Yesterday, my blog shared research indicating consumer education might be the answer for music’s battle with illegal downloaders. Apparently, the ones who really need to be educated are the labels.
A senior executive from Universal Music Group made this suggestion at the Mobile World Congress: “If an artist has just delivered an album from studio, we could potentially deliver it to a limited number of users for a higher price. It’s something we’re quite keen to develop, for example, through our own B2C channels … artists’ web sites.“
Yeah, that’s a great idea. Why download it (illegally) for nothing when you can pay even more to get it? It makes perfect sense! It certainly seems more logical than producing quality material at a lower price with value incentives through modern channels.
The only redeeming quality to this ridiculous concept is the idea to let consumers stream the entire album immediately upon release. If consumers are given a chance to sample the product, I would bet more would buy the songs they like. And, if there’s a better value to buy the whole project, sure!
Since we’re on the subject, why has the industry not mandated a sliding scale for purchasing music online? I’ll pay a couple bucks to get the Foo Fighters “The Pretender” while it’s hot and maybe the entire CD for ten; but, if I get the urge to hear an old Hootie & The Blowfish tune, I’m more likely to buy it for a quarter than 99-cents.
That’s my 2-cents for the day on this subject … coincidentally, the same amount I’d pay to download something from ABBA.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Filesharing, Mobile World Congress, Music Business, Music Downloads, Record Industry, record labels, Universal Music Group
