Napster just announced that they are now selling their entire catalog of 6 million songs for $0.99/each, no DRM. And for some reason I’m having trouble getting excited about it (CNET, however, has more than enough excitement for both of us, saying “This is a huge day for digital music.” Whatever.)
The fact is that Napster is still unprofitable and still makes most of its revenue from all-you-can-eat subscription sales. Both AOL and Yahoo bailed out of this business, since consumers don’t seem to like it and the labels take all the revenues. Ian Rogers explained why that business sucks last year, right before he bailed out of Yahoo.
So Napster is making their big push into DRM-free sales, a market dominated by iTunes and increasingly Amazon. And…cough…BitTorrent. The days of paying for recorded music are nearly over. And there’s nothing Napster can do to change that.
99 cents with no DRM is a small price to pay to Artists who really have no financial security in this industry AND with no guarantee of getting any more hits during their careers.
Most who succeed have only a few years of being hitmakers with touring income.
Usually, only the legends seem to have careers spanning decades without current product – and not all of them are rolling in wealth
Hitmakers! They’re not the only artists who make money. I’ve been into underground scenes for a long time now and these artists are earning there money without their record labels ripping the artists’ fans off.
I Am Failing To Get Excited … about this post. You sound like someone having an uneducated rant. Was there any point in this post? There’s no substance.
Tech pundits are never happy. First they complained about DRM. It takes time to get company to shift policy as well as get agreements in place with the labels.
Now that Napster gets DRM free music the pundits clamor “IT SHOULD BE FREE”.
But if Apple made all of iTunes free and made those tracks $.99 it would be big news.
It’s lame and a double standard.
6 million songs isnt much..
napster needs more breath…what they should probably look to sell as well are audio programs, audio books, anything audio…not just songs
http://www.blubert.com – tech news + the cool stuff in tech
My take is that, in the legal world, Napster is now the closest to getting it right (as ironic as that seems). Listening to a selected 30 second clip of a song is not enough to get me to purchase a song I ‘may’ like. I would be willing to pay a smaller subscription rate in order to listen to full length “previews” – even if only allowed so many listens with no downloading. Then, as a subscriber, a slightly discounted DRM-free mp3 for download. All of this, of course, would be based on a huge catalog.
However, I agree that it appears that in today’s economy folks want as much for free as possible. So if the studios (heaven forbid) allowed free full previews with DRM-free downloads for an acceptable price, that would be a more perfect world.
This doesn’t spell the end of paying for recorded music, it’s a wake up call to the record labels that their old tactics aren’t going to work any more. The downloading of music will continue, but I honestly don’t think that music is heading towards a completely free way of being.
I’ve been a Napster subscriber for about 2 years and have loved it. The one thing I disagree with Steve Jobs on is that people want to “own” their music, not rent it. I would say 98% of the music I listen to, I won’t be listening to in 3 months. It gets old and new music comes along. There are very few songs I would want to “own”. Granted, Napster’s not making money, but I do enjoy a set price for all I can listen too, even if it’s not on an iPod.
Companies like napster along with record labels are simply fighting a lost cause, napster themselves in the old days was one of themselves who set that trend. An easy way to obtain music over the internet, fast and definitely a lot more choice than your average music store has to offer.
What came with that? Right, the underground scene. The record labels have sticked to cd’s for way too long, by the time they jumped in on spreading things over the net legally there were already hundreds of millions of songs going around over p2p applications like for example bittorrent.
They weren’t innovative enough and they lost, yet still there’s no sign of whether they’ve learned anything or not. Rather than trying to come up with something new they’re still hopping behind on what’s already been going on but then slamming a price tag onto it which doesn’t make things attractive in their favor.
Instead they should begin to figure out on how to be one step ahead, become the next “scene”. How they should do that, I haven’t got a clue, but I bet that if they would spent their time and money in figuring that out though rather than persuing a lost cause they would have figured it out by now.
I agree with #8, I like subscription services. I subscribed to the Yahoo service… very nice because you can listen to basically any CD ever made and don’t have to worry about what you bought.
I am growing really tired of Mike Arrlington and TechCrunch and actively looking for alternatives. The bias and ego are both growing ever week. And the immaturity of the posts is also showing.
Hey, Mike: It’s a changing economy granted, but everything cannot be free. Artists have to live. DRM free is what you’ve been calling for and now that you’ve got it you don’t like it either. I think you’re a spoiled little anarchy brat.
I have never wanted to subscribe to music services but we recently signed up to Napster and I have to say it is awesome. I have only found one band missing (it was one of my favourites) but otherwise it is great. Does anyone know a better service like Napster.
Typical Arrington post. Zero substance. I find the other writers on this blog so much more intelligent in their reasoning.
I wonder if Arrington has a financial interest in any f the companies mentioned, or related to this post?
I agree with Number 10, 3, 4, pretty much all the posts i am seeing here and on the site… and yes, i too am looking for alternative sources. I think the guy has blown all credibility and become too egocentric for his most precious resource, his audience.
