The demise of megaupload ..your views please

*Plumps up cushions on comfy chair*

CaptJon – Member
price it attractively.

Out of interest, what would you say is an attractive price for music / Video downloads?

Can you justify this statement with an example?

http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/481212/The-Sopranos-Series-1/Product.html?searchtype=allproducts&searchsource=0&searchstring=thye+sopranos&urlrefer=search

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/tv-season/the-sopranos/id279180831?i=279703428&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Just a quick example, repeated many times, online is a much cheaper distribution model for them, yet time and time again costs the consumer more. And as already mentioned I cannot buy from a UK online provider, why when it would break EU rules for any other business?

wrecker – Member

timc, check don simons link.

Seen it before, i’ll pose this question though, do records labels need spotify to exist? or do spotify need record labels content to exist?

The music industry is a strange old place, but like any industry, it still needs to make money to sustain an existance. The that all the people involved in the process of bringing people music they enjoy should work for free, afterall the music is free, is bizarre.

The music industry brings people music they want & like, its there to buy, problem is, its easy to steal & there are no repercussions.

I wish the film industry would put equal effort into creating legal decent on-line resources. It costs more to download a film that it does to buy a disk from play or Amazon.

That’s not because the cost of downloading films is high, it’s because amazon sells books/CDs/DVDs at a loss, selling to the customer at less than it costs them to buy from the publisher.

I’d have more sympathy for the music industry if they refunded a portion of the £15 that it cost you to buy a CD in the 1990s versus the 3p or so they cost to manufacture.

Or if they displayed more of an interest in keeping interesting and important music from their back catalogue in print, instead of spending their budget promoting the X Factor’s latest dross and letting smaller labels do the research and take the risks.

I’m not bothered by the tactile pleasures of buying a box, cover and disc. I want the content without the environmental cost of manufacturing. I want the financial saving of lack of box etc to be passed on. The companies should change their model and consider volume. I want low cost subscriptions with access to unlimited streaming media. If it was low cost enough, everyone would have it and there would be plenty moneys to go around.

That’s not because the cost of downloading films is high, it’s because amazon sells books/CDs/DVDs at a loss, selling to the customer at less than it costs them to buy from the publisher.

They seem to be doing rather well with that fatally flawed business plan.

😆

@MSP, sorry but that doesnt show any greed at all

I wish the film industry would put equal effort into creating legal decent on-line resources. It costs more to download a film that it does to buy a disk from play or Amazon.

It’s starting. As bandwidth increases more and more, I think streaming your films on demand is the way forward, and Netflix and LoveFilm are a good start.

Mr Agreeable – Member
I’d have more sympathy for the music industry if they refunded a portion of the £15 that it cost you to buy a CD in the 1990s versus the 3p or so they cost to manufacture.

Obviously there are costs your not aware of, which is why you have come out with such a crazy statement. Maybe we should ask Lady Gaga to repay all the money U2 made from album sales 😕

Mr Agreeable – Member
Or if they displayed more of an interest in keeping interesting and important music from their back catalogue in print, instead of spending their budget promoting the X Factor’s latest dross and letting smaller labels do the research and take the risks.

I get this, couple of issues that prevent it really, The period the license agreement with the artist was for may have expired, unlikely with major acts, secondly, not cost effective with everyone dowloading for free sadly

and Netflix and LoveFilm are a good start

…and Qriocity from Sony. Pay as you go rather than subscription, with more up to date movies than Lovefilm’s offering.

I use this ‘cos I never got my money’s worth from Lovefilm (mostly due to the poor selection of movies) but mainly ‘cos it’s PAYG.

It is another example of media corporations not meeting the demands of the market. They just need to make it easier to get legal stuff than illegal stuff, and price it attractively.

This!

I have downloaded music & films previously, but since using Spotify I probably wont be doing much any more. Will also probably sign up to LoveFilm again once I’ve got my media centre box connected to my TV and have had a chance to look into how their streaming service works/what is actually available.

Getting people to pay a fiver or tenner a month such these services must surely be the way forward on so many levels.

Obviously there are costs your not aware of, which is why you have come out with such a crazy statement.

I don’t mean that every CD they sold, they made £14.97 profit on. But the fact remains that, after a couple of years’ transition to new technology, the cost of manufacturing and distributing music must have become insanely cheap for them, and it is only getting cheaper as we leave physical media behind.

