Digital Audio Insider -- the economics of music and other digital content


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Digital Audio Insider is David Harrell's blog about the economics of music and other digital content. I write from the perspective of a musican who has self-released four albums with the indie rock band the Layaways.

My personal website has links to my LinkedIn and Google+ pages and you can send e-mail to david [at] thelayaways [dot] com.

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If you enjoy this site, please consider downloading a Layaways track or album from iTunes, Amazon MP3, Bandcamp, or eMusic. CDs are available from CD Baby and Amazon.

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August 30, 2006

Is Amazon Phasing Out Free Downloads?
by David Harrell
Is Amazon Phasing Out Free Downloads?



I haven't seen any news about Amazon.com's proposed music subscription service for several months now. But I'm wondering if Amazon is slowly dismantling its free download service. The download charts haven't been updated in months, the Recent Additions page shows no new tracks since 12/26/05, and when I log into our Amazon Advantage account to manage our two CDs, there's no longer an option to upload mp3 tracks.

But there is one positive change:
Advantage members can submit CDs for sound clips. It takes an average of four weeks to get the tracks digitized and posted to a CD detail page. Every CD must be submitted in a jewel case with a printed UPC, a barcode for scanning, or both, as well as a complete and accurate track listing.

The CD cannot be sealed, have any plastic or shrink wrap packaging--it must be opened or we will not process it. Please send one (1) copy of each Advantage album to:

Amazon.com Advantage / Sound Clips
701 5TH AVE
SEATTLE, WA 98104

CDs submitted for sound clips cannot be returned.
This is new. Previously, there was no option for sound clips for CDs sold through the Advantage program.

related: Real Audio for Amazon Subscription Service?, Digital Sales More Profitable than Amazon.com CD Sales

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August 28, 2006

Killer iPod Monday
by David Harrell
Killer iPod Monday
Are iPods killing the patience of music listeners? From a Studio 360 radio piece on composer Luke DuBois:
"Are we going to get to a point in our culture where people have a hard time listening to a two-and-a-half minute pop song without channel surfing? I see people do this on their iPods all the time -- they'll listen to songs only through the first chorus and then they'll switch to another song, they'll jump around. And I wonder if we're going to get to the point where it's unreasonable to ask [for] somebody's attention for three minutes..."
For the truly impatient, DuBois condenses every Billboard number one song into an instrumental snippets based on an algorithm that averages the pitch and other sonic content from the song. The result is a haunting sustained tone in the key of the original track. He then assembles a longer piece by letting each segment play for one second for each week the song was at number one. Here's an mp3 sample of 1958 to 1970 (from the Timelapse CD, which is an eMusic bargain at just six total tracks) and here's the Studio 360 segment (Real audio).

And from last Thursday's Wall Street Journal -- iPods are killing business for some wedding DJs:
Mark McAfee, owner of Barr Mansion, a reception hall in Austin, Texas, says about 20 weddings have used iPods at his venue in the past few years. Mr. McAfee says he's not surprised by the iPod wedding trend. Before the digital music player, couples burned their own CDs and played them on speakers, he says. "They don't talk to us about music selection so much," he says. "They just ask us if it can be hooked in or not."

Some wedding professionals think iPods are in poor taste. Claudia Hanlin, a partner at the Wedding Library, a wedding planning firm in New York, says couples should restrict iPods to rehearsal dinners or after-parties. iPod music at receptions may be off-putting. "The whole feeling is much less professional," she says.

Allison Emmerson, a 24-year-old graduate student at the University of Cincinnati, got married in July 2005 to Nate Emmerson, a 23-year-old paralegal. The couple's friends tried to talk them out of going the iPod route because they felt it would ruin the reception.

