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EMusic Goes Subscription
EMusic.com has decided to go the way of a subscription service by offering unlimited downloads for a monthly fee ranging from $10-$20. Does it really matter though?
The beleaguered digital audio site will continue to offer individually sold tracks as well as the new subscription service, which it rolled out earlier today. In all, there is about 125,000 available songs in the cataglog that are downloadable through this service. EMusic will share the revenue generated from this service with both the record companies and music publishers from whom they have licensed this music.
There are currently 3 plans offered, which fall under "yearly," "quarterly," and "monthly" option. The "yearly" option equates to $10 a month whereas the "monthly" option is the more expensive $20 a month. The price is not all that bad, considering, but one has to wonder if people will actually use this service seeing as the catalog is not the largest around. A quick search for artists like Madonna, Moby, Metallica, Aerosmith, Backstreet Boys and DMX turned up virtually no music. Seeing as the majority of MP3 listeners are the younger generation, why would EMusic not offer many of the songs that the top consumers would want to hear?
EMusic is a troubled company looking for ways to make it in this complicated world of digital audio. They just recently laid off 20% of their work force in June and reported a loss for the 3rd quarter of the fiscal year. While they hope to obtain licenses to distribute more popular recordings, it probably will not come in time.
There is no reason to bother with a subscription service like that of what EMusic offers. With services like Napster, Scour Exchange and a host of other file sharing communities, which offer better service for FREE, why bother wasting $20/mo on a service that does not even offer music that most people want to listen to?
Our very own Angelo Sotira, media mogul and digital music extraordinaire, has this to say in response to the subscription service offered by EMusic, "None of it matters until it's in your car, in your living room, and on your cell phone. Until then no one's paying for anything and no one can do anything about it. In the meantime, why care?" He has some very valid points there, though it will be interesting to see what develops from here on out with EMusic.
User Comments
(These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)
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Anonymous
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Date: July 24, 2000 @ 5:43 PM
"Angelo Sotira, media mogul and digital music extraordinaire"
LOL. hahahahahahhahahahahaha. |
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pressf8
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Date: July 24, 2000 @ 5:54 PM
I fear that "the establishment" will deny most of the popular licenses to emusic simply because as they roll out their own systems at $2 a piece they'd rather not see someone else other than themselves succeed at distributing music.
I will say this though: I would gleefully pay $10-20/mo. for access to the abundancy of MP3s (non-secure) that are found on Napster, et al. Napster is not totally reliable, and if someone had a better searchable cataloge (where searching for the band America did not return 100 Lenny Kravitz tracks) and a reliable system of downloading that didn't require me to sign away my firstborn and wade through contracts I would happily pay for it. And if I want it in my car I'll burn it (and I WILL burn it).
Brian
http://www.screwmetallica.org/ |
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jark
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Date: July 24, 2000 @ 6:45 PM
</sarcasm> |
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jark
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Date: July 24, 2000 @ 6:47 PM
Well, if EMusic cannot sell music subscriptions like this then what makes you think that people will pay the record labels MORE money for their secure system?
Unless the recording industry embraces the fact that file sharing will be around forever, from here on out, they will die a slow, inevitable, death...
--[ jark ]-- |
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Anonymous
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Date: July 25, 2000 @ 2:20 AM
well, I signed up, personally I think all the teeny-bop bull-shit that is popular today just sucks
Madonna - who cares any more
Moby - I have 2 of his CDs, guess what, the fucking suck
Metallica - gee, no Metallica turned up? who would want to pay them for anything anyway
Aerosmith - no comment
Backstreet Boys - oh freaking boy! guys that sing like girls and dance around
DMX - kinda cool, if you like to hear one verse over and over
...Hirudin |
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jipper15
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Date: July 25, 2000 @ 7:07 AM
I personally will sign up- I listen to punk music- Emusic has most decent punk labels on their site. So for $10/mo I could literally get THOUSANDS of $'s worth of music. I just have to search for the album and bang download it and do that over and over.
I love Napster and support it, but for ease of use, I would pay $10/mo. No longer do I have to search for a band and find 55 copies of the same song and a song or two of other stuff. It takes me forever to find a complete album on Napster, if I find it at all. |
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digitaldoughty
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Date: July 26, 2000 @ 8:20 AM
A subscription service that gives you access to... GASP...ONE SITE! Please. I would never pay $20 for access to EMusic's "collection" of files.
Soon enough, EMusic will lose all its chips and won't be able to ante up anymore...
And...just for the record, Moby is one of the most influential, crossover artists of our time. God bless that bald-headed mixer!!! |
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