RSSMusic Service Lets Customers Set Prices
By Ed Oswald | Published March 6, 2007, 12:04 PM
Amie Street has signed a deal with Nettwerk Music Group that will bring several major bands to a music service without DRM, and where popularity determines the price. But the first order of business appears to be obtaining more bandwidth.
Attempts by BetaNews to connect to Amie Street resulted in waiting times for page loads of one minute or more - and in some cases not at all. Much of the issues could be likely attributed to its Nettwerk announcement.
The agreement will bring DRM-free music from several major acts, a large portion of them in the electronic genre. The first album to be made available through the agreement with Nettwerk is the Barenaked Ladies' Barenaked Ladies Are Men.
Amie Street has been around since last July, however up until recently it had only dealt with independent acts. With the addition of material from labels, the visibility of the site is likely to increase dramatically.
Over the next several months, the entire Nettwerk catalog will be uploaded, which includes acts like Avril Lavigne, BT, Dieselboy, Gabriel & Dresden, Junior Jack, Paul Van Dyk, Sarah McLachlan, and Tiesto, among others.
Pricing of each song is directly determined by its popularity on the service. All tracks start out at free, and rise to a top price of 98 cents. Thus, less popular tracks would be cheaper, and popular ones more expensive. Amie Street keeps 30 percent of the final price, while the remainder goes to the artist or label. Unlike other services, purchased songs have no copyright protection.
"The price increases work based on a market penetration equation. Right now it takes a little under 100 buys for a song to get to 98 cents. We are talking with many different record labels of all sizes and are excited about bringing on their content in the future," an Aime Street spokesperson told BetaNews. "Yet some of the best selling songs on Amie Street have come from unsigned artists and we will continue to improve on being the best discovery engine for new music."
DRM is becoming an increasingly divisive issue in the music industry, especially since Apple CEO Steve Jobs came out against it a month ago in an open letter on the Apple Web site.
Labels like EMI have been reported to be considering moving their catalog to DRM-less MP3, and many executives reportedly think the current structure is too restrictive. However, not much movement has been seen in getting rid of copyright protection.
RIAA dont use.
Score: 0
|God, this is a dream deal for the less-popular starving artists out there. What's 30% of nothing worth?
Score: 0
|Have you used the service?
Songs start out free. START OUT FREE. I don't see this as a bad thing for independent artists. It allows a number of people to download the songs and see if they like the artist. If they do they start tracking and buying from that artist. You caould say they become a fan. If they don't like the artist that try someone else, cause they ain't lost anything (read money).
The fact that artists allow some free downloads of their songs means that they encourage people to listen to them. THIS IS IMPORTANT. If the songs weren't free or really cheap and the person hadn't heard of the artist/band before they would probably not buy from them. And once a few people download the free song and start reccommending it then the artist starts to make money, and they make money from EVERY download from that point on.
I've been a member of this service from almost the start and I love it. In my opinion if they can get a system that combines independent talent with established talent it could be the one stop shop for many people when buying music.
They also have reward type schemes for people who find, listen to and then reccommend music. So if I reccommend a song and 40 cent and it increases in price I get some credit to spend on other songs.
EVERYONE try it out. You'll not lose anything.
Score: 0
|