It didn't. Ms. Emmerson says guests hit the dance floor to the tunes that emanated from the iPod -- which included David Bowie and the White Stripes. "Playing music is not brain surgery," she says. "If you have good music and you have a fun atmosphere, you're going to have people dancing."
Nothing against DJs in general, but I've been to a ton of wedding receptions over the past few years and I can't think of any of them where a well-stocked iPod wouldn't have been an improvement over the wedding DJ. One can only take so much of "We Are Family," "Celebrate," and "Wonderful Tonight." (I know the idea is play music that the majority of the crowd will enjoy, but surely it's possible to avoid this triumvirate of overplayed wedding-reception staples...)

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August 25, 2006

Friday Fun
by David Harrell
Friday Fun: Boxcar Tweedy
Is Wilco's Jeff Tweedy morphing into the late Boxcar Willie? My bandmate Porter found some damning evidence:

boxcar williejeff tweedie


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August 24, 2006

Bandwidth Thoughts Part 1
by David Harrell
Bandwidth Thoughts, Part I:
The Long Tail, the Fat Middle, and Tiny Slices




Note: My original plan was to write recaps of all of the panels I attended at last week's Bandwidth Conference. But Joe Gratz already did a series of posts that pretty much capture that information and I can't see any reason to duplicate his work. So I'm opting instead for a series of more-analytical pieces, based on different issues raised at the conference, not recaps of individual panels.

On Friday afternoon, Chris Anderson moderated Nouveau Niche, a panel that -- as you'd expect -- was built around the concept of the Long Tail. (For the uninitiated, the basic premise is that as new distribution systems provide more and more choices, consumers will become less focused on hits, reaching out to previously unavailable options in an unexpected way.)

In his book, Anderson provides plenty of examples (Netflix, Amazon.com, eCast, etc.) showing that even relatively unpopular choices still enjoy consistent sales. For example, on the Rhapsody streaming service, the 100,000th most-popular song still receives hundreds of plays each month. And right out of the gate, panelist Tim Quirk of Rhapsody gave the following statement:
48.5% of sales at an offline retail environment are generated by the top 100 artists. That goes down to 28% on P2P. For Rhapsody, it's 24%. Everybody becomes a music geek when they can explore.
Of course, not everyone is convinced that the potential Long Tail effect is as great as Anderson believes it will be, at least in terms of creating a major shift in consumption patterns. The Wall Street Journal's Lee Gomes thinks that some more-recent numbers paint a not-so-rosy picture. (Here's Anderson's rebuttal and Gomes's rebuttal to the rebuttal.) And in a later Bandwidth panel, Napster's Matthew Adell took exception with the name itself. He considers it somewhat misleading because while a shift in music consumption habits will benefit some musicians, it's not going to extend to everyone. Adell suggested "the fat middle" as a better moniker, as some artists in the middle of the curve might see some real income at the expense of the former hit-makers, but there is a definite limit to how far down the curve it would travel.

That assertion was backed somewhat by a Bandwidth attendee (a record distributor and label owner) who asked the Nouveau Niche panel about when (if?) income from streaming services might actually amount to something for his labels and artists. He said he sees thousands of streams for his labels and artists in a given reporting period, but minuscule revenue. (I heard this complaint from several folks at the conference, that streaming income was negligible.)

continue reading "Bandwidth Thoughts, Part I"

Quirk countered that while the income from streaming might be minimal for some labels and artists, there was a promotional value to it -- that streaming leads to increased sales of actual downloads. He also said that when they turned off the streaming capability for one artist for several months, downloads sales plunged.

And despite his enthusiasm for the Long Tail effect, Anderson has never claimed it would result in a living wage for every musician in the world. Nouveau Niche panelist Ted Cohen thought the effect might allow SOME musicians to quit their day jobs. In the book itself, Anderson talks about the rise of the amateur and in this Long Tail conversation he says "most artists aren't expecting to quit their day jobs." (Plus it doesn't seem reasonable to expect that some interesting statistics about consumer choices within a couple streaming services will lead to real income for all participants.) There are, of course, a handful of examples of individual writers and musicians that have benefited greatly from new online distribution channels and opportunities. But these examples (The Artic Monkeys, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) are always going to be the exception -- they can't be the rule.

