It was on Slashdot earlier, so I’m sure most of you have probably heard about it already, but apparently Microsoft has broken off talks with several major record labels over the insanely large royalties they sought in a subscription-based music service offering by the Redmond giant.
The article says sources close to the talks referenced $6 to $8 royalties per user per month. Oh come the F on! How many songs is the average user going to download in a month? I’d be willing to bet they’d snag a considerable back-log of music during their first few months, then settle down to about a CD a month starting somewhere around their 3rd subscription-paying month.
That’s about 15 new songs a month, and they want $8 for the possibility that the user might download those 15 songs from a CD that was published by their label? We have a word for this where I come from: extortion.
I’ve been catching up on the back seasons of the Sopranos lately, and I swear I can see Pauly or Silvio saying something like this to a store owner. Look, you’re in our neighborhood… You give us our $6 to $8 a month, or we’ll make sure no one steps a foot inside your store.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think this could be a very good sign. The recording industry has gotten WAY out of hand lately, and it’s about time someone stood up to them and told them no more. Individual citizens refusing to give in to their extortion demands by taking the RIAA to court isn’t going to cut it… Microsoft, whose founder (and CEO?) is the richest man in the world, refusing to give in just might.
Here here Microsoft! Keep calling shots like this and employing cool people like Robert Scoble to spread the word about all the cool shit going on in your company (not to mention the better user-friendly and user-focused sides) and you might just win my laptop back when you release Vista! Isn’t it just amazing how, just when you started to count a company out, they come back and slap you in the face and get your attention; sometimes in the smallest of ways?
People still _pay_ for music?
That is just soooooo last century ;)
Or soooooo legit-so-I-don’t-get-sued-by-the-RIAA-and-can-actually-look-at-myself-in-the-mirror-and-sleep-at-night… Depending on how you look at it, of course.
We could, no doubt, start an entire series of blog rants on this very subject, but let’s suffice it to say this: I want and deserve to get paid for the work I do every day. I expect nothing more or less out of the artists recording the music that gets me through my less than ideal days. Do I think the prices they want (read: demand) are unreasonably high? Absolutely. That still doesn’t mean I won’t drop $0.99 on a song here and there on iTunes…
Is there a tongue in cheek emoticon? My comment was purely in jest - I have a sad sense of humour that really does not come across in text.
Just so you know all my music files are from Cd’s I already own. Although in Australia that is a grey area of the law too - technically you cannot rip a CD. You have to have proof of purchase of the MP3 (or whatever format).
iTunes is not here - yet - and the current legal download sources have a very limited choice and charge too much.
I realized that from the winky smiley… My ever-so-long-run-on-phrase was as well. I admit I have illegal music here somewhere… But 90% of mine is legit.
No iTunes? You poor poor Kangaroo-humpers! I don’t know what I’d do if I actually had to pay $15-20 for a full CD when all I want to hear is the one song on track 6… *shakes his head and chugs another cup of coffee*