Janis Ian Is Not A Fool
Published August 12, 2002
Sure, there is an ulterior motive to her suggestion. She believes that this sort of thing will boost sales of new material. She's got evidence that suggests just that. Your homepage quip about listening to Janis Ian's material for even more cheaply than she suggests misses a few important facts: First, she is making a new song available every week for free on her website, and it is hard to compete with "free" price-wise, not matter how cheap Rhapsody is (that's $.36 per day in February, or $.32 in March). Also, once you've paid the $.25 to download a song, you can listen to it as many time as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. If you want to listen to it in your car, you can do that. If you want to take it into work, you can do that. If you want to put it into a portable player and take it jogging at in the morning, you can do that. It's yours.
If you take the Rhapsody route, at the end of a year you'll have paid $120 and have absolutely nothing. If you quit paying, you've got nothing but fond memories. If they go out of business, too bad. If an album is pulled from the website because the German government discerned pro-Nazi subliminal messages or because the French government decides that it isn't anti-Semitic enough, it's gone. That's just like the radio, yes, but I can already get the radio for free.
Rhapsody isn't competing with MP3 file-trading, it is competing with XM satellite radio. In a head-to-head comparison, I'm not sure which I'd be more likely to buy. Probably Rhapsody, in no small part because I already own the equipment.
Pressplay is marginally better, allowing you to burn some track to CD every month, but it still approaches the market from a philosophy that seems just a little high-handed, given that we all know that CDs are overpriced.
The service that offers the least restrictions (EMusic) is missing the most popular artists and albums. The service that offers the most popular artists and albums (Rhapsody) is essentially programmable radio that you can only use with a computer. No wonder people aren't happy.
So what am I saying? Is it just sour grapes? Would I continue to chirp "too little, too late" no matter what the labels did? No. But you should learn from me, Greg, and the RIAA should listen up, too.
- Janis Ian Is Not A Fool
- Published: August 12, 2002
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Writer: Phillip Winn
- Phillip Winn's BC Writer page
- Phillip Winn's personal site
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Chuck, so far Movable Type is the only TrackBack-capable blog out of the box, although various other tools are being implemented for Blogger, Radio, and so on.
Anyway, I appreciate the defense, though following the trackback above and then the trackback within that will eventually get you to a follow-up article I wrote after spending some time emailing with Greg offline.
Bottom line: Greg has found something that works for him, and while it doesn't work for many people, it has managed to sneak in under the radar, so people should check it out. And I'm sorry I was so mean to Greg. <grin>
"Why do many DVDs cost less than many CDs? Take a movie that cost 60 times as much to film as it takes most CDs to produce, before you even begin to count promotion costs and so on. I can buy it on DVD at Wal-Mart for less than $10. Or maybe $15. Some newer titles are more expensive, sure, but after a while, they slide down the cost scale."
Because CDs are the only way to recapitalize on the costs of production of an album.
Your blockbuster film can recoup much of its cost during it's domestic theatrical run, then export the movie to foreign theaters to recoup even more money. They can then get broadcast and cable TV networds to pay -- sometimes exhorbant fees for first broadcast rights, after the movie comes out of Pay Per View. And they can charge liscence fees for movies available at rental stores.
And then factor in how much more difficult it is to pirate DVD releases with current technology -- and, as importantly, current copyright protection measures -- and you can see how the costs of selling a movie on DVD could possibly, just possibly, be lower than that of an album on CD.
Er, CDs are by no means the only way to earn money from a musician. Many artists will tell you that they consider albums as marketing materials for their tours. Considering albums as promotional materials that often pay for themselves (like logo t-shirts) puts a slightly different spin on things, doesn't it?
Of course, it's by no means that simple, but it's certainly not as simple as you make it out to be either. Granted, there are more revenue opportunities involved with movies, but the scales are much larger as well. A movie might make back 95% of its total budget during the worldwide theatrical run and still have to earn far more than an album in sales and rentals.
Of course, it's hard to compare apples and apples, since the music industry is generally difficult to get information from, while the movie industry is more open about some things, but doesn't tend to include some of the costs that the music industry does, and so on.
Still, I think that it's an apt comparison, obviously.
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Heh. LiveJournal, as near as I can tell, is NOT a TrackBack-capable blog.
Either that, or I'm just clueless. :)
Anyway, see http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=drchuck&itemid=10023 and enjoy and stuff.
Bottom line: Phillip's right, G. Beato is wrong, but it's hella nice to track down G. Beato anyway. :)