Warner’s new music service proposal has the blogosphere all abuzz this AM. It’s mostly been a narrow-minded, short-sighted reception, which emphasizes challenges the music industry faces in winning back paying customers. (Threatening college students with lawsuits hasn’t been a good marketing strategy.) The recording industry’s album sales revenue model doesn’t work within the current digital landscape, so why shouldn’t we give them some credit and leeway in exploring alternate distribution (and money-making) methods? The relative success of services like Rhapsody, Pandora, and Last.FM prove there’s a demand for legal, unlimited access. So, why not offer consumers a higher tier broadband package or subscription iPod for something similar?
There’s a huge chasm to cross between idea and implementation… a product rarely looks exactly like the proposal, so I think this reaction is premature. Though, it’ll probably be of a great help to Warner’s new unit in understanding the consumer mindset.
“so why shouldnt we give them some credit and leeway in exploring alternate distribution (and money-making) methods?”
Why not? Because the plan calls for everyone to pay, whether you use that service (access to all music) or not.
So, on the one hand we’re happy that cable companies are finally letting go of the bundles, and allow a la carte. Then on the other hand, we allow the RIAA to impose a tax on us?
An idea is not a released product/service – have we seen any ISPs say they agree? Or that they’d automatically pass a charge on to all customers?
The tax is built on the faulty premise that Consumers are the subordinates of the Recording Industry – we are not.
Be delusion ( most likely ), arrogant or a futile effort to save themselves from extinction, I don’t care, by publicly announcing the tax, they have exposed themselves as the charlatans they are.
You as a Consumer have to options:
1) Take the red pill and continue to believe the Recording Industry is your superior and believe everything they tell you, no questions asked.
2) Take the blue pill and wake up from the hibernation to realize you as a Consumer are an equal player in the relationship between you and your favorite artist.
Has it really only made the news today? I could’ve sworn, I read about this a week or two ago.
Anyway, I don’t see everyone’s against the idea even though it’s still in the brainstorming stage. People should offer constructive criticism and not cry that Warner (or RIAA) is the devil.
The devil, as always, is going to be in details of how this will be implemented.
Ivan, Sony BMG also mentioned a similar music subscription service strategy recently… could of been that.
I wouldn’t call it a hysteria to tell you the truth. I already pay enough taxes on everything I buy, on my pay check, and so many other things that I really don’t want to pay a tax just to hear music. Allow me to decide if I want to pay a subscription fee to listen to music. If you let me decide, then I might just bite.
Dave,
I’m not completely against the idea, but we’re not starting from a good place.
Revenue payed to the RIAA does not mean money paid to the Artists. First, they only represent major labels, meaning this will continue the current industry organization without letting things change naturally. Its becoming pretty obvious that the internet lets artists connect to their fans much more directly and that seems to be the way things are going now. There is less reason for the labels now, yet we would be giving them all the money.
Also, much of the money that goes to the RIAA doesn’t even go to the artists they represent. They keep the vast majority of it.
Then of course there’s the ethical thing. In Canada they’ve done something like this on CD-Rs I think, and maybe even on iPods. And oddly Canadians have reacted as if it means that file sharing is legal and they have a right to steal any music they want. Which seems not so odd really, and maybe kinda bad. So stealing music from major artists is okay then? What about movies? Should there be a tax for them too? eBooks?
And of course people would now steal everything–including music from independent artists who wouldn’t see a dime from the new scheme. Which would be bad. Or people just wouldn’t listen to independent music anymore because it would cost money (or be illegal to steal) while major label music would be available for free (or be legal to steal).
And so forth.
Even doing this at schools, where they pay a tax to allow their students to freely P2P without being sued seems highly problematic since it just makes them all think music should be free, and what does everybody think they will do when they leave school?
A service that provides free music that works with my iPod and charges a monthly fee to allow me to download/stream music? Yeah, I might pay for that. Not too nuts about being forced to pay for it though.