RSSIHT: Major Label to Embrace MP3 Soon?
By Ed Oswald | Published January 23, 2007, 12:38 PM
Still fighting a losing battle over file sharing, some major record labels seem ready to scrap digital rights management in order to lure consumers away from P2P. In fact, one could make the switch to MP3 very soon.
Rumors of an imminent embrace of MP3 were overheard by The International Herald Tribune at Midem, an annual global conference for the music industry held this weekend in Cannes, France. Those who talked to the paper say the change is coming as result of still sinking music sales.
While digital music purchases doubled in 2006, it still was not enough to stop the continuing slide in overall music sales, which fell three percent. With sales of tracks through outlets like Napster and iTunes expected to grow slower, and consumers continuing to turn away from CDs, something needs to be done.
Offering unrestricted MP3s has so far been only something that independent labels have done. The bigger labels say DRM helps them to limit piracy, and fairly compensate artists.
However, some think that leveraging the allure of MP3 could help spur interest in digital music and better offset losses from CDs. For example, singles and subscription services could offer MP3s, or they could be given away as promotional items through advertiser support.
Something along those lines has already been done through Yahoo, which began offering MP3 tracks from select EMI and Sony artists in December. Additionally, AOL has offered MP3 tracks since July from a wide variety of artists.
Of any of the labels, EMI has been the most aggressive with offering MP3s, although it is not clear whether that is because the label that may be considering the switch to MP3s.
In any case, some expect all of the label's to eventually embrace the format. RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser told the IHT that he expected the transition to happen within the next five years, although "it is more likely to be in one to two years."
Somebody said: "Customers are like sand grains: small and difficult to see, but together they are the beach and can stop the seawaves". Earlier or later they are the only ones who will decide the future of the format, and even the future of any business.
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|I've several times tried to purchase tracks that were needed in my job and failed to follow thru due to all the tricky scemes used.
Finally I've given up and downloaded same tracks for free with just a few clicks.
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|The Labels and the RIAA need to STOP suing their customer base and start embracing the technology.
Within the next 5 years, CD's will be replaced with some type of Card that will allow you to buy the Album and Cover-Art where a provided download link will be used.
I am not saying CDs / DVDs are going away completely, but this is they way of the world. Maintaining a file system is a lot cheaper and easier for the labels the producing 1,000,000 CD that only 100,000 sell and you have 900,000 to store somewhere or write off as a loss.
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|DRM is a joke...any kid can turn a song with DRM into an mp3. Labels need to lower prices of albums/songs and sell direct to consumers. The middle man is slowly dying; this is good because frankly, when I went to Tower Records, the heavy metal selection there was just pathetic. Brick and Mortar is dead, and so should be the middleman's cut of the pie.
Also, The RIAA's efforts against file sharing are soon going to be a thing of the past with all of these new softwares that offer encrypted exchanges. Look at GigaTribe for instance (http://www.gigatribe.com), their free software lets users exchange entire folders of albums in a few easy clicks, and not even the ISPs will be able to spot what's being exchanged.
The music model is changing rapidly, and consumers and small/medium artists are going to be the winners.
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|Thats all we need to complete the move to a new low-fi standard.
But when one considers the dearth of truly worthwhile music as it is becoming less and less available, and the increasing trend toward to lower common denominator popular 'ghetto' formats, the match almost seems one made in heaven; or, if we consider the overall content and quality, hell.
But gee wiz...lest anyone accuse the industry of lacking value, it sure is convenient!
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|Well I personally think it's a good idea all round actually. Yes MP3 is probably one of the lowest quality formats but it's the most widely used and would suit everybody. The only thing that concerns me is what bitrate would be available and what encoder would be used. Whether one major record label or all major record labels use MP3s isn't the point - MP3s are out there so get used to it - the point is maximising the quality of the under-performing MP3 format.
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|"In any case, some expect all of the label's to eventually embrace the format. RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser told the IHT that he expected the transition to happen within the next five years, although "it is more likely to be in one to two years."
5 years...are you kidding me...you've already wasted 5 years getting to this decision.
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|When it's just as easy to buy non-DRM than it is to find it elsewhere, then it's time to buy. People will show them the money.
Imagine how many "gift cards" iTunes sells... and then imagine that in YOUR pockets, Studios. MP3, not DRM. And feel free to make it VBRq0 mp3, or at least 192 for "full" spectrum.
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|It would be great if everyone collectively moved to higher quality MP3s as a standard (for CBR, anything below 192kbps sounds bad). However, I think the hardware manufacturers and their marketing teams would be against that, as they would then have to lower the number of songs their players could hold.
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|In other news, Hell has frozen over.
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|Selling digital music in the only format that every player supports? It will never happen. That might make consumers happy.
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|Ok, so the iPod is the overwhelmingly-dominant portable music playing device on the market today. It's built to work with iTunes. Most users find iTunes easy to use (I personally hate it), so now the record companies might actually try to sell their own? In what format? Synch to the iPods with what? God almighty! Are they THAT friggin stupid? They missed the bus years ago. They should just sign it over to Apple and leave the electronic selling stuff alone. They have NEVER shown any understanding or grasp for selling music online.
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|they are going to sell the songs in MP3 format, if you read the article. that way, you can do what you want with the music (put it on any player, burn it, etc.) without restrictions.
and letting apple take car of all e-commerce regarding music is a dumb idea because only people with iPods would be able to buy music legally. that would make the other 25-30% of the world pirates. not a good idea.
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|I think the best in addition to DRM free .99 per song is a DRM free monthly subscription. I would think around $10 would be good price to lure in many customers. Consumers like "flat rate for all that I want" concept.
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|The prices you mention are only reasonable if the music being purchased is at least CD quality. Paying $0.99 per song or $10 per month for the equivalent audio quality of a 128K MP3 file is a rip off.
It's no wonder people are still turning to P2P considering it's the only way to get digital music that even comes close to CD quality sound.
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|The problem with a DRM-Free monthly subscription service is that a user could sign up for a month, download tracks during all the hours the month sends, then "unsubscribe". This would mean that *nobody* would buy individual tracks, or albums, meaning that record companies and artists would make just-less-than-no-money.
For those of you that like subscription services, DRM is here to stay. However, I don't believe in renting my music, so I buy tracks to own. Giving access to buy mp3s without DRM would be a big bonus IMO, but like I say: you can't "rent" an mp3.
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|i would actually pay $20 a month for a subscription service with mp3 files instead of protected wma files.
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|I think one of the main oversights of the music industry and some artists is that even when consumers acquire their music via free MP3s, etc., this drives consumers to purchase other merchandise available that are related to the music, such as concert tickets, clothing and memorabilia, etc. I think there should be a compromise where artists and labels release some singles or EPs as freely available MP3s, while full albums as "for pay" or some combination in between. Purchasing and playing DRM-protected music from different vendors is not always a simple process and it needs to be improved. I've had some experiences where it would have just been easier for me to go to a store and buy a single. And many of the points that labels and artists make about MP3s are relatively moot as fans have traded tapes in much the same way that they do with MP3s today. Many artists' fan bases were absolutely grown with things like tape trading, so they need to recognize the importance of their fans' ability to freely trade at least some of their music with other fans. I think the fears of CDs fading out altogether are not warranted, as downloaded music cannot include things like liner notes and lyrics and special CD covers, etc. Labels and artists just need to recognize that, in today's age, some fans will want to purchase the CD, while others will want just the music (as MP3s). So they will need to figure out more ways to make money besides primarily CD sales...
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