Quote
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Whitesides:
...the mentality that you own something when you actually rent it seems to be common among a lot of people. I don't know why that is.
</font>


Great post above, Jody.

I'd venture to guess that the answer to your question quoted above is that people have owned their music until this very point in time. There's 100 years of recorded music history behind this.

From a customer's standpoint, it's rather disconcerting to see that you're just leasing your music. Especially if the service isn't as flexible as you want them to be such as my band's customer felt. Or, even worse, they decide to change their policies to something that's overly constraining. What would happen if Napster decided to raise their subscription fee to $999.99 per month? Most people would quit, and lose their music.

I think that the largest irony is that the customer isn't paying a much different price than buying the actual album, and they're getting less for it. Again, another argument for services like iTunes and others which lets you own the song.

Brian: There certainly are other services that do let you just listen when you want to, as a subscription. And they are probably pretty good for the customer, but I don't prefer them as a band.

As I look through my band's sales list, the plays that I get from Rhapsody, MusicNet, and MusicNow are netting us between .01 and .02 per play. In comparison, I make the most, by far, on iTunes, which I get between .65 to .819 per song, and about $7 per album.

Based on this, I consider that the pay-to-own services are a better deal for both our fans, and ourselves as musicians. It takes a lot of plays at .01 a song to get to $7.


------------------
See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.

[This message has been edited by beatnik_turtle (edited 02-20-2006).]

See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.