Yahoo doubles music rental fee
p2p news / p2pnet: Big surprise. Six months after starting its music rental `service,` Yahoo is doubling the price.
According to ZDNet, the decision, reduces some of the pressure on rivals such as Napster and RealNetworks, which had seen their $15 a month services dramatically undercut by Yahoo’s initial $6.99 a month offer. Yahoo said it would raise its monthly price for the portable subscriptions to about $12 as of Nov. 1.
What pressure? When it comes to online music, the p2p nets rule. There’ll eventually be a corporate music download business, but those days are far distant and for the moment, there`s only one viable corporate online music service: Apple`s iTunes. And even that isn`t a true music delivery site. Rather, it`s a self-funding (barely) promo vehicle for iPod and associated products and devices.
When Yahoo started trying to sell DRM-ed WMA downloads for a $5-a-month subscription via its Music Unlimited, Robert Chapin found one could get Yahoo downloads for free and for weeks, he kept trying to pass to the info to Yahoo, which apparently didn`t want to know.
Has the hole been plugged?
Meanwhile, Yahoo, which was able to sell Stanford University on the idea of peddling the service to students, hasn’t yet released subscriber figures, and, “on its recent earnings call executives said only that they were pleased with the growth rate` of the service, says ZDNet.
Right.
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
See:-
ZDNet – Yahoo boosts prices on music service, October 21, 2005
downloads for free – Yahoo Music Unlimited hack, May 30, 2005
sell Stanford University – Stanford: Yahoo sales unit, October 14, 2005
October 22nd, 2005 at 4:30 pm
“hasn’t yet released subscriber figures, and, “on its recent earnings call executives said only that they were pleased with the growth rate”
Something does not make sense.
In theory part of any income from the subscribers must be pass to the songwriters, either directly or through the publishers. Mind you, this is theory only…. history shows that songwriters are hardly paid by record companies and many publishers. If in doubt check my site.
Not releasing subscriber figures means that songwriter cannot verify if the correct payments are being made or to whom. The question is, is there a scam here?
While on this subject, how can subscription money be distributed among the downloaded songs so the correct songwriters are paid in proportion to their songs downloaded? Who developed the system? Who track the accounting? Do songwrites have an organization to make sure they are paid properly by these “download” operator or the publisher?
Where does the money go? Are songwriter royalties going through the labels first, then to publishers and finally to songwriter?
Mmmmm…
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
October 23rd, 2005 at 3:48 am
RIAA/Yahoo/ITunes/Napster/Real like to propagate the myth that they are actually running a successful and competitive service, but in fact they are just informing more people of the availibility of music online.
Once people realise they are getting ripped off for aload of DRM filled crap, they will just switch to free services – Bittorrent/ed2k-kad/gnutella.
Good luck RIAA and co, you need it LOL
October 24th, 2005 at 6:40 am
this is exactly why this business model will fail. You spend what, 50 or 60 bucks a year to “rent” music… you do this for a period and have a full music library then BAM they DOUBLE the price on you. You either lose everything you have or you fork up the money…
What a waste.. these guys can jack up the prices whenever they want… save yourself the money and just go buy a few cds… or just pirate all the stuff…