Are $1 albums the answer to music piracy?

Randomus 2010-10-20 19:00:05 UTC #1

Are $1 albums the answer to music piracy?.

[newsimage]http://static.rankone.nl/images_posts/2010/10/NTPv3J.jpg[/newsimage]In an effort to crack down on Internet piracy, a former music industry executive believes significantly dropping prices down to a lower price point could help spur sales.  The opinion has been met with a positive reception from Internet users, but has drawn criticism from others in the music industry.


Read the full article here: [http://www.myce.com/news/are-1-albums-the-answer-to-music-piracy-35640/](http://www.myce.com/news/are-1-albums-the-answer-to-music-piracy-35640/)


Please note that the reactions from the complete site will be synched below.

Zod 2010-10-20 22:52:13 UTC #2

I might be getting older, but there’s not that many new cd’s that I want. Maybe 2 or 3 a year and they tend to be from bands that have been around a while.

It seems that the music industry devolved back to singles and left albums in the dust. That might be hard to reverse. Albeit if a song is a buck and a cd is a buck it might be a no brainer.

Anyways I’m not entirely convinced that piracy its completely to blame for the fall of the music industry. Quality of music has declined. The music industry hasn’t been able to intro a new format in over 20 years… which means they lost all the revenue they get from people repurchasing their collection. IE records, 8tracks, tapes, cds. People don’t need to rebuy cds in dig format as they can just encode their own.

a buck a cd sounds cool, but there so freaked out by piracy, they don’t look at the big picture.

Mr_Belvedere 2010-10-21 00:25:32 UTC #3

$1 albums are not the ultimate answer, but since consumers have a pretty good idea about the production cost i think it is a good idea to lower the prices. They tried that from time to time with Steam, but people keep downloading stuff, even when an official licensed game is offered for $0,01.

Why? Because people can.

I think ‘the answer’ for the music industry is in offering a complete package. Not just “a cd with music” , but include offers for free or ultra-cheap merchandising and prizes. Include extra benefits for legitemate fans. Start calling them offical fans, give them a unique code to show their offical fandom in some website/Facebook/some other social media thing. Show that you care about legitemate consumers. Don’t scare off everybody by enforcing DRM and lawsuits.

Would you pay Radiohead a dollar more for their music if it gave you a fair chance for a skype chat, meet&greet, vip treatment at some concert or a backstage pass?

chef 2010-10-21 00:28:50 UTC #4

I think that is the proper way: http://club.myce.com/f83/trent-reznor-offers-even-more-free-music-online-315935/

kevpc 2010-10-21 08:00:40 UTC #5

this has never been about the artists losing money but always about the top management of the record labels themselves. every time there is new technology out, there is the same complaint of how it will reduce sales. what absolute crap! history has proven this attitude to be totally wrong. what these bosses want is for the public to use the new technology to buy music etc in different formats, but continue to buy the same stuff in the old format, ie, cd/dvd. trouble is, when these people wake up and smell the coffee, it will be too late. newer technology will be out and they will have lost out on what is available now and probably the whole cycle will begin again. cheaper downloads must be the answer, with track selection an obvious included option. why should anyone be forced to buy an album when they only want 2 or 3 tracks? the way to maintain sales is to give the public what they want, not what the industries think they want, or worse still, insisting that the public can only have what they say they can have.

trust2112 2010-10-21 08:22:56 UTC #6

Record companies make money off… RECORDS. Music groups make their money on tours. Yes, groups make a little money off sales of albums, but very little. That is why they are always on tour, making their money. The whole actual cost of making a cd is like 8 cents per disc. You do the math, they are making like 10000% profit. That is what they are bemoaning, lose of profit. How much goddamn money does a company need? If you support an artist, see them in concert, buy a shirt or whatever you can to put money in their pockets, not record execs pockets.
Most of you are probably too young to remember The Grateful Dead. This group had maybe 2 albums that went gold. If you look up their music, you’ll find more bootlegs than albums. Why? Because the studio albums never did them justice, you had to see them for yourself to appreciate what they offered. Same can be said for most groups, live is much better than albums, and that is the secret that record companies would like us to forget.

