All good things must come to an end. As a never-ending consumer of music, I have become a huge supporter of Emusic over the years. Their indie approach to downloading was something that I found to be enticing and sincere. I have found a lot of wonderful music through Emusic that I would not or could not find elsewhere. So, the company’s decision to carry major labels (starting with Sony’s back catalog) was bothersome to say the least. But, what came after and was announced today was even more bewildering. Not only was Emusic abandoning the very niche marketing that made them the premiere indie download site, they were raising their prices substantially and slashing download plans to go with it. Obviously, these two shifts go hand in hand. To carry Sony, Emusic had to change their business plan. But, the premise of this whole scenario is just flat out puzzling. Long time Emusic subscribers like myself are up in arms and rightfully so. The majority of these long-time subscribers could care less about the back catalog of Sony. They are on Emusic to find and discover indie bands/artists. To tell your customers that you are raising prices and cutting back downloads to carry something the majority of them do not want in the first place is astounding to me. It is even more astounding to be doing so in the current economic climate where people are looking to cut their spending. Instead you are asking customers to spend more for much less. Perhaps Emusic will offset the losses of long-term subscribers with the attraction of new customers who do care about the Sony back catalog. I have my doubts though. With every major label addition, Emusic will lose their identity and the niche they worked so hard to successfully create. With nothing to distinguish themselves Emusic will surely suffer. Instead of offering something different, they will blend in with all the other major download retailers and become part of the problem. July 1st marks all these changes and the beginning of the end for Emusic…at least for me. As a loyal Emusic customer I am saddened and disappointed. As someone who follows marketing and business practices (especially within the music industry), I am just left dumbfounded. The only question I have left is who will be the next Emusic?
lala.com would be my bet for next to fall
Totally agree, I wasn’t sure what to make of their move into the Sony world but I don’t see it as a win win.. thoughts here – http://www.pampelmoose.com/2009/06/sony-music-makes-back-catalog-available-through-emusic
[...] As Language has a great opinion piece about this [...]
Ah they’ve done this before. Still better than iTunes.
They’ve done what before? Raise prices? Yeah, maybe. But, to substantially increase prices and slash download plans to carry a major label is a ridiculous decision for a retailer that prides itself as being the #1 site for independent music.
lala??? when they botched up the CD trading and turned off the community forums i was out of there.
lala is long dead to me and eMusic soon, so yeah…
where to next?
prices will still be cheap, but not as good as they were. i presume emusic expected an initial backlash, and that this deal will still have a better upside, but we’ll see. i don’t know much about the ownership of emusic, but i assume there are some bigtime investors pushing for growth/greater returns that won’t let emusic continue as it was.
E-music really screwed themselves
I think they shut down CEO Danny Steins email down. Some idiot from sony left it up on his page.
please leave some comments here.
http://17dots.com/2009/05/31/more-of-the-good-stuff/
I hope everyone will digg the pages surrounding this crap
I can only think of the hundreds of bands that will now not get airplay on my radio show! What a terrible move.
Gene Pembleton
The British Breakfast
WRIR 97.3FM Richmond, Virginia USA
streamed wrir.org along with scores of other great shows that you guys have helped and given attention to bands that couldn’t dream of it before.
FIE ON YOU for copping out money grubbers
This is maddening, but inevitable. While we would love to get romantic and say that, “it’s about the music,” let’s be grown-ups and admit that its all about $$. But, as of this month, it will at least not be about my $$…
ION – Anybody else notice that the new Dinosaur Jr. record was supposed to be released this month on eMusic and now has disappeared off of the upcoming release list?
AFAIK emusic pays very little to small labels and is not really contributing to new music, but rather helping people expect more for less, akin freewars, which if society wrote this quite nice blog rant about:
http://www.ifsociety.com/blog.php?id=51
I think it’s better to find away to purchase music directly: Buying stuff at shows and through independent distros gets the money in the hands of the right people.
Btw the prices in europe increased, too… which is quite weird since they only bought rights for U.S. subscribers. My 75 downloads are going from €20 to €30.. so bye bye emusic and your inconsistent definitions of independent music.