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Napster UK launches - stupidity abounds within the music industry

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Subject:  Napster UK launches - stupidity abounds within the music industry
Author:   nicoko:   view profile | all posts by this author | add to favourites
Date:   07:47:58 21 May 2004
 
On 13:45:17 20 May 2004 johnnyh wrote:
>Is it just me or is everyone else suitably loathing of the
>music industry's pathetic attempts to further their
>strategy of screwing consumers?
>
>At £1.09 PER TRACK, Napster UK, which has just
>launched today (www.napster.co.uk), has surely got it all
>wrong. Remember that this is NAPSTER, the black-eyed
>industry-shafting bunch that is all of a sudden making up
>for its earlier 'free' model by ripping of UK consumers.
>And Europeans. And Americans (but not as badly).
>

While I agree that the 1.09 is the wrong level, also in terms of consumer friendliness and marketing, the case is not as simple as saying "the labels" are at fault. To the cost you have to add a per transaction charge (credit card or similar), which typically for such low price items is a real pain, the music publisher share (songwriter/lyricist), and the margin the retailer (i.e. Napster) wants to make on each item. The decision to set those different shares is come by through hard negotiations between these parties - trust me I have attended some.

Fact is that the mass market CD and yes those manufacturing planst that spit out milllions of CDs with digital data are now pretty efficient, and can deliver 650 MB at low cost.

My main issue with the digital download pricing is that it ignores the benefits of packaging such as CD booklets etc which is placed on the consumer (if he bothers). From that angle £1.09 seems excessive, and a one price per track model also seems highly inflexible - something I also don't like about iTunes. It is not good retailing to offer everything at same price, surely.
 
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