Quick post to say that I’m now bewildered that 72 hours have passed and eMusic has yet to get control of the message online; it’s a brand damaging situation now and if they don’t own the message then the message owns them – 800+ comments on their own blog and it’s not pretty.
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Dave walloped the bass strings and is a founding member of the highly influential, post-punk band, Gang of Four. With his business partner, Ned Failing, he started Pampelmoose in 2005. We love music and we love the way the internet leveled the playing field for all artists.
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Yes, they are handling this poorly, no doubt. But really, all this discontent is a bit overboard. Emusic was going to raise their prices anyway, and everybody knew it. The indie labels have been complaining about emusic’s price structure for some time. Some labels even pulled out (Epitaph) and other simply refused to sign on. Bringing on the Sony catalog just gave emusic an excuse to do what they were going to do all along. And do what the indie labels had been asking for, by the way. When it’s all said and done, emusic still offers me songs for less than half of what they cost on itunes. Unless that changes or something better comes along, I don’t see the point in cancelling. Sorry, but being “offended” isn’t going to drive me over itunes (or Amazon) and their overpriced downloads.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:19 amI agree with the Rev that the discontent has gone overboard. EMusic recently posted a FAQ which at least addresses some of the questions that members have been asking repeatedly: http://www.emusic.com/help/faq/catalog-expansion.html
Non-US customers have been asking whether they will be affected by the pricing change. The FAQ says no, but it also says that EMusic will be eventually leaving the marketplace outside of the UK, EU, and Canada:
“Current subscribers living outside the US, EU and Canada will continue to have access to eMusic, they are effectively grandfathered into the service, and will continue to be charged US plan prices with track availability subject to licensing terms for the territory of residence, just as they are today. However we will no longer accept new customers from these areas in the near future, so current customers should bear this in mind.”
It would be a boon to EMusic if they could announce the return of some of the indie labels that have recently left (e.g., Drag City, Relapse, and Anti), or if they could finally reach an agreement with Sub Pop. But SP and Drag City sell MP3’s on their own sites, so why should they settle for a fraction of 50 cents or less per track?
June 7th, 2009 at 3:40 amI think that eMusic will learn the hard way that the changes in their subscription structure (fewer downloads/higher cost) will badly undercut the service’s attractivness, both to the prior customer base and potential future customers. Before, eMusic was a great way to experiment with finding new music; lower cost made marginal purchases more desireable. If I have 65 tracks/month to find, I wasn’t as likely to worry about how much I really want/need each one. As a result, I discovered a lot of music that I might othewise have passed over. Also, lower cost offset the loss of sound quality and liner note information in the trade-off between MP3 downloads/CDs.
June 7th, 2009 at 11:00 pmThe new price points and restricted downloads skew those trade-offs the other way. The new structure discourages taking a flyer, and makes the alternative sources of CDs and MP3s are better value in the long run.
eMusic’s real value was in finding music that was new to me, whether it was recorded in someone’s living room last year or by musicians long gone. There are too many other ways to do that without having to pay a business that treats its most loyal customers in such a shabby manner.
Imagine, creating a business whose success depends on getting rid of long-term customers. What will they think of next.
I’m definitely one of the disgruntled loyal customers, but I’m thinking this is a good thing for my music consumption in a completely backward way.
To me the beauty of eMusic was being able to take a chance on artists I’d never heard of on the cheap…something I’ve been doing since I joined in late 2003. With their fairly haphazard catalog, eMusic wasn’t a place to search for specific tunes (at least not in genres like electronic/dubstep/grime), but rather a place to unearth stuff on tiny labels I might not otherwise cross paths with.
But when I’m told I’ll now be getting 50 downloads for the price of 90, that value takes a huge hit. I’ll be canceling come July, so now I just have to be more diligent in my music research, and more careful about what I spend my dollars on — and I’ll be doing so at places like Boomkat rather than bother rummaging through eMusic.
I won’t get the sheer volume of music that I’m used to, but I will make sure I’m getting stuff I’ll really listen to…and maybe I’ll end up appreciating what I have a little more.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:00 pm[...] There was a considerable outcry when eMusic raised its rates a few weeks ago, not helped by their terrible corporate communication (sensing a theme here…). In this Q&A with eMusic CEO Danny Stein, he reiterates that the [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 12:15 amDave,
Why do you care so much if they hurt their brand? Do have some sort of personal stake in the company?
July 10th, 2009 at 1:52 pmNajah,
I was at eMusic ten years ago at the beginning. Every company and now every person should be aware of their brand online. eMusic’s loyal base of users felt dissed over this and they spoke out. It took eMusic too long to respond and then only half-heartedly. It’s all about reputation management which I write about over here – http://www.social-cache.com/2009/06/authenticity-and-authority-on-the-social-web
July 10th, 2009 at 5:23 pmNajah,
BTW I care because I have an opinion and I write about this stuff here on the Moose…
July 10th, 2009 at 5:23 pm