In the end, perhaps what really matters most is a different type of graph -- a pie chart of revenue, not a distribution curve of consumption -- and two questions: How is the pie sliced and is the pie getting bigger? While there are more opportunities for distribution than ever before, it also means that content producers in any field (music, writing, film, etc.) are all forced to compete with a greater number of producers. Hence, the pie is being cut into more and more slices.

There is, of course, the possibility that aggregate consumption is actually growing because of greater consumer choice to create a larger pie, a point raised in the Long Tail book. There's also the idea that total music consumption might be increasing, because iPods and other portable players create more listening hours each day for music fans. But eventually you reach a limit, in both the number of dollars music fans will spend and the total number of available listening hours.

From a top-down view, it's interesting that market share has shifted away somewhat from hit-makers, but with so many slices being cut, the smaller ones are going to be pretty damn thin. Especially for those producers without any marketing muscle and dollars behind them.

My own band, for example, is one of those producers FAR out on the curve. At one point last year I logged onto our CD Baby account and was thrilled to see a three-digit number for one song for a single month of digital distribution. But it wasn't download sales, it was 388 streams from MusicNet. Which was great news -- MusicNet subscribers were streaming the track more than 10 times a day for month. But the payout rate we received was only 2/10ths of a cent per stream, translating into a 78-cent payment. (The streaming rate for MusicNet has increased since then.)

I'm not complaining -- I think it's absolutely amazing that my non-touring, self-released band is at times seeing hundreds of streams and downloads a month from paid online music services, in addition to thousands of unpaid mp3 downloads every month from our own website and other music sites. It's a level of exposure that never would have happened a decade ago. Yet it seems unlikely to turn into any substantial income for us.

The Long Tail effect, whatever it turns out to be, is likely best seen in the aggregate and, as Glenn at Coolfer noted, by the aggregators, not in the pockets of the smallest producers of content.

related: A Little Is Enough (a guest post I wrote for Shake Your Fist about the increasing competition for the time of music listeners), The Wrong Tail

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August 23, 2006

The Last Days of Tower?
by David Harrell
The Last Days of Tower?
There's a great graphic in this Washington Post story on the Tower Records bankruptcy:



But I'm not sure I follow the logic in this customer's lament that shopping online is like being forced to used public transportation:
"They're going to force you to going online now; it's like forcing you to ride the subway," said Ernest Feaster, 50, who lives in Northeast Washington and yesterday shopped at Tower for albums by Luther Vandross, Weather Report and the Dramatics. "It's the last of an icon around here," Feaster said. "At Circuit City and Best Buy, they're just throwing whatever up on the shelves. Here the selection is wide."
He is, however, absolutely right about the relative selections available at Tower and the big box stores. I was looking through my CD collection the other day and realized that a big chunk of it was purchased at Tower...

related: The Death of the Record Store

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August 22, 2006

More SanDisk + An Inroad for Zune?
by David Harrell
More SanDisk + An Inroad for Zune?
SanDisk's quick ascension to the number two spot for mp3 players was helped by the chilly relationship between Apple and retailers. According to iLounge's Jeremy Horwitz, Microsoft might be able to take advantage of that chill when rolling out Zune:
...the company has enjoyed a less than ideal relationship with larger store chains. During a time when Apple's iPods and computers are enjoying unparalleled popularity, these stores continue to aggressively push alternatives -- and seek out other partners.

Consider Sandisk. Even if you're a fan of the iPod, you have to wonder how a company without any audio background or reputation in the MP3 business could quickly come to have even decent market share, let alone a number two position ahead of Creative, Sony, and other better-known companies in the United States. The answer is simple: Sandisk has been backed by prominent American bricks and mortar retailers, receiving shelf space and impressive placement in weekly newspaper circulars, amongst other perks. In print and online, massive electronics retailer Best Buy finds a way to put Sandisk's Sansas in as many photos as possible, next to and sometimes instead of iPods.
The full article is here.