chef 2010-10-21 10:37:18 UTC #7

In the end, the artist does create the music / art, but there is most of all times a big boss with great empty money bags around…

rla 2010-10-21 10:53:05 UTC #8

There have been so many errors made buy the industry that I am not sure they can do anything to save much of anything. they have insured that broadcasters will seldom tell the public the artist they are paying to play. The industry failed to adjust from the old ideal that recordings were primarily purchased by teenagers and young adults - a myth that was long ago dispelled as the trend seems to be that soon the majority of purchasers will be well into their adult years. Now here they sit with a bunch of kids doing their A&R work. The industry has further complicated their own situation by chasing off older artists who have gone to succeed with independent and small labels (Kansas, Foreigner, etc) while wasting more money on developing unknown artists. The industry blew it, as the prime chance to win in the technology wars pretty much passed the recording industry. There have been tremendous opportunities for the industry to do cooperative promotions, work with movie and television producers, build bridges with broadcasters and Internet radio and in almost every case greed and being difficult has stifled the industry’s very future growth. When the industry finally woke up to the potential of the Internet they went overboard with root kits, digital copy protection, anti customer friendly schemas and resisting the ale carte concept that turned off their customers. Now the industry has alienated so many of the real music fans with threats, suits and accusations of piracy and thievery. If ever there was a single case scenario of what not to do it would be this ongoing pattern of stupidity demonstrated by the recording industry.

I think a seriously high number of consumers have just stopped dealing with the industry period. It isn’t that piracy is their answer. It is simply that they are so pissed and fed up with the Hollywood tantrum, threats, suits and antics that they would gladly help push the car off the cliff if they could. I expect that many would perceive lower pricing as a positive move, but the issue is way past the idea that music might someday be a value deal. The story of the recording industry is something akin to Kmart. Forty years of craping on your customers, bad service, arrogance and unacceptable behavior is just gonna bite you in the ass. I think the recording industry, as we have come to know it, is pretty much done.

chef 2010-10-21 11:13:34 UTC #9

Yep, they quasi “pissed on their customers” and expected that to be continued forever.

The reality told them the truth…

Mary_Cahill 2010-10-21 11:20:21 UTC #10

A dollar a song isn’t bad as far as I’m concerned…so, a dollar an album…wow! I’m not in favor of the “special gifts” for legitimate customers - why would anyone assume I’m not a legitimate customer? “Special gifts” that appeal to some are just a way to justify higher prices to everybody else? It’s like the companies that offer two cents to charity with the perchase of an item while charging ten cents more per item…what a deal!

Music was once regarded as an “art form”. It has since become just another “big business” trying to manipulate as much money as it can, any way it can, from its customer base. Sounds a bit like the housing industry, huh! We accept that bad business practices caused the housing decline, but somehow bad business practices in the music industry isn’t suppose to result in a decline of their profits? At least Rob Dickens is getting real…in an industry that has had us repuchase our libraries time and again in different formats, denied us ownership of the music (hey, we are only buying the right to hear it - not own it!), and is willing to sue anyone (innocent or not), anywhere - legally or otherwise - to squeeze the last penny they can from us. Yeah, it must be pirates that are causing their loss in sales…couldn’t be anything else…right?

chef 2010-10-22 01:50:35 UTC #11

Hehe, LOL. Right or wrong. It’s up to the listener to judge.

iamrocket 2010-10-22 12:50:27 UTC #12

Whats a CD?

chef 2010-10-22 13:04:17 UTC #13

[QUOTE=iamrocket;2551961]Whats a CD?[/QUOTE]

Something you can use as a frisbee to slam in direction of the music industry greedy manager bosses…

loanstar744 2010-10-22 18:41:15 UTC #14

[QUOTE=Zod;2551465]I might be getting older, but there’s not that many new cd’s that I want. Maybe 2 or 3 a year and they tend to be from bands that have been around a while.

