• 02-04-2009, 05:12 PM
    Isle of Man to offer unlimited downloads for $1.50 / mo.
    I just read this on EnjoyTheMusic.com:

    Maybe the music industry is finally going to find their best stance as the Isle of Man may soon be offering all the music you care to download for a small monthly fee.

    The proposal is for broadband subscribers to pay around $1.50 per month to their Internet service providers for a blanket licensing fee for unlimited music, which will be distributed to the music copyright holders. Since this small island has virtually 100 percent penetration for broadband use, the small additional fee would neatly avoid illegal P2P music sharing problems. Sadly, the music industry is still not fully convinced that this new scheme is the way to go about thwarting piracy problems. Ron Berry, who is the director of inward investment for the Isle of Man, said "A lot of people in the business are concerned with how much money they are losing, but not with how much money they could make." Thankfully the major recording labels, including EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group may eventually warm up to this new technique as it may increase their revenue while avoiding costly investigative and legal bills to prosecute illegal music sharing.
  • 02-05-2009, 04:49 AM
    Invader3k
    That what music downloading is going to move towards...maybe not that cheap here in the US, though. Eventually, I think that instead of actually downloading the files, you may just be able to stream virtually any song ever recorded to your computer or MP3 player for some kind of monthly fee or subscription.
  • 02-05-2009, 06:10 AM
    Feanor
    One thing for sure
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nightflier
    I just read this on EnjoyTheMusic.com:

    Maybe the music industry is finally going to find their best stance as the Isle of Man may soon be offering all the music you care to download for a small monthly fee.
    ....
    The prevailing download fees, (US$1.00 to $1.40 per song depending on resolution), are outrageous compared to current price of a physical CD, around $10.00. Basically distrobution via download has got to be much, much cheaper than CD; music producers earn relatively huge profit for each download since nothing is shared with distributors or B&M retailers.

    This impass must eventually break. The reasonable cost of a download shouldn't exceed $0.10 or $0.15 per song -- even that might be too high considering that the much smaller incentive to pirate could boost volume considerably.
  • 02-05-2009, 06:46 AM
    Kevio
    I believe similar royalty schemes were tried with blank cassettes and CDRs. It was fairly easy for a company to find a loophole and break ranks with the royalty-paying consortium. This has not proven to be a stable business model. I applaud the record industry for being willing to try different things though - their survival depends on it.
  • 02-05-2009, 10:17 AM
    Ajani
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Invader3k
    That what music downloading is going to move towards...maybe not that cheap here in the US, though. Eventually, I think that instead of actually downloading the files, you may just be able to stream virtually any song ever recorded to your computer or MP3 player for some kind of monthly fee or subscription.
    There are already a few sites that do that... but I expect to see more of them in time... and maybe the big boys like itunes will eventually offer that service...
  • 02-05-2009, 06:03 PM
    If you could have access to all (or most) of the music ever recorded in just a streaming format, and this was of sufficiently good quality, then there would be a major shift in the industry away from local storage.

    The problem is getting all the music ever recorded in one place - which is why P2P downloading is still so appealing, despite the fact that it requires local storage and the risk of retaliation by the industry. Napster & others tried the subscription model and failed, let's hope someone comes up with a happy medium. My guess is that selection is the most important factor in why people choose one solution over another; iTunes has a decent selection, but it is no where near as large as Napster was or P2P is today.
  • 02-05-2009, 10:15 PM
    Kevio
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nightflier
    If you could have access to all (or most) of the music ever recorded in just a streaming format, and this was of sufficiently good quality, then there would be a major shift in the industry away from local storage.
    I've been meaning to to give it a try; haven't yet. Isn't this what Rhapsody is supposed to be?
  • 02-06-2009, 06:18 AM
    Feanor
    I'd rather download
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nightflier
    If you could have access to all (or most) of the music ever recorded in just a streaming format, and this was of sufficiently good quality, then there would be a major shift in the industry away from local storage.
    ...
    For my part I'd rather have my own, local copies. I think it will be some time before streaming of music in high high-res formats is commonplace.

    Meanwhile disk store is cheap and broadband makes for reasonably quite downloads. With regard to downloading, BitTorrent technology can be used for legitimate purposes. I would also much rather buy precisely what I want when I want it, rather than pay a monthly fee for streaming, or for download privilege for that matter.

    With regard to streaming, (for classical fans), Deutsche Grammophon is making some records available for hi-rez download; in addition, for $0.99 you can stream any entire album for a month. This is a great "try before you buy".
  • 02-06-2009, 07:47 AM
    Ajani
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kevio
    I've been meaning to to give it a try; haven't yet. Isn't this what Rhapsody is supposed to be?
    Yep.. Rhapsody is one of the sites I was referring to... Not sure if Rhapsody does this, but I know one of the streaming sites actually gives you the option to either stream unlimited music for a monthly fee or to buy tracks and albums like on itunes... best of both worlds IMO... Truth is there are some songs I'll play for a while (maybe Christmas carols fall into this category) but I really don't need to own... also it makes it easier to find songs and albums you really want to own if you can stream them all for a month...
  • 02-06-2009, 05:32 PM
    DG, it's Dat Gud!
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Feanor
    With regard to streaming, (for classical fans), Deutsche Grammophon is making some records available for hi-rez download; in addition, for $0.99 you can stream any entire album for a month. This is a great "try before you buy".
    Got a link? BTW, what's the quality?
  • 02-06-2009, 05:49 PM
    Feanor
    Well ...
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nightflier
    Got a link? BTW, what's the quality?
    Not really "hi-rez" but FLAC from CD resolution for download. As yet a pretty small selection, 50; very few of interest to me. Furthermore, contary to my earlier impress, not all are available for streaming which is at a lower resolution.