Last week the independent digital music subscription store eMusic announced that they had made a deal with Sony Music to make available its back catalogue to the store’s 400,000 monthly subscribers. The deal will see catalogue music over two years old including albums from Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Outkast and Leonard Cohen become available to US subscribers. On the same day, the company announced that the price of monthly subscriptions will increase and the number of downloads will be cut by 25 to 35%.
Naturally, loyal eMusic subscribers are going ballistic about the changes on forums and blogs. While the majority welcome the major label additions to the indie music service as long as it’s tastefully done, the decision to jack up prices has been met with users promising they will quit the service. As an keen user of the “indie iTunes”, I’m annoyed at the way eMusic is dealing with their very loyal and savvy customers. For example, I have been signed up to an eMusic Connoisseur account which entitles me to 100 downloads for €29.99 each month. That’s 30 cent a track, much cheaper than iTunes or most other digital music stores. Under the new plan, the similar price of €30.99 only entitles me to 75 downloads at 41 cent each. This reduction across the board would great remove impulse downloads of albums that look interesting therefore reducing the chance of little-known artists (or “long-tail” artists) getting a portion of subscriber money.
eMusic never contacted me about the change so it was only when I googled it, I was pointed to an FAQ which told me the price changes only apply to new members in the UK, EU and Canada while all members will be subject to the price hike in the US. Why couldn’t eMusic email its subscribers to clear up the confusion?
Away from the failure of their PR team, while I can understand people are fuming, you’ve got to look at it from the perspective of business, artists and labels. eMusic is a great place to buy independent digital music but in terms of sales and reach, they are far behind iTunes and Amazon. Many labels have refused to co-operate with them and some have even withdrawn their catalogue from the service as a result of lower pay outs to artists and eMusic are claiming on their message board that the current plans are not sustainable. In the long term, eMusic success depends on increasing their subscriber base and the new deal certainly looks like it will do that but at what cost to existing subscribers, “long-tail” artists and avid music fans?
Features
Fri, Jun 12, 2009