That's because some consumers completely miss the point and are ignorant of what goes into creating any piece of work and the labor of the professionals involved in creating it. The cost of the physical product often really isn't that relevant. DVDs are cheaper today, therefore if a blank DVD is $1, why the hell should the last "Transformers" movie cost $29?? I mean it's not fair, right? Or it only costs $1/per unit to manufacturer a CD. I got in this discussion with someone and offered a compromise. I'd sell them a shrink wrapped CD with all artwork, etc. for $1 instead of $10, but I'd just leave it blank.Guitar Gaz wrote:Its difficult now the horse has bolted - but the chance was missed a few years ago for short term greed and gain by setting iTunes prices so high. People don't want to pay so much for mp3's with no physical product - a bit like e-books.
I mean the value in a novel isn't the paper it's printed on, is it? Maybe when Michelangelo delivered his "David" statue, they could have argued that because he got the marble at a discount that it should be cheaper? Not comparing myself to someone of his talent at all BTW, but saying "Hey Stephen King! Why is your book $19.95?? Don't you know the paper is only worth 50 cents?" is rather ludicrous. There's a whole lot of talent and sweat equity that goes into making that raw material WORTH SOMETHING. The physical cost of the medium isn't the point.
As an aside I think iTunes pricing was quite reasonable, except as I mentioned earlier, I think raising the singles to $1.29 on back catalog stuff isn't a good idea and in two cases it ended up in a lost sale. I didn't pirate the songs. I just decided I didn't like them enough to pay to have them.
Won't happen as long as artists continue to step all over each other to try and sign bad deals. But without getting political, because that's verboten, your choice of the word "justify" disturbs me. We live in a free market system. It's capitalism. If I want to offer a product or service at a certain price point, I don't owe you or anyone else moral justification for it. You have a choice. You purchase that product or you don't. If enough people refuse to purchase it, then the seller rethinks his pricing. But what moral authority do you claim? Because I cannot afford a new Porsche, should I call the local Porsche dealership and demand they JUSTIFY the price of their cars to me? If they make a good product, the marketplace rewards them with demand. If they don't it doesn't. If people were magically able to make duplicate copies of Porsches from their friend's cars, Porsche eventually goes broke, lays off people, quality declines. Etc... etc... etc...There is no justification for publishers and record companies keeping so much of the income, or iTunes for that matter. The artist should get more but that won't happen of course.
*** EDIT *** Sorry I missed your point. You were talking about the portion the record company and publisher keep, not price. I guess that's partly because the record companies taking the financial risk?
Any evidence to support this? As Mike pointed out, as long as there is a FREE alternative out there, it's rather hard for any price to compete with FREE. What would be a good price for a single? 30 cents? Apple takes 10 cents. You get 20 cents per unit. Let's see... if you move 1,000 units you make $200. Good luck with those sorts of numbers.I am convinced there would be an increase in turnover if prices were lower.
How is it sustainable? The kind of price points you're suggesting has everyone in a band, and all peripheral professionals making below minimum wage and snacking on top ramen on the way to their day jobs. And if there is any correlation between intelligence and creative potential, the product being released will suffer as "intelligent" people decide to hell with this occupation and decide they'd like some sort of standard of living and health insurance, etc.Plus it would be a business model with sustainability. Rather than what we have now which makes no sense and has little future.
Have you seen the sorts of payout from streaming services right now? It's really, really awful.But that won't happen now. Something will make a change - probably along the Cloud/Spotify route with artists receiving royalties rather than sales income. Coupled with the law being sorted out regarding piracy.
Frankly, I think a much better approach for independent artists is to work harder in the area of developing a relationship with their customers... aka "fans"... and cultivate those that are willing to purchase your CDs or downloads at a fair price. I've sold quite a few downloads and I'm not even performing live yet, but I've done it by treating customer/fan interaction as part of the job and building those relationships.
One other matter to consider is that once you start giving your music away, you condition your customers/fans to expect that. Convincing them to pay for something once you've cross the FREE line is hard and there's almost no going back.