TechCrunch is a little niche site that doesnt even have a sales team and produces a few blog posts per day. Nothing to write home about Michael.
I was a happy Napster subscriber (and would have been a happy ex-subscriber) til a few days ago when I went to deactivate my account and was greeted by a message that read, “To cancel your account, please contact Napster Customer Support at 866.620.1137, Monday through Friday, 9am to 10pm…”
“The days of paying for recorded music are nearly over. And there’s nothing Napster can do to change that.”
How ironic. The same company that pioneered free music downloads is supposedly losing out because they’re now trying to charge money for what many people think should be free. Too early and now too late
But why would you use iTunes now that you can get the same song for the same price except now without the annoying DRM?
They should just let Napster rest in peace… it was over a long time ago.
Ugh, do we really have to have every comments section complaining about substance, spelling errors, and a supposed “conflict of interest”?
Last time I checked, this was a blog, and nobody is forced to read anything here.
Please get over yourselves, and quit acting like know-it-alls. If you disagree with the sentiments of a post, make your argument and back it up.
Let’s make this clear, because Steve and others appear to be under the impression that this is the same napster that launched a pioneering p2p filesharing application.
This is just the Napster name branded on a music store, back in 2002 Napster was shut down and the name sold to Roxio.
Now all those ex-Napster engineers now work at companies like Snocap, Finetune and of course…. imeem – if you want to relive the best things about napster that’s the place to go. Sure, the ‘younger generation’ think of imeem as ‘youtube for music’, but for me it’s the spiritual successor to napster.
And I’ll bet it has more than a partly 6million tracks uploaded by now.
Hey Frank Church (Mike Arrington in disguise) we have the right to criticize whatever the fuck we want since this is one of the most popular sources of news about startups and tech in general.
Lately it has become the FOX news of the tech world so we have to remind them to stay focused.
The worst thing that can happen to a journalist is to lose his credibility and Arrington is on a free fall.
When teens ask “Whats Napster?” – that just says it all.. 0.99 cents for DRM free music hey – Yawn…
The only viable price for music, movies and any form of media is absolute ZERO.
Anything other than that is a business doomed for the TC deadpool.
Napster was cool when it was a pioneer – now its just another laggard – bring back the likes of Shawn Fanning and Hank Barry, its time to create another stir (legally off course)
@buttmunch, Wow, you are pretty tough on the internet huh?
lol, “Mike Arrington in disguise”; you don’t read the comments very often do you?
Thanks for all your hard work and efforts to “remind them to stay focused.”
Now, can we get back to discussing whether or not this “too little, too late” offering from the Napster branded music store (per the other rob) is exciting or not?
kthxbai
The sad part is that only EMI is allowing iTunes to sell DRM-free music. The other labels won’t let iTunes sell DRM-free because they are reserving that right to iTunes competitors in an attempt to stop Apple from having a stronghold on the market. That seems like a dumb strategy on the labels part. Why would you purposely make some of your customers suffer in order to screw over a particular company that has a popular product? Stupid labels… They’ll never get it.
i am so happy to see the term “buttmunch” gaining traction. Thanks Wired.
Still waiting for realistic, market-based pricing of music. Which, as pointed out, would probably be close to zero. However, I might be willing to pay $2-5 for an album if I knew it was legal. I still think $9.99 is laughable.
Napster started a revolution that did shake up the industry whether we want to accept it or not. The monetization model was not well thought through but you can’t blame them completely for that. There are many businesses that have no business model at all and also have no technology or even near-possibilities of a trend.
Napster created a trend and bold, in-your-face approach that has changed peoples mindset.
Hats off to Shawn Fanning, Sean Parker and all the other founders (Apologies for not knowing the names of all of them) and early risk takers in the business.
Monetization was questionable then and even now the monetization models are evolving.
I love the fact that we had opportunities to learn from them and evolve and rethink the business aspect and then dig into areas that were not possible the. I am (self-marketing here) working on a business that will have this market revolutionized by taking the same model to a level that justifies the existence by having hundreds of millions of dollars exchanging hands via enhancements to this model.
The rebellions are on their way!
Ciao
sganguly@yahoo.com
1. Everyone keeps claiming that subscription based music has failed. It *hasn’t*. It just hasn’t been done right yet.
It has no more failed than the Apple Newton proved no one wanted a cool portable device. They do when it’s well implemented, and that device is now called the iPod and iPhone.
Similarly, in the future subscription based music services will do great, if they make them fun, usable and convienent.
2. Michael, your insistense that the days of selling music are over are too funny.
This is a huge deal. It’s a big win for consumers! First Amazon, now Napster, hopefully we see a major shift in online music and video sales. Apple should get rid of DRM all together as well.
Bit Torrent, or rather taking music for free, is not the correct solution, unless an artist condones it. I’m sure you’d love to give away advertising for free on TechCrunch , Michael?
“..DRM-free sales, a market dominated by iTunes..”
