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Naming your own price for Albums/Songs

I'm sure this topic has been discussed many times, but I'd like to go over it again in light of recent events. With SOPA and the US Government attempting to control who shares what information on the internet, I feel like many artists out there are trying to implement this form of pricing with their albums or songs. And I think it's a great idea.

In general, anyone who wants to hear almost any song can go to Youtube or google the name of the track and be able to hear it instantly in relatively high quality. Artists who offer their songs or albums for any price are putting enough faith in their own work to know that a majority of listeners will be getting it for free, one way or another, whether it be through file-sharing or a streaming site like Youtube. However, I feel like they can still make good profits using this method.

For instance, I just paid �10.00 GBP for Jon Gomm - Passionflower (video) because it was fucking worth it in my opinion. Not only this, but 10% of his proceeds go to The Happy House children's home in Watamu, Kenya. It's the right thing to do, to ask your listeners to pay what they think it's worth. It's putting the emphasis on the music and not the cost.

Anyway, feel free to use this thread to bitch about SOPA, privacy rights, sell-out labels, Nickleback, or the fact that Beatport charges $2.50 for some tracks.

i get most of my music second-hand when i do buy it. wouldn't mind naming my own price there.

Jon Gomm's technique reminds me of

Juno is my main source of music-purchases, taken as I have problems buying from Beatport. I sometimes buy CDs and rip them myself.

2.23� for a track (WAV) is ok I guess. Would like to see some Christmas / Holiday sales though - which never happen. Never understood how the hell all tracks end up having the same price, whether it's some 1998 ID - ID obscure techno record on a label long forgotten, or the latest release on, let's say, Kompakt.

In my country most of these treaties are being blocked by parliament on the basis that there is no good legal alternative for the exchange of digital music. And i agree.

What i would like to see is an open, preferably public and non-profit - although that will cause other issues regarding promotion and the like, but for the sake of it - platform in which artist and labels can sell their music.
Now, the problem with the current pricing system is obviously that it feigns equal value in different pieces of music, which simply isn't the case. As a 10 second recorded intro now costs the same as a 15 minute orchestral epos.

So, why not bounce the ball back at the seller and let them provide a price they think is adequate? They can be honest about how much work it cost to produce the track. They can compete with each other. Why not?
If they overprice their products it will eventually come out through forums and other media. Under-pricing might be more of a problem, but to be honest i think it will still provide a lot more leveled playing field then they have now.

quote:

Originally posted by Bierheld So, why not bounce the ball back at the seller and let them provide a price they think is adequate? They can be honest about how much work it costed to produce the track. They can compete with each other. Why not?

I don't think that will work, just because the fact that many (most?) won't be honest.

quote:

Originally posted by Trance-MB I don't think that will work, just because the fact that many (most?) won't be honest.

Well, they don't have to be. It was only example on how to determine cost. you're basically just introducing normal market mechanics. If people think that you're asking too much they simply won't buy it.

quote:

Originally posted by Bierheld Well, they don't have to be. It was only example on how to determine cost. you're basically just introducing normal market mechanics. If people think that you're asking too much they simply won't buy it.

Well, in the 90's I spend an nice car on cd's of which I still think I paid way too much. That didn't stop me. Also there weren't alternatives, so there was no competition. Many should take the step at the same time for this to work.
It's also the question if 'they' will let it happen.

quote:

Originally posted by Chimney Juno is my main source of music-purchases, taken as I have problems buying from Beatport. I sometimes buy CDs and rip them myself. 2.23� for a track (WAV) is ok I guess. Would like to see some Christmas / Holiday sales though - which never happen. Never understood how the hell all tracks end up having the same price, whether it's some 1998 ID - ID obscure techno record on a label long forgotten, or the latest release on, let's say, Kompakt.

2.23� a track is ok for you? At that price a digital EP costs the same as a record which is utterly stupid, if you ask me.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony 2.23� a track is ok for you? At that price a digital EP costs the same as a record which is utterly stupid, if you ask me.

I'm just taking wild shots in the dark here. It's a bit much, come to think of it, yea.

quote:

Originally posted by Trance-MB Well, in the 90's I spend an nice car on cd's of which I still think I paid way too much. That didn't stop me. Also there weren't alternatives, so there was no competition. Many should take the step at the same time for this to work. It's also the question if 'they' will let it happen.

That's basically the key reason why i think this could be a success. Because it benefits both sides. Labels are free to create their own earnings model, rather then the current initiatives were they are forced to deal with an arbitrary price based on what people will pay for it, which doesn't really stimulate artists in making their music into something special. As a consumer i really don't think the nominal price is too high, but it annoys me that i have to pay a high price for a short segment of music that may have taken an hour at most to produce, while at same time vastly underpaying for something i think is worth a lot more.

OP's idea is a logical idea in a sense, since music has no discernible value other then a subjective one based on the listener. But labels simply can't operate that way, it's really only something an individual can decide upon.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony 2.23� a track is ok for you? At that price a digital EP costs the same as a record which is utterly stupid, if you ask me.

Is that so strange? A physical record really isn't that costly to produce. Not to mention you can make it into a physical product yourself by burning it. There's other factors then costs when it comes to preferring digital music.

quote:

Originally posted by Bierheld Is that so strange? A physical record really isn't that costly to produce. Not to mention you can make it into a physical product yourself by burning it. There's other factors then costs when it comes to preferring digital music.

While a record isn't that costly to produce anymore, things like distribution are a huge factor. Profit margins for records are very slim unlike digital sales, which are probably 98% profit.

But my main problem with this is that your average digital audio file has no worth. It's (generally) not limited, you can choose to get it for free (pirating) and it's not physical - it has no real, materialistic worth and you can't resell it unlike a record.

