into what this means for labels. Nor is there a real comparison of sales volume.

So, we’re back where we started — having abstract debates over ideas with no solid numbers. That’s not to say eMusic is evil or doomed, but trying to argue without knowing the sales numbers is pretty pointless.

And for eMusic to make the argument that people don’t want to spend as much money in a Web 2.0 world because they’ve never heard of the artists is complete non sequitur. What does Web 2.0 have to do with it? How is eMusic even Web 2.0, even if we did care about that? What do people want to spend on music they have heard of? Why would they spend money on unfamiliar music; wouldn’t you buy new music because you like an artist, whether you just discovered them or knew them previously? How is his customer base an unbiased picture of all music customers everywhere?

And, most importantly, why should a label contribute to devaluing their product? If it increases profits, great! (And if that’s the case, then yes, I will join in the argument for an eMusic model.) If not, and I were a label, I would sure pull out. If I wanted to give stuff away, I’d give it away. But you’d need some solid numbers to make that decision, presumably, not an abstract argument about what people want to pay from the guy who came up with the model.

Like I said, maybe eMusic is onto something. I just want some numbers. And in the meantime, it’ll also be interesting to see how this new boutique model performs.

I wasn’t setting out to slam eMusic here, I just have some reservations. They seem to have lost some important labels. And in general, consumer and music industry opinion doesn’t seem to be blowing in their favor. They don’t have any particular focus, other than being cheap, and lacking the selection of both Apple and the Windows Media stores, I’m not sure that’s enough for them to remain competitive. I think musicians do have the right to balk if they’re so cheap that the volume/margin argument doesn’t help. If you’re selling 25 tracks a year, you might be better off giving the thing away and retaining control and getting user eyes on your site instead of eMusic’s.

But that’s not to say that there’s conclusive data on eMusic; I’d want more facts before making final judgment. I just can’t advocate them on the basis of them being DRM-free and cheap, not when there are alternatives. There’s DRM-laden but cheaper and with more variety (URGE, Rhapsody, etc., which are cheap enough you might just live with the DRM and pay for CDs when you want to copy something). Then there’s DRM free, more expensive, but (arguably) higher quality and with deeper selection, like these newer, specialized stores.

But I’m also the last person to try to predict the future. I never imagined when iPod and iTunes came out that they’d be the hit they are, for instance. Online music sales dynamics still seem a little mysterious — as musicians, the key seems to be how to master promotion and audience-building more than anything else. The only safe bet is that you won’t HAVE to use DRM just to make a living or remain visible.

Commerce is commerce, though, so if someone has something I’d like for sale, I’m inclined to buy it. As a consumer, of course I’m looking for a deal. But just like I do with my coffee, I’ll pay a slight premium if it means supporting my local independent economy over supporting large-scale chains. But that support is contingent on a getting a reasonable price.

my records are on emusic and i get paid very little. emusic came along to indie labels when this whole mp3 thing was first happening and, i think, got a lot of indie lables who didn’t know any better at that time to sign up for their RIDICULOUS biz model. let’s put it this way, emusic and the consumer make out like bandits. who loses? why the PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY CREATE THE CONTENT THAT PEOPLE WANT!

this whole system is so screwed it’s not even funny. but the music biz screwed people on cd’s prices (well, the majors did; indie labels, for the most part, kept the prices decent.)for a years (esp. the last 8 or so as cd manufactoring rates have fallen so much) that now people feel JUSTIFIED in paying the LEAST possible for music.

add that to that fact that to the glut of cheap recording gear in the last few years has lead to more albums being released than ever before means music has become nearly worthless.

which is fine, i guess but spare me the “i want artists to get paid” crap. you want the most for the least. just like you do with hard drives, dvd players and microphones, etc. from china. and just as you don’t REALLY care about what a chinese worker makes maunfacturing those things, you don’t REALLY care what a musician makes, right?

and the sad thing is the worker in china probably made just about the same amount last year as i did from my music “career.” c’est la vie in the 21st century!

http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2007/05/indie_ultra_is_.html

Emusic currently has 40393 labels listed in their database and growing. My guess is that labels that can confidently sell 1000 releases in a year on iTunes aren’t going to be interested in eMusic in the long term unless the pay schedule is improved, but for a lot of indies, they are lucky to sell 25 releases on iTunes. There’s over 300,000 subscribers on eMusic, the minimum package is 30 downloads a month. That’s a lot of downloads to capitalize on.

The label/collective I belong to (Intelligent Machinery Productions, who sold downloads before we went all hippy) have downloads for sale in around ten of the major on-line retailers, and only ever saw an appreciable (if minor, hence going all hippy and giving stuff away for free instead) return from eMusic.

These indie stores are a great idea if they start thinking of downloads as something other than in terms of CD sales. At $5 an album, I’d be much more inclined to consider getting stuff through Other. As it stands though, I expect we’ll see a lot of these on-line stores going under in the next year, and people blaming it on a poor market instead of their weak business practices.