it’s the first music service that doesn’t view every customer as a criminal-in-waiting.
The email column: it’s as good as the longer article:
In today’s State of the Art column, I reviewed the new iTunes Music Store, Apple’s impressive debut in the downloadable music business. No monthly fees, no minimums and almost no restrictions to what you can do with your downloads for your own personal use. Above all, I emphasized my delight at the price: a buck a song.
I think $1 is just right. In fact, here’s what I wrote in this very newsletter, exactly two years ago this week:
“Here’s a million-dollar idea for you: Start the Amazon.com of MP3 files. Get every record company — and I mean all of them — on board. Put their entire catalogs online. Build, in other words, something like Napster-for-a-Buck.com.”
But over at Macintouch.com, I read a criticism of Apple’s service today that never would have occurred to me: That the price isn’t right.
“The price structuring is anything but uniform,” wrote the critic. “Eminem’s ‘Paul (Skit),’ running time 10 seconds, costs 99 cents — and so does the 1970’s progressive-rock epic ‘Close To The Edge,’ which is over 18 minutes long!”
Interesting point. Sure enough, some of the “tracks” on Apple’s service are very short (especially in the spoken-comedy section), and some are very long (especially in the classical music section). But if the writer is proposing pricing the tracks according to length, well — I think that’s crazy.
But his next point is more interesting:
“But my real objection is to the flatness of the price. It makes no distinction between new music and old music, which have very different real costs and which serve different cultural needs.
“With new music, I actively want to support the musicians. [But when it comes to the 1933 recordings of pianist Edwin Fischer], we’re talking about his grandchildren. I’m happy to pay them the $2 or so they are probably getting. But EMI, meanwhile, is getting more like $20. It’s truly appalling that ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ has a list price today of $19. It cleared all its recording and publicity costs in about three weeks from release in June 1967, 36 years ago. It ought to cost $5, almost all of which should go to the Beatles.”
Now there’s a more disruptive notion. Now that we can buy music by the individual track, should the price depend on the age or profitability of the recording?
If so, why stop there? Why not also factor in how expensive the recording was to make? Surely a solo by an obscure guitar player shouldn’t cost the same as one by a 250-piece orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle.
Furthermore, what ever happened to supply and demand? Shouldn’t the hottest, most desirable music command the highest prices, and forgotten oldies be listed in a digital bargain bin? After all, nobody minds paying more for new movies at Blockbuster, and less for classics from yesteryear.
Of course, coming up with a formula to determine the value of music wouldn’t be a cakewalk. It might start something like this:
((song length x ensemble size) + band’s popularity [as determined by the number of hits returned by Google]) / song’s age) – minus royalties earned so far…
Well, maybe we should let MIT work out the rest. In the meantime, $1 a song is probably as good a price structure as any.