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A Long Tail Chat
by David Harrell
A Long Tail Chat
Can't keep up...I'm still working on a piece about the panel Chris Anderson moderated at the Bandwidth Conference but I just saw that Signal vs. Noise posted a transcript of a long online chat with Anderson and Tim Quirk of Rhapsody, one of the participants on the Bandwidth panel. Good stuff:
Is media consumption entirely market driven, "it's worth what someone will pay for it" or is "what someone will pay for it" somewhat infected by their a priori notions of what it is "objectively" worth...

I could foresee spending some of my attention watching a skateboarding dog on YouTube...

But damned if I'd ever consciously reach into my wallet and pay for a skateboarding dog video...
The full trancript is here.

---------

Completely off-topic but I have to vent: In an age where Spinal Tap lines are used as the leads for Wall Street Journal editorials (complete with the URL to the movie segment on YouTube) I don't understand HOW the NY Times obituary for Bruno Kirby fails to mention his scene-stealing role as Tommy Pishedda, the Frank-Sinatra-obsessed limo driver.

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August 21, 2006

Bandwidth on the Way, etc.
by David Harrell
Bandwidth on the Way, etc.
I'm working on some posts about the Bandwidth Conference I attended over the weekend. In the meantime, check out Joe Gratz's excellent coverage of the event.

---------

From today's WSJ: SanDisk is now the number two seller of mp3 players, closing in on a double-digit market share:



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August 18, 2006

Friday Fun: Variable Pricing in 1983
by David Harrell
Friday Fun: Variable Pricing in 1983
In 1983, a very young-looking REM made its national TV debut, playing "Radio Free Europe" and the not-yet-titled "So. Central Rain" on the David Letterman show. In this clip, Letterman talks to the band before they play their second song. Listen for the discussion with bassist Mike Mills @ 1:01 about the effect of the lower-than-average list price for the Murmur album ($6.98 vs. the then-standard $8.98) on record sales:


(Here's a link to Radio Free Europe.)

---------

I'm off to the Bandwidth Music + Technology Conference. Check back next week for a series of posts about the different panels.

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August 15, 2006

Tuesday Odds and Ends
by David Harrell
Tuesday Odds and Ends
Shane Richmond (news editor for the telegraph.co.uk) weighs in on the eMusic price increase for Europe, noting that eMusic is still a relative bargain:
Instead of £10.57 per month I'll now pay £12.78, which is a discount rate eMusic are giving to those who were subscribers before the switch. They say it's the same rate as before but with 17.5 per cent VAT added. I'm told I can keep this rate as long as I keep my subscription "active and in good standing." What does 'good standing' mean?

New UK subscribers will pay £14.99 per month and new European subscribers will pay £20.99 (£14.12). The Swindleeeee!!!!! blog has a full breakdown of price increases.

Still I don't mind the price increase. Thirteen quid for 90 tracks is still phenomenally good value and as long as eMusic doesn't bring in DRM I'll remain a customer.
Somewhat related: I received a note last week from one of the founders of Klicktrack, a new Swedish download store that is selling mp3s (no DRM) for 95 Eurocents each. Not sure if VAT is added to that price. So far, it looks like the catalog is mostly European labels, including Labador, home of The Radio Dept. and Club 8.

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WGBH's Forum Network has an mp3 of a great presentation by Duke law professor James Boyle that addresses the negative impact of DRM and overuse of copyright law on developing media markets. You can download it here. Boyle's also the author of Bound By Law?, a supercool guide to public domain issues in comic book form.

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August 14, 2006

The European Premium for eMusic
by David Harrell
A couple weeks ago, I posted about this thread at Marginal Revolution, which discussed why some things cost so much more in the UK relative to the US, including iTunes downloads. One obvious reason is higher taxes (the ubiquitous Value Added Tax), though taxes alone don't account for the premium that iTunes customers are paying in the UK. It seems like iTunes pricing in the UK also takes the retail prices of CDs into consideration. And for retail CDs and other consumer items, there are all sorts of reasons given for higher UK prices -- higher minimum wages, higher rent rates for retail stores, and so on. Plus, music licensing is generally more expensive in Europe (see below).