A bunch of files (not physical, no worth) costing exactly the same as a record (actual physical product, worth) is just mindboggling to me. And even if you buy digital music with the intentions of supporting the artists, the seller and the label take the majority of the cut (probably around 70% in your average case) for essentially doing nothing. But I'm pretty shure I have complained about this countless times.

this is actually a good idea, even 0.01 is better than 0, generally even when it's free people don't waste HD downloading something they don't like but with this you can have several 0.01-0.10 sales which is like "I like what you have done" and like in this case some 10.00 which is like "oh my god you made something terrific , full support on this and i hope that this financial incentive keeps you on this route".

@Woony

The point is, You cant simply determine the value of a piece of music based on materials, scarcity and distribution costs.
The price of a track in a store like beatport is an arbitrary amount based on a combination of the average costs the labels make and the average amount people are willing to pay for a piece of music.
This says nothing about the profit margins the labels make. Not every piece of music is of equal value, it might have taken a few hours to make or it might have taken months. It could have had thousands spent on promotion for it or it could have had none. You don't know.

The problem I have with it is simply that I can't judge how valuable I find an album until I've listened to it, so when given the option I will nearly always download for free. It seems an absurd concept now that you once had to pay for a record to hear how good it was. It seems totally backwards. The trouble is, there's just so much music to be heard all the time that I rarely dwell on an album, and the only time I will pay for it immediately after hearing it, whether I heard it on Spotify, through a friend or from a Name Your Own Price scheme, is if I absolutely stone-cold love it.

quote:

Originally posted by Bierheld @Woony The point is, You cant simply determine the value of a piece of music based on materials, scarcity and distribution costs. The price of a track in a store like beatport is an arbitrary amount based on a combination of the average costs the labels make and the average amount people are willing to pay for a piece of music. This says nothing about the profit margins the labels make. Not every piece of music is of equal value, it might have taken a few hours to make or it might have taken months. It could have had thousands spent on promotion for it or it could have had none. You don't know.

I'm not talking about the value of the music. I'm talking about the product I get as a customer. When I buy a record I have something with a real world worth, something I can touch, something I can resell. With a file I have none of these things. Paying the same for both just seems absurd to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony I'm not talking about the value of the music. I'm talking about the product I get as a customer. When I buy a record I have something with a real world worth, something I can touch, something I can resell. With a file I have none of these things. Paying the same for both just seems absurd to me.

i agree on this, they can't pretend that we pay the same for a digital track than for a physical cd.

Physical CD 10-15$, if it has 10 tracks inside is 1'5$ each. 2$ for each digital track in a 320kbps encoded mp3? I've wavs for 1'5$ and with a booklet, cd to play in the car... the difference is clear.

Well buy the fucking record then.

All you're doing is making up you're own idea of what labels and artists earn justifying it with the alleged astronomical costs of getting a piece of plastic in a cardboard sleeve to appear in a music store. Whatever man. They're not the same product, and the one thing both have in common is that their price in most cases in no way reflects the actual value of the music itself. Which in the end is what it's all about.

All this newfangled digital music business in the end is no more then a glorified promotion tool anyway. It's not a coincidence that beatport targets DJ's as heir main costumers and offers their own promotion services with their fabled 'exclusive records'. Or spotify, which is praised as a new alternative to buying music, were every thousand streams add up to a full 4,70 euros in artist revenue. Fantastic profit margins!

Not uncommonly the most honest music suppliers are the labels themselves. Just buy them there if you're so concerned.

Re: Naming your own price for Albums/Songs

quote:

Originally posted by ziptnf I feel like many artists out there are trying to implement this form of pricing with their albums or songs. And I think it's a great idea. In general, anyone who wants to hear almost any song can go to Youtube or google the name of the track and be able to hear it instantly in relatively high quality. Artists who offer their songs or albums for any price are putting enough faith in their own work to know that a majority of listeners will be getting it for free, one way or another, whether it be through file-sharing or a streaming site like Youtube. However, I feel like they can still make good profits using this method.

Radiohead - pioneers of that approach, have decided not to repeat it last year with The King Of Limbs. That should say something. When a pretty big and well-selling band doesn't benefit much from this method (In Rainbows did actually sell slightly more than their previous album, but that doesn't say much), then I can't see it working for smaller, less-known bands.

Benn Jordan aka The Flashbulb did something similar year later, he even offered his album on various private torrent trackers with a html file which encouraged sharing, but also included paypal link to donate how much you can and an option to buy a physical product directly from label, but again the whole thing collapsed and sales for that particular album didn't surpass sales of his other albums by much.

In theory, the whole thing could just further fragment the sales. More people could end up getting less money each, and only really good and already popular artists will be able to live from their work.

Internet / music as computer file era is pretty much a bust, as far as artists making a living from music. Sales volume (supposedly higher now) does not really matter if it is more than compensated by the drop in price per unit.

http://www.azoz.com/newsarchive/2010/01/Nielsen.html

Then again, there are lots of other advantages to the web that I would not want to give up.

At this point it seems silly to expect to make any money from selling audio files. You might as well just give it away and focus on your live show as your source of income.

I did do a pay what you want thing for my album and I did have some people grab it for $5 and $10, but paypal fees took a lot of the money. In fact I remember one guy buying it for twenty cents and paypal just ate it all with their fee (this was through bandcamp)

After that whole experience I think if you're going to release, just do it digitally for free, or press something to vinyl out of your own pocket (or do both). You can usually make your money back and break even if you have a stack of records at your show for people to take home with them

you loose a chunk of people when you do this tho, all the kids who buy music with itunes gift cards and stuff because they dont have a credit card, thats the only problem with this kind of pay what you want thing. and if you hope to make a bit of money you have to have exposure, its fucking easy for trent reznor or radiohead to say ''oh artist should all go independent'' when you headline festivals rofl

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