It seems that the music industry devolved back to singles and left albums in the dust. That might be hard to reverse. Albeit if a song is a buck and a cd is a buck it might be a no brainer.

a buck a cd sounds cool, but there so freaked out by piracy, they don’t look at the big picture.[/QUOTE]

I agree with this large paragraph.
I would actually buy music more often if it was worth it, and had a decent sound, instead, I’ll just stick with my many CD’s of bands like RATT, Metallica, Ozzy, Sweet, Steve Miller, Eagles, Duran Duran, Fleetwood Mac, ETC.
Most albums today are utter crap, and maybe are only singles.

I can say that some of todays music is okay, but with albums being so short or just not that good, that’s what detours me from buying them, or even thinking about picking them up, because I don’t want to spend over $10 for an album that has one, or maybe five songs on it, instead I’d just spend $1 on a few songs I may like from the album.

If an album was just $1, or maybe even $5, I wouldn’t mind buying it.
But if it were for older bands, or maybe their greatest hits CD, I’d pay $10, no problem, cause it’s worth it.

SparklingSnowfall 2010-11-19 00:53:37 UTC #15

When the entertainment industry stops producing crap (mostly), lowers their prices to something reasonable, and STOPS bitchslapping their customers, their bread and butter, with lawsuits, I’ll rejoin the throng of people willing to buy. Until then, I’ll ‘help push the car off the cliff’, as an earlier commenter stated. The corporations can only blame themselves. I’m still boycotting.

debro 2010-11-20 06:11:45 UTC #16

Yes & No.

$1 albums will initially spur sales, and combat piracy … in the immediate term …
Heavy marketing will possibly extend this term slightly.

However, the quality and diversity of music talent base has been severely eroded in the last 15years, so the only real answer is to do the legwork, pay the $$$ and find the real talent.

They’ve already lost practically the entire generation of customers between the ages of 25-40yr (at time of writing) because the talent that should have been discovered and developed for the long term, and hence should still be producing decent music, was replaced by talentless, short-term hacks that were just pigs in lipstick, and were just a fad that fizzled out after a few short years.

Reap what you sow! Make your bed and sleep in it!
Choosing the easy option is the easy way to go out of business. Seems like most businesses these days, at least in “western” society.

tubebar 2010-11-20 07:26:57 UTC #17

[QUOTE=debro;2558566]Yes & No.

$1 albums will initially spur sales, and combat piracy … in the immediate term …
Heavy marketing will possibly extend this term slightly.

However, the quality and diversity of music talent base has been severely eroded in the last 15years, so the only real answer is to do the legwork, pay the $$$ and find the real talent.

Reap what you sow! Make your bed and sleep in it!
Choosing the easy option is the easy way to go out of business. Seems like most businesses these days, at least in “western” society.[/QUOTE]

Well stated I agree 100%, couln’t have said it better myself!

AllanDeGroot 2011-09-27 09:51:41 UTC #18

The record industry has failed to learn the lesson the chicken industry learned long ago…

it used to be that when you went to buy a chicken you had to buy a WHOLE chicken.

The customer that wanted to buy Breasts or Drumsticks was turned away.

When the butchers finally realized that different people would actually buy more chicken
and pay higher prices for the pieces that customer desired the industry changed.

I’m reminded of the old adage “Any Damned fool can learn from their own mistakes”

What does that say about anyone who [I][B]cannot[/B][/I] learn from their own mistakes?

Nothing good I assure you…

Behold the recording industry, people of similar mindset 80 years ago might have tried suing
people for NOT purchasing buggy whips for their automobiles.

smokeandmirrors 2011-10-07 07:30:00 UTC #19

No, i think that is a quick-patched and primordial solution to the problem.

Spotify for instance is a much smarter and more advanced answer. I pay $5 a month for their unlimited plan and am ready to pay $10 for their premium service. You have all the albums in the world (well a very bit portion of them anyways) for the price of 5 or 10 albums per month ($1-for-an-album terms).

I think the iCloud and iTunes is also a promising answer. But I also think piracy will remain as the feeling of having something precious (or at least non-free) for without paying is a feeling which only torrent sites offer (for example).