Now that eMusic has launched its European service, subscribers over there are going to be paying a lot more for their subscriptions. It appears that current customers will get to keep their old subscription rates, though they'll get socked with the VAT now that eMusic has an official European presence. But new subscribers will have to pay a fairly large premium BEFORE the VAT is accounted for.

This post at Swindleeeee gives a complete breakdown of the new pricing schedule for eMusic customers in the UK and the rest of Europe:
Prices for all Basic plans were increased 46% in the UK and 42% in the rest of Europe.

Prices for all Plus plans were increased 30% in the UK and 24% in the rest of Europe.

Prices for all Premium plans were increased 22% in the UK and 15% in the rest of Europe.

Booster pack prices increased from 42% to 62% depending on region and the type of booster back. As with the subscription plans, the highest increases occurred with the lowest-priced packs.
Again, the percentage increases listed above are all BEFORE the VAT is added in. For all I know, eMusic might be paying out all sorts of additional fees and licensing payments in order to offer the service in Europe, leaving it with it comparable margins for US and non-US subscriptions. That's pretty much what eMusic said in an e-mail response to one subscriber:
The costs of selling music in Europe are higher than in the US, and by launching European sites, we must adhere to national and international laws requiring VAT collection and compensate the various labels, publishers, and artists under the terms they require. As a result of this reality, we were required to make various price adjustments.
Still, it seems like music downloads would be a product where a universal price might work. No packaging costs, no shipping costs, no salaries for retail, etc. Are the higher licensing/publishing fees for Europe really enough to push prices so high, even before the VAT?

Obviously, some European eMusic subscribers aren't thrilled with these changes. Here are some comments from recent threads on the eMusic subscriber forums:
I don't see a possible reason behind this. Emusic is an online site, not a brick and mortar shop, what possible need could they have for a European base? The problems before were to do with labels, not the location of the company, surely deals with UK labels could still be sorted out from the US?

I now see pricing in pounds rather than US dollars, and the prices have gone up across the board. With a 10 track booster now costing £4.99 prices are creeping up towards the current itunes level of 79 pence per track.

The prices have in fact gone up. Till now a track cost me about 23-25 Eurocent (based on the 40-track-subscription and taking the Euro-Dollar exchange rate into account). From now on a track (new subscription) will cost about 32 Eurocent (which ist considerably more than just VAT added).

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what portion of the European premium is paid back to artists and labels. I'll follow up with an update as soon as we receive some sales from the eMusic Europe store.

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August 11, 2006

Friday Fun
by David Harrell
Friday Fun
A little off-topic, but I couldn't resist when I found the video for my favorite Blondie song on YouTube. Earlier in the year, just before Blondie's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, some folks on the Bob Lefsetz mailing list were dissing the band and its musicianship. Witness Clem Burke, the best rock/pop drummer of the past 30 years:



I would've loved to have been in the studio/rehearsal space to hear the band discuss the arrangement on this one. Have to imagine it went something like this:
"Clem, we want you to play a drum solo on this one."

"No problem, just tell me when it should start."

"Uh, actually we want you to play a drum solo for the ENTIRE SONG."
Unfortunately, the YouTube clip cuts off the first couple of beats from Clem's kick-drum intro but it's still a hoot.

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August 10, 2006

Interview with Jim Kelly of Parasol
by David Harrell
Interview with Jim Kelly of Parasol
Parasol is an online/mailorder retailer, a distributor, and a group of indie labels. Jim Kelly, who heads up Parasol's publicity department and the label group, was kind enough to share some thoughts via e-mail about digital sales and download stores.

There's an impressive list of free mp3s on the Parasol downloads page. Do you have any feel for how offering a free song affects subsequent sales of the album?

From our site I don't suppose we have a good way to track those numbers, plus the number of our own-site visitor downloads isn't that large. When we've given away tracks via Pitchfork, for example, we've seen a huge increase in downloads and usually corresponding jumps in direct mailorder sales, but it certainly varies. Not a science by any means. Getting those free mp3s in front of the right people is the most important thing.

