The Far Side of Tech - Latest Comments in Why Doesn’t Emusic Carry Over Unused Tracks Every Month?

Re: Why Doesn’t Emusic Carry Over Unused Tracks Every Month?

jon — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:35:17 -0000

license fees to record labels are triggered when content is downloaded. it's in their interest to not roll over credits so that they get the benefit of your monthly subscription fee w/out content costs

Re: Why Doesn’t Emusic Carry Over Unused Tracks Every Month?

Devindra — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:02:07 -0000

Jaxon, thanks for the info! It makes complete sense in that respect.

Wing, I'm not sure if any music store could encapsulate your "eclectic" tastes ;) Now if CDBaby were to get in this business then maybe you'd be all set...

Honestly after thinking about it a bit more I think another significant factor in this no roll-over setup is that roll-over would make some of their more high-end subscriptions options less desirable. They obviously couldn't do an unlimited roll-over deal, but I see no reason why they can't retain credits for a 2-3 month period.

Re: Why Doesn’t Emusic Carry Over Unused Tracks Every Month?

Wing — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:53:03 -0000

Yup, what Jaxon said was exactly what eMusic explained to its users when it switched to the song/month model. Many people were unhappy, it seems.

The problem I have with eMusic is that it's not weird enough. It's the most indie-friendly music download service out there as far as I know, but it's nowhere near comprehensive enough.

Re: Why Doesn’t Emusic Carry Over Unused Tracks Every Month?

Jaxon Rice — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:44:32 -0000

Emusic does this for the following reason. Very few labels (even independent ones) would be prepared to let emusic sell their tracks for $0.25 and take the $0.12c split that emusic would pay them. Emusic actually pays the labels more than $0.25 per download because they bank on a certain percentage of people not using their downloads that month - that money gets pooled and and therefore they can pay the artists a higher commission.

Everyone (except for the people who don't download of course) wins. Music fans get DRM free music at a very reasonable price, artists and lables get paid a decent amount for the tracks.

One quick tip: emusic rolls over it's downloads every 30 days, not every month. In my opinion this is underhanded and sneaky. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that your downloads refresh on the, say, 10th of the month and then go there on the 9th to clear your downloads. You may be unpleasantly surprised.

Later

Jaxon Rice
Emusic fan and Indie Label Owner.