Spotify and streaming services are an interesting development; unfortunately it looks like the cheaper prices are hitting the artists’ royalties first.

http://www.gizmag.com/spotify-royalties-artists/20609/

secondly, not cost effective with everyone dowloading for free sadly

Depends on your definition of cost effective, but labels are certainly getting less willing to take risks. Case in point, the compiler of a series of rare British jazz (the first two volumes of which were pretty successful) ended up distributing the MP3s for the third one via a file sharing website, because he couldn’t get Universal/BMG to release it.

Out of interest, what would you say is an attractive price for music / Video downloads?

I’d say music is priced attractively, but then i’m not a teenager with limited funds.

For videos, films are priced about right in some cases, but £4.50 to rent a film from iTunes is above what i’d pay. For £2 extra i could see something at the cinema with a bigger and better picture and greatly superior sound. They have reduced TV shows recently, which is good.

There is a bigger problem in the delay in getting stuff, though. Or even getting something at all. I could only find the first two series of Friday Night Lights available to buy in the UK, for example.

I wonder if Paypal will get any flack for this? As if the founders are found guilty of a crime, then surely Paypal could be seen as accessories, for facilitating criminal activities. As they handled the payments.

They should probably hand themselves in seeing as they are the moral arbiters of the net. Well, if cutting off Wikileaks cash supply, due to alleged illegality is anything to go by.

Netflix and LoveFilm are a good start.

they are alright but they are just trying to make money from streaming old and limited content. Streaming is the way forward, netflix hd streams in particular. Lovefilm is poor in that respect. Until they come out with better business models for newer content. Personally i’ll just keep downloading illegally (which is going nowhere soon, despite the demise of Megaupload).

Getting people to pay a fiver or tenner a month such these services must surely be the way forward on so many levels.

Well, I wouldn’t dispute that Spotify is fantastic for the consumer but it certainly isn’t great for independent labels or their artists – “A U.K.-based indie band, Uniform Motion, told Gizmodo that they make $0.0041 per song play”. Maybe it’s better for the bigger labels who have more power?

As always the much maligned music industry is a many faceted object. It is undoubtedly an amazing revolution to have so much music available instantly, but this joy needs tempering. Artists and labels do need income to carry on their good work. Oh, and lol at 3p for an album 🙂

Re: CD prices; when you’re buying a CD, the cost of pressing the disc isn’t the only thing to consider. You’re not paying for the plastic first and foremost, you’re paying for its contents. Look at books; would you argue “ten quid? But it’s only a chunk of paper”? You’re paying for the intellectual content.

And, sure, a large chunk of that is profit, and it’s not necessarily fairly distributed. I don’t know how much a band will see in royalties from the sale of an album, but I’ll wager it’s not fourteen quid. Such is consumerist life. Point is though, you’re buying an artist’s time, effort and creativity, along with costs from advertising and promotion, point of sale, distribution, etc etc.

It might only cost 50p to “make” a CD, but complaining about the retail cost based solely on this is, well, a little short-sighted.

I’d say a good album is probably worth ten quid. Computer games, on the other hand, now there’s a field where they’re actively taking the piss.

Point is though, you’re buying an artist’s time, effort and creativity, along with costs from advertising and promotion, point of sale, distribution, etc etc.

What you’re also paying for is the money spent developing bands who don’t make it. Who wants to see a music industry where only safe bets are supported because something edgy might not be popular enough? That thought is horrific to me 🙁

What you’re also paying for is the money spent developing bands who don’t make it. Who wants to see a music industry where only safe bets are supported because something edgy might not be popular enough? That thought is horrific to me

So let the market decide. Putting up a track or video on Youtube or MySpace or Facebook or Twitter is free.
Musicians need to be more than musicians, they need to learn various other business skills or pay someone to do it. Like everywhere there is far too much good marketing peddling crap products.
Simple question, what value are the distributors and record companies actually adding to the product? (Particulary if we think about other channels of distribution).

So let the market decide. Putting up a track or video on Youtube or MySpace or Facebook or Twitter is free.

Woah, hold on there, you will be suggesting that bands play gigs to build up a following before being picked up by the record companies next.

So let the market decide.

That is a fair point, and is ultimately what happens when bands are on their 2nd or 3rd album. I think it’s not that common for a band to approach a record company with the finished article the first time out. More often the band gets help with instruments, studio time, a producer, gig bookings etc. Lots of the things they need to make better music. Something so simple as confidence can make a big difference. Take those things away and the market only gets to see a shadow of what might have been.

Woah, hold on there, you will be suggesting that bands play gigs to build up a following before being picked up by the record companies next.

Do you reckon I’m on to something?