I realize online music is dominated by itunes but I never realized DRM-free music was. Is that really correct?
I think it would be cool to tie-in artist merchandise purchases to digital downloads. Examples:
Buy a band’s T-shirt> 3 free downloads
Buy a band-branded Frisbee> 2 free downloads
Buy a ticket to a show> 5 free downloads
Buy a physical CD> 3 free “b-side” downloads
Whatever merchandise makes sense for a given band. I don’t have time to do any of this, so maybe someone else can figure out the financials to make this work.
The only way to bring the market to equilibrium is to reduce the price of legal music by a factor of 5 or even 10. That’s an adjustment that the smart Long Tail aggregators would love but the artists (and labels) would hate.
I still stand by my argument that music will be mostly a hobby going forward, just like other fine arts (painting, sculpture, etc). The majority of musicians will never be able to live off of it. It’s just plain economics.
@Peter
Artists never made their money off album sales. They make it off of touring (ticket sales, promotional items like t-shirts, etc.)
Reducing the price by a factor of 10 leaves little money for promotion, which is exactly why labels take the majority of money from album sales. The labels take so much money because not every album/band is successful. They need to make that money up somewhere, so that is why all the contracts for album sales are geared towards benefiting the label.
Music will never become a hobby industry. It has too much influence over people’s daily lives. Instead, I believe a “revolution” of sorts will happen. In fact, it’s already happening. Bands like Nine Inch Nails and RadioHead releasing albums as “donation ware” on the web. Encouraging distribution through bit torrent for free. Encouraging fans to download source, remix and create their own versions. And now, of course, more options for downloading DRM free music. This would have been unheard of even 2 years ago.
STOP WHINING!!!
All digital music posts here are the same formula:
1) IF music is for sale THEN deride service
2) IF music is “free” or “ad supported” THEN praise service
3) REPEAT “Music will be free and artists will earn money from tours and merch”
Let’s tackle that last one briefly:
You can’t sell merch if you don’t have fans. When is the last time you wore a band’s t-shirt? Or paid for one?
Free music may find fans – but 100,000 fans worldwide are not easy to tour for. Maybe means 500 ticket buyers in a market. Which these days earns a band about $1000. Add in gas and food and lodging to get there and you are losing money, even if you do everything yourself.
And if fans are truly casual – only listening to a track or two, then the personal investment will never be there to justify even a $10 ticket. And to replace even a single iTunes sale the song would have to be listened to almost 100 times on a typical ad-supported service. And that’s IF today’s rock bottom CPMs hold up. Create enough free music sites and the inventory will only go up, driving CPM further down the tubes.
End of the day someone must sell something. Be it an artist and the music they create or the advertiser’s product that is supporting the “free” giveaway. Right now, neither is working.
My company and I are truly excited about new models. We’ll license our content to almost every site that introduces a new model. But what will truly excite me is a model that works for artists and advertisers, that increases CPM and generates more revenue for artists.
Michael I think you are way too sure of yourself about the whole “music will be free” thing. That’s just not going to happen.
So who is going to invent the mashup site that lists the catalogs from all the major online retailers that includes price and DRM-state?
Personally I am happy with iTunes and have not found a good enough reason to shop else where. Maybe one day I will want a media player without Fairplay, but so far I am tto attached to the quality of the entire Apple package
It’s obvious that non-iTunes digital music stores fail, not because of a lack free-ness, but simply because the user experience and marketing are not good enough. Removing DRM is a big step towards improving the situation, but it’s not enough. No surprise that a jaded tech writer like Michael isn’t excited, or that bitter pots like Ian call the kettle black and blame the music industry for their failures. Subscription music is fantastic for anyone who likes to explore new music, but isn’t a good value those who only want specific songs; a simple value proposition that someone will eventually figure out how to market effectively.
Why am I having so much trouble with my Napster. I use in with Windows Media Player. Yesterday I downloaded the new version and went to Napster by way of Media Player. I was not able to purchase any songs. I was able to purchase them by going directly to the Napster site. But I manage my playlists on Media Player so it is much easier to access the Napster site that way.
Sometimes I wonder why I stick with Napster. It is a love hate relationship. I love it because I have over 1000 songs on my Creative Zen and whenever I look up a song I am able to find it, no trouble. But got to tell you, for a technically challenged old lady like myself I am usually frustrated and can’t find any help. Am I the only one or am I just STUPID!
The days of selling music are not nearly over despite what Mike wants you to believe (this constant drum beating in TC has become a cliche). The music companies need to do what Apple did ten years ago. Think different.
For example, I suspect most artists would prefer to record than tour. If the music companies renegotiated with artists to share more of the revenue from music sales, artists would record more often.
If Mike can write 60 articles per month in TC, Bon Jovi could certainly write 10 songs every month. Publishing has always been a numbers game. If the audience for your best-selling acts shrinks, simply sell more often to the fans still buying.
Its about time Apple gets some more competition. Im personally getting a little tired of their neglect of consumer freedom.
goood nice