eMusic Explains Sony Deal, Suggests More Changes
Perhaps to quell the strong criticism of eMusic's addition of Sony and subsequent price increases, the subscription services has created a special FAQ. Some answers offer a glimpse inside the deal and the motivations behind it.
According to the new document, Sony product will only be available to US subscribers, but they may add the UK, EU and Canada in the future. "We don’t currently have a timetable for when this will happen…" says eMusic. But despite the lack of new product, new non-US subscribers are getting a price increase and current members are not. "We’re doing this for two reasons: To help attract new labels and bring back those we all miss and keep us where we need to be as a business."
eMusic had said previously that the price increases were not tied to Sony, but as one tipster pointed out to Hyepbot, "The speculation about eMusic's price increase being tied to the addition of the Sony catalog becomes difficult to deny when you consider that current eMusic members in the UK, EU and Canada, unlike those in the U.S., are not being forced to adopt new and more expensive plans…the 'coincidence' being that the Sony catalog is not yet available in those countries."
eMusic's statements also suggest that labels should expect some of the price increase to be passed along to them. But will payouts really increase if subscribers begin grabbing Sony classics to use their full monthly allotment?
Is the US price increase tied to the addition of Sony’s catalog? Judging from this reply from eMusic’s customer service to my email complaining about the price change, that appears to be the case.
“In order to offer you more content from Sony and other labels, we simply can no longer sustain the lowest cost plans that some members have, but we are pleased that we can still offer you prices at less than half the average price per download on iTunes and Amazon.”
Other labels? I’d like to know which “other labels” not named Sony merit this price increase.
Wait a minute. From what I’ve been reading on the message boards, I thought the rates were going up for everyone. It seems like I’ve seen a lot of “I’m in the UK, my rates are going up and I’m not getting Sony” posts. Maybe I misread them?
In fact, after double checking the eMusic boards, international rates are going up as well for everyone regardless of if they are getting Sony or not (see here for instance: http://www.emusic.com/messageboard/viewTopic.html?topicId=176410 ). I feel this leans more towards the opposite of what your tipster is telling you. The arrival of Sony may have been helped along by the higher rates, but the higher rates were coming regardless.
Now I’m really confused, but I think I see what your tipster is saying. The UK, Canada and the EU are on their own deal, but the poster up in that link I posted and someone else in Australia have mentioned they get the higher US prices and no Sony. As with everything else on this deal, I don’t think things are very clear cut or easy to understand and eMusic’s silence hasn’t helped matters.
I give up trying to figure this out, but I’m still not convinced a rate hike wasn’t inevitable. When I personally as an artist am getting less than half per track from eMusic I get from other download services, I don’t find it inconceivable that more labels already on eMusic might have threatened to leave the service like Epitaph and Drag City have already done.
I can;t help but thinking that if they’d brought back Ryko and/or a few others of the popular indies that they lost, then raised prices and later brought in Sony, that their indie community would have embraced this
Fair or nor fair, Sony is a big easy target.
Bruce, I think you are 100% correct and many users have said as much. Ryko, Epitaph, Drag City or to go new content Sub Pop have all been bandied as labels that would have made this easier to swallow.
I’m still completely fascinated with how eMusic has let this message get completely out of hand and away from them. I was trying to be rational guy on their message boards for a while, but it just got too overwhelming and besides, why should I do their work for them? I know you’ve covered the payout situation there and questioned how they make money in the past. I’m still convinced those have every bit as much to do with the rate increase as getting Sony does. I’d put money on other major indies threatening to leave. Had that been given as the reason for the rates, most people would have accepted that. The way they did this, most people have understandably linked it to Sony coming and they may never be able to undo this perception. In the end, I think letting the message spiral out of control is going to cost them more subscribers than the rate hike.