EMusic is a freedom-proof business model
Related link: http://emusic.com
I feel awkward ranting about a product -- it makes my sense of skepticism hurt, but it's worth it to me because what's good for EMusic is good for everyone. The labels want us to believe that we have to give up freedom to get music. That's simply not true: EMusic is a freedom-proof business model for the music industry.
- MP3s. No DRM. High audio quality -- 192k VBR.
- The client software is excellent from an engineering perspective. Minimal and useful rather than bloated and timewasting. Runs on Linux.
- The design is respectful of users. No assumption that the user is a criminal. Few download limits. An appreciation for non-evil business methods.
Users love it more over time, not less. People keep their subscriptions for a long time. Like HBO, staying in business requires the company to make its customers happy.
- A different way of thinking about the music business. The company sells a really great discovery tool, something that helps you browse rather than something that helps you acquire hits. It doesn't hurt EMusic if you share, because you're sharing the bytes instead of the browsing experience.
- Levels the playing field for musicians, since it enables users to find great stuff they've never heard of. If the recording industrywere built around discovery services like EMusic, middle class musicians would be the big winners.
- Owned by Vivendi Universal, which is jarring because it's so clueful and they're so clueless. If you're boycotting the RIAA, you should make an exception for EMusic, since the success of EMusic will encourage RIAA members to compete on value rather than intimidation.
- The only geek-friendly commercial music service. Calculate audio fingerprints, chop up your downloads into samples, normalize volumes, browse with Gronk, edits the tags, whatever. You have the freedom to tinker.
- Good for freedom. When you download something from EMusic, you own it. When you buy an EMusic sub, you show that the recording industry can do well and do good at the same time.
- An outrageously good value for your money.
Shawn Yeager is the former iTunes store lover who moved to Canada and found his collection revoked by Apple. Shawn's a good guy who I know a little bit -- here's a snippet from an email he sent me:
BTW, EMusic is fantastic. Thanks for the push, though you may not have known you did it. :)
Ok, it's hokey to collect testimonials. But it matters when the alternative is to believe that freedom and music are incompatible.
Categories
Web
Read More Entries by Lucas Gonze.
Become an O'Reilly Member
Visit the Digital Media Forums
Subscribe to the Digital Media Blog Feed
Subscribe to the Digital Media Newsletter
And now the downside
I wouldn't call all of Emusic's selection obscure. Just because it isn't played on top 40 radio stations, doesn't mean that a lot of these bands don't have pretty large followings. Almost all of my favorite bands are on Emusic along with a lot of my future favorites.
why not digital age business model?
Why not just go to Emusic and listen to a few 30 second clips and purchase there. The artists get a lot more money selling on Emusic than they would dealing with one of the big 5 labels.
Emusic Rocks
All the download problems with Emusic have been fixed. The problem was all the traffic when people started downloading all they could once the new pricing scheme was announced. 40 songs for $9.99 (about $3 for your typical 12 song album) is also by far the best deal out there. Now, artists, labels and Emusic can make a living while offering customers a very fair price. If you like indie music, Emusic is the place to be. And you won't find any RIAA music there, nor is Emusic in any way affiliated with the RIAA after its recent sale. Emusic is the best legal download service out there, hands down.
Emusic Rocks^Hed
RIP, 2003.
Freedom-proof but not RIAA-proof.
Emusic Rocks
Maybe emusic once rocked, but no more. Have you tried downloading lately? Inability to keep the technology in step with customer demand is why this service ha no future. The new owners will limit basic service to 40 downloaded tracks a month: subscribers will be lucky to be able to downlaod that many in the time it's now taking.
And now the downside
While I agree Emusic is a pretty remarkable site, there are some serious down-sides. I was a member for about three years, and to begin with, I was pretty impressed. But...
The selection is largely limited to ancient or obscure music. By happy coincidence, I love jazz, blues and reggae, and there's tons of that. But a bit more range would have been nice.
The idea of unlimited downloads is over-rated. I once had a hard disk crash and lost a lot of tracks. When I tried to download them again, my account was cancelled because Emusic assumed I had some unspecified leeching program. They later reinstated the account, so there were no hard feelings, but it's worth keeping in mind.
Tracks do disappear from the service, licenses do expire. What you see this week may not be there the next.
Browsing by artist can take hours, the categories are fairly random (I'll never understand the concept of 'urban'), and there was no advanced keyword search on track titles.
But eventually, the sole reason I dumped my subscription was the regional restrictions. If you live in the US, you can download anything. If you live outside the US, many of the big name artists are simply unavailable. This is obviously due to restrictions placed by the likes of Universal and is not Emusic's choice, but it was galling to constantly see music promoted that most of the world cannot download. If Emusic's system is able to detect my location and stop me from downloading certain labels, then they also have the ability to stop those labels from even appearing on the site when we log in. To do otherwise just emphasises the fact that Emusic regards the rest of the world as second-tier customers. If a restaurant regularly seats you at a table by the toilets, you eventually look for somewhere else to eat.
Emusic Rocks
I have been a subscriber for 3 years and I just want to say that this LEGAL service is beyond any competitors.
If you appreciate music beyond the mainstream in almost any genre than this is gonna be like CHRISTMAS. Or HANNUKAH. Whatever works for you.
why not digital age business model?
In the digital age, computers empower the individual. Why not have P2P for independent artists? Why not offer mp3's or .ogg files for free, and if listener likes song, and visits web site of the artist, she can purchase directly?
Why tolerate old business models that don't give the listener the kinds of choices possible?
I agree!
Using this service I have discovered lots of great new music. The key here is discovery.
The free trial allows you to download 50 tracks, and you can search their catalog without subscribing. Spend some time with it and you should see plenty of evidence that it's worth the money!
If all you care about is top 40 music, then this isn't the place for you.
-Andy Breeding