Last month reports came out that iTunes sales were slumping, partly due to their licensing. This month, reports are opposite and Steve Jobs is touting how much iTunes is making. In the midst of this, there are several other options to get music legally, Napster being one of them.
Last week Napster announced they were buying AOL Music, which they are getting for a fair price, they will get exposure on the AOL website and gain 350,000 subscribers. Who cares? The vast majority of people who buy music legally, don’t buy more then 20-30 songs, it is simply too expensive in the long run. Those who legally acquire music are usually looking to purchase from the second hand market such as eBay and local stores that will buy or trade the music. While others will simply turn to other means of aquiring music, such as bittorrent, which offten makes finding harder to get bands more accessible.
Napster’s business model is among the worst. You pay a flat rate per month and get whatever portable music player you want, but you can’t load it on an iPod. If you stop paying the monthly fee, the music on your MP3 player will stop working next time you sync it with your computer.
Average cost of a music CD can vary from about $10 upwards of $20 depending where you are buying it, if it is a new release and how popular the band is. Taking the middle ground of about $15 for a new CD, even if you preview the music in the store or via anyone of the online sites that offer snippets of the songs, do you really want the whole disc? What is a fair price to pay to download a DRM free MP3? Would this “all you can eat” way of downloading music work if it was DRM free or is paying per song the way to go?
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