Digital store trends: my pet theory is that while the sale of a song at iTunes nets a label more than a download from eMusic (70 cents vs. 20 cents or so), the eMusic audience might turn out to be the best bet for indie labels and artists. Any thoughts here or details you can share about which digital stores are generating the most sales for Parasol labels?

ITunes and eMusic are #1 and #2 for Parasol and account for at least 95% (and likely more) of our digital revenues. I feel like eMusic parlays their commitment and enthusiasm for the music in a way that makes up for the lesser per-download revenues. I'm also positive that folks use their iTunes and eMusic subs to decide which physical albums to purchase. We get plenty of mailorder action from folks who downloaded such and such for such and such service...nice to know that digital drives physical sales too, a circuit connected! We have enjoyed working with eMusic through the years while, for myself, iTunes remains a less personable entity.

continue reading "Interview with Jim Kelly of Parasol"

Let's talk about digital download pricing. I know it's not something you have much control over, but what do you think about the current price of downloads relative to buying a CD: Are download prices too high or just right relative to CD prices?

Like all other labels, taking in $6+ on a full-album digital download from iTunes we've got no complaints! GRAVY!

Has the proliferation of mp3 blogs and podcasts caused you to make any major changes in your promo strategies? Has the influence of traditional press outlets declined significantly?

We usually do a pretty nice mailing of new releases we're publicizing to bloggers of note. It happens naturally and organically whether we plan it or not. So we try and make it part of our campaign and we schedule mailings to have the hype landing nearer to official release dates. I also do a bit of policing to convince bloggers to focus on a single track or two. More than occasionally I'll find bloggers giving away entire EP, even albums, but I've found that a polite email sets them straight.

As far as reviews reaching the widest audience I'd rather have a Pitchfork review online than anything in print in -- let's say -- Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly...I'm just not sure print magazines are reaching the audience we are targeting anymore. On that front Magnet and upstarts like Arthur are the exceptions to the rule.

Finally, where do you see things in five or 10 years? I don't think the CD is going away anytime soon, but do you see a crossover point in the near future where digital sales approach or surpass the sales of physical discs?

Our release of Jose Gonzalez's "Veneer" album last year (prior to Mute whisking him away) saw digital and physical sales almost neck and neck for the first 4 months...which certainly was an anomaly. Perhaps more about a lack of physical sales at the time than what seemed like a surplus of digital sales. I see a point where labels will press CDs for promotional use and for compact disc fans (much like vinyl is produced for vinyl fetishists now) as digital takes over a much larger share... The industry is about to begin entertaining the whims of an entire generation of consumers who have spent their formative years downloading (legally or otherwise) who won't have the same attachment to the physical CD. Like my kids for example... They've grown up with iPods and iTunes and burning CD-Rs -- that's how they listen to music.

Thanks Jim!

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August 07, 2006

CD Baby Pulls the Plug on Tower
by David Harrell
CD Baby Pulls the Plug on Tower
Just received an e-mail from CD Baby that ended with:
P.S. TOWER RECORDS UPDATE: Due to their financial situation, we have discontinued our relationship with Tower Records. Read the news here: http://news.google.com/news?q=tower+records If you have links to tower.com website, you should remove them, because they are not selling any CD Baby CDs anymore. We will take the responsibility of making sure you get paid for sales that already happened, but there will be no more sales through tower.com in the future.
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August 03, 2006

Guest Post and iTunes Pre-Orders
by David Harrell
Guest Post and iTunes Pre-Orders
A piece I wrote for the Moistworks mp3 blog is up today. It's about the new la la CD trading site and what I think is a potential flaw in the business model -- the fact that la la treats all used CDs as having equal value for trading purposes:
So what's the rub? In la la land, every CD is treated the same. All of those unwanted copies of the first Hootie and the Blowfish record are, in the eyes of la la, absolutely equal to London Calling, Innervisions, or Revolver. I suppose the theory is that one person's junk is someone else's treasure and, with enough members trading, variances in musical taste will be enough to keep things moving along. But that might be wishful thinking -- when I entered 200 discs into my la la account, I wasn't that surprised at which 72 were flagged as requested. Someone out there wants your Nick Drake discs, no one's asking for that crappy third Oasis album.
Read the full post here.

