It looks like I spoke too soon about the benefits of emusic’s deal with Sony Music for the users. What wasn’t immediately clear was the impact on the price that users would have to pay for their downloads. Some of the most loyal users have seen a 40-50%Â increase in the price they are paying. And the response from the users have been staggering. emusic has received well over 1000 complaints in the last four days on their blog and message boards. And for Sony it seems that many of emusic’s most loyal users aren’t that interested in their back catalogue, at least not if it means doubling the cost of their music.
Since launch emusic has played a delicate balancing act between price and choice. They have kept their prices low, so encouraging users to try lots of new music. This has been great for some artists and labels, but sadly it doesn’t seem to have provided adequate compensation for some of the independent labels who aren’t prepared to sell their music quite so cheaply.
However, it seems that the model simply wasn’t working for either emusic or the labels, and now the users are also up in arms. This whole episode brings up the age old question, what is the value of music, and to whom? Sadly the gap between the fans and the labels seems to be increasing, not getting closer.
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