a start to music industry becoming sane? Options

[cadabra3]

While they still can't believe their high prices and lousy support of artists- and one hit CD's- are to blame for lost sales- at least this could be a start towards a more sane position (sort of)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...sic_universal_5

[Pri3st]

A positive movement by a recording industry, but I don't think that the other companies will do the same. The point is that they loosing money and they don't want it.

[theduke]

But it's still not what I'd like to see.

[b]UMG executives want to see if the music service can actually boost sales inside stores, or whether it ends up cannibalizing physical sales.

This is ridiculous for a subscription service you have to pay for. Should I pay a fee per month and additionally buy the CD? LOL

[b]But UMG is selecting the content it makes available selectively. Rather than offering the work of best-selling artists like Eminem ( news - web sites) and U2, UMG has chosen older, less popular content that doesn't sell quickly in stores.

Ouch, second mistake.

[b]That means users will be able to store tracks and transfer them to CDs or portable players using the popular MP3 file format.

This is my biggest concern. For me such a service is useless until they switch to lossless.

[LIF]

As I told in another oportunity, they are selling low-quality mp3's...
Emusic libraries are in 128 kbCBR, using old version of Xing!
Are you going to pay for that?

If Universal and its partners made the same wrong choice,
I dont see any future on all those services.

LIF

[fewtch]

Originally posted by LIF
As I told in another oportunity, they are selling low-quality mp3's...
Emusic libraries are in 128 kbCBR, using old version of Xing!
Are you going to pay for that?

If Universal and its partners made the same wrong choice,
I dont see any future on all those services.

LIF

The general public still thinks 128k CBR (Xing or *whatever*) is "CD Quality" -- and not much sign of that perception ending. Also, 'the masses' might balk at having to download a 7 meg VBR MP3 optimized for quality, but will be fine downloading a 3.2M file on their crappy 56k modem connected at 31.2k.

And trust me: Most wouldn't even hear any difference. After all, this is the public that's used to listening to CD's on $39 walkmans using the headphones supplied with the unit.

[Coolin]

This is where a place where something like OGG bitrate stripping would come in handy...

[gdougherty]

Its exactly their intention to use Xing at 128Kbps. Releasing at a good quality OGG, or even a good quality LAME encode defeats the purpose of having the service available to boost their sales. It's basically the ability to preview music for less than a single CD per month. If you don't mind the quality it also seems to be a great way to find lots of old jazz and CD's more difficult to find in a store.

The flip side should be a good discount on purchasing the CD online. Something like $10 direct from the manufacturer would be great. Link to the purchase right next to the download and I think they'd do great things for their sales.

Just scrolling through the top downloads the listing of famous Jazz artists is quite impressive. If that's any indication of the kinds of "less popular" slow selling CD's that will be available then it might be worthwhile for a few months.

[cadabra3]

Well, at least they are realizing their profits are drying up- even if the solutions are to kill file sharing (yes, it does promote sales) and mostly offer 'leased' music at low quality. But like I said- at least it's a start- and yes- the music they consider throwaways does have some nice titles. Has anyone purchased (sorry) from Amazon and got the streamed copy of the cd while waiting for the shipped one? What kind of quality is that like? Just curious.

[Amadeus]

theduke wrote: 

UMG executives want to see if the music service can actually boost sales inside stores, or whether it ends up cannibalizing physical sales.

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This is ridiculous for a subscription service you have to pay for. Should I pay a fee per month and additionally buy the CD? LOL

I think the UMG executive is being misunderstood when this conclusion is drawn. The record companies obviously want to increase their sales, not have people switching from CDs to mp3s. Hence they are looking for new customers which wouldn't have bought the CD in a store but are willing to download a song from the Internet. It seems unlikely that they then expect this customer to go and buy the CD - albeit they probably could generate additional sales by giving a discount to those who already downloaded the mp3 - as suggested in this thread.