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After seeing that Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics album (which won't be released until August 15th) is the number three album at iTunes today, I was going to ask why in the world would anyone ever pre-order a digital download. It's not like iTunes is going to run out of AAC files on the release date. But it does include a "pre-order only" bonus track that's not available on the physical CD so I guess that's driving the pre-release iTunes sales. (The album is #9 today as a pre-order at Amazon.com.)

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August 01, 2006

Varying iTunes Prices for Different Markets
by David Harrell
Over at Marginal Revolution, there's an interesting post about why certain things cost more in the UK than the US. The first example in the e-mail that inspired the post is the 79 pence price of an iTunes download in the UK, which at recent exchange rates, is about $1.47.

Several of the comments to the post touch on the higher iTunes pricing for the UK, but no one seems to have the definitive answer as to why it's more expensive to download a single track in the UK. My assumption is that the pricing was set relative to CD prices in the UK, which -- based on every ad I've ever seen in Mojo or Q -- are relatively expensive compared to the US. (Just found this 2004 article where Apple, in response to complaints about UK pricing, pretty much said so.) In other markets, Apple seems to be using the 99 cent/percentage as the price point -- 99 cents in Canada, 99 euro cents for Europe -- but .79 pounds doesn't quite have the same ring...

So far, we've received payments for single-song sales from five different iTunes stores (nothing yet from iTunes Japan). For the most recent downloads, our cut from Apple (after CD Baby takes its 9% fee) works out to the following:

Our iTunes Cut for a Single Song Download

iTunes UK       $0.770        
iTunes Europe       $0.742        
iTunes Australia       $0.667        
iTunes Canada       $0.645        
iTunes US       $0.637        

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    THE LAYAWAYS

    Out Now -- "Maybe Next Year" -- The New Holiday Album:

    <a href="http://thelayaways.bandcamp.com/album/maybe-next-year">Joy To The World by The Layaways</a>

    "This is a sweet treat, deliciously musical without being overbaked for mass media consumption." -- Hyperbolium

    "Perfect listening to accompany whatever holiday preparations you may be making today." -- Bag of Songs


    O Christmas Tree - free mp3 lyrics and song details
    Away In A Manger - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, iTunes, Amazon MP3, or Bandcamp. Listen to free streams at Last.fm.



    album cover art from The Space Between

    <a href="http://thelayaways.bandcamp.com/album/the-space-between">Keep It To Yourself by The Layaways</a>

    "...about as melodic and hooky as indie pop can get." -- Absolute Powerpop

    "Their laid-back, '60s era sounds are absolutely delightening." -- 3hive

    "...melodic, garage-influenced shoegaze." -- RCRD LBL

    Where The Conversation Ends - free mp3
    January - free mp3
    Keep It To Yourself - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, iTunes, Amazon MP3, or CD Baby, stream it at Last.fm or Napster.



    album cover art from We've Been Lost

    <a href="http://thelayaways.bandcamp.com/album/weve-been-lost">Silence by The Layaways</a>

    "The Layaways make fine indie pop. Hushed vocals interweave with understated buzzing guitars. The whole LP is a revelation from the start." -- Lost Music

    "Catchy Guided by Voices-like rockers who lay it on sweetly and sincerely, just like Lionel Richie." -- WRUV Radio

    Silence - free mp3 lyrics and song details
    The Long Night - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, stream it at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.



    album cover art from More Than Happy

    "These are songs that you want to take home with you, curl up with, hold them close -- and pray that they are still with you when you wake up." -- The Big Takeover

    Let Me In - free mp3
    Ocean Blue - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, stream it at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.

    More Layaways downloads:

    download the Layaways at eMusic download the Layaways at iTunes

    the layaways website