Music News: Cheaper albums to combat piracy?

Nicole

Quote:

Former Warner UK and BPI chairman Rob Dickins has laid into the industry's efforts to stem online piracy, claiming the Digital Economy Act "will never work".

Dickins, who was chairman of the BPI for a fourth time between 2000 and 2000, made the impassioned attack as part of a keynote conversation with REM manager Bertis Downs at In The City.

He said that the music industry had failed to adapt its model to the internet age because executives were unwilling to abandon the model that had made them rich.

"I said to the IFPI council that we shouldn't try to shut down Napster, we should employ him," Dickins said. "The Digital Economy Act, when I see things like that they will never work for the music industry."

Dickins explained that he is not an advocate of free but is thinking of how to compete with free. To do this, he favours a system of micro economy, whereby albums are sold for as little as £1.

"It is so cheap you don't have to make a decision, you just buy it," he explained.

"I think we could see the age where we could sell 200m albums," Dickins added, suggesting that Lady GaGa has racked up 1bn illegal downloads of her music.

Dickins also criticised the policy of only allowing iTunes users to listen to 30 seconds of a track. "If you listen to 30 seconds of a Sigur Ros track you won't buy it," he said. "We have got people on the pay page and they want to buy things."

Downs, however, took a more moderate view, suggesting that although using the Hype Machine to sample music had led him to buy a number of albums, this would not necessarily be the case for everyone.

The Dickins / Downs keynote kicked off the second day of ITC 2010, which also included panels debating O2's sponsorship of live music, fan analytics and internet radio versus traditional broadcasting.

Last night's live showcases saw Factory Floor, No Age and 2:54 draw audiences to various Manchester venues, while Mount Kimbie are expected to be the big draw for tonight.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?s...de=1042912&c=1

Яeo.

It may help, but I don't think it well. The point is, people are so cheap that they aren't even willing to pay $1 for an album. Why would they, when they can get it for free?

iPhone applications cost up to $1 yet many people jailbreak it.

Mr. Duff

I think he has a point, but I don't really see his suggestion as a big remedy to the situation.
And the Lady Gaga illegal downloads are insane!

Nicole

Yes people are so cheap, if you make it for $1, they'll want it for free, and if you make it for free, they'll want it to come with a free dollar.

MonstahNL

Quote:

Lady GaGa has racked up 1bn illegal downloads of her music.

-Lewymocha-

I think one pound is too cheap!

Queen Bea.

I think if they sold albums for that price and physical albums for a bit more, say £5 a hell of a lot more people would buy them.

Teenagers for example tend to be permanently broke and are a HUGE market, make it cheaper they will buy into it.

-Lewymocha-

I agree though that artists would make more money if albums were cheaper.

I think physical albums should be about 4.99. And digital ones about 2.99.

KRL

Digital albums should be cheap. Like $3-5 cheap. It takes $0.00 for the label to produce a copy of such album because, duh, it's digital.

You may say it won't bring money to labels, but on the other hand, 3 million copies of a $5 album is better than 500k copies of a $12 album, right?

Queen Bea.

Quote:

Originally posted by -Lewymocha-

I agree though that artists would make more money if albums were cheaper.

I think physical albums should be about 4.99. And digital ones about 1.99.

Celestial

I don't think they should be sold for £1, that would lead to a huge increase in sales but a loss in revenue. Perhaps after a year or two older albums should retail at that price, newer albums should be sold for about £7.50, that's a significant enough decrease to lead to an increase in both sales and revenue because of the increase in sales.

love100

now it's all about tours.

Wilkes

Quote:

Lady GaGa has racked up 1bn illegal downloads of her music.

Imagine if those sad pirates actually spent that £8.00 or 79p.

Ghandi

The article is half BS, half speculation, half truth... I'll need another reply to give his claims a good reply by tomorrow. Mostly, he's full of hot air. What artist could make money on $1 per album?

That isn't even my base argument. He's also trying to retain the old model. I hope he plans to live wealthy in the richest dumpster on the street corner, because that's where his idea will take him.

MonstahNL

Quote:

Originally posted by Kirill

Digital albums should be cheap. Like $3-5 cheap. It takes $0.00 for the label to produce a copy of such album because, duh, it's digital.

You may say it won't bring money to labels, but on the other hand, 3 million copies of a $5 album is better than 500k copies of a $12 album, right?

I totally agree.

brIt-()nstar

I don't see it working when a 5 million selling album sold in today would be more profitable than a 10 million selling album that would cost $2-3.

Peep

Digital albums should be around $5.
Labels take to big 'slices' of profits on albums. It's unfair.

verynickk

well i would looooooove to have cheaper albums.
its like i walk into the store and go to the cd section, find a cd i like, and its way to expensive.
for example, i once wanted to buy taylor swift's debut album, and they only had the delux version and it was $20. why not just google "taylor swift self titled zip" and download it?

myxxd

Quote:

Lady GaGa has racked up 1bn illegal downloads of her music.

I think this statement was taken literally.

Anyway, cheap selling won't work when there's still free downloads.

Sammi

Quote:

Dickins also criticised the policy of only allowing iTunes users to listen to 30 seconds of a track. "If you listen to 30 seconds of a Sigur Ros track you won't buy it," he said. "We have got people on the pay page and they want to buy things."