p2pnet news | Music:- There’s a fortune to be made by the first companies to start listening - really listening - to what music lovers want instead of accusing them of being criminals and thieves, and trying to shaft them with DRM, overpriced, over-hyped, low quality ‘product,’ sue ‘em all court cases, and so on.

Amazon has joined the ever-hopeful corporate throng with DRM-free tunes from Amazon MP3, from which it’ll be foisting downloads at 90 cents and $1 each, with most of them going out at the cheaper rate —- a dime less expensive than iTunes and lesser sites, in other words.

Tellingly, it features iPods, and only iPods, in the lead graphic.

On tap are EMI, the first of the big four organise music cartels to abandon DRM, and Vivendi Universal, the second to drop it.

The other two members, Warner Music and Sony BMG, will inevitably follow suit and meanwhile, “U.S. music companies, concerned about piracy enabled by file-sharing Web site, are mulling new business models with a goal of increasing digital revenue as CD sales drop more sharply than anticipated,” says Reuters.

It’s been proved over and over again that significant numbers of music lovers just aren’t going to pay through the nose for an MP3 download.

The price drop might spark a kind of weak-kneed and watery price war among the Big 4, but it won’t do much to tempt people away from the free P2P networks or affordable independent download and musician sides which are popping up online in ever-increasing numbers.

iTunes is continually touted as an example of successful music ’service’ and if you believe the mainstream media, everyone and his brother is trying to emulate it.

However, iTunes started life as a loss leader for iPod and even today, it’s hardly more than an iPod online interface, paid for by users.

In statements which have never been examined, Apple claims it’s sold three billion downloads which, at 99 cents a pop, equals almost three billion dollars. And all from iTunes.

Really?

One can’t help wondering when iTunes stopped being a loss leader, when it started making money, instead of losing it, exactly how many downloads have been sold at a profit, and with what kind of margins?

Meanwhile, if Amazon or any other company can find a way to tap into that kind of potential market place, it’ll be minting it.

But at 90 cents per download, that won’t happen and the best they’ll be able to do is grab a tiny share of the even tinier corporate marketplace supposedly established by iTunes.

In the real world of music downloads, the one the cartels the cartels have no hope of penetrating unless they wise up and start treating their customers properly, more than one billion songs a day are shared online as MP3s, says an IDC white paper published in March.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
Reuters - Amazon launches early version of music service, September 25, 2007
one billion songs a day - 1 billion songs a DAY shared online, March 8, 2007

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 10:47 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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