>From: Paul Smith <postalscaleATyahoo.com>
>
>By adding on a
>bandwith fee [essentially, that's what it is] to the
>"fees" [not an actual fee, I suppose, but close] that
>are in the form of sharing CD sales profits with
>MP3.com, it is double dipping, which you did not
>address.
Well, that's two seperate services that they offer. It's not double dipping
any more than Safeway is double dipping when they charge you for milk AND
vegetables. Secondly, the cd-sale program has always been completely
voluntary. Lots of artists (myself included) have never sold cd's on
mp3.com.
>If MP3.com can
>keep the APPEARANCE of a free zone for all types of
>music, as their public perception was before, then
>they can continue to cultivate their percieved
>"anti-corporate record label" image, which I'm sure
>helps them from a PR standpoint, ultimately leading to
>more CD sales.
I haven't thought of mp3.com as "anti-corporate" since the first time they
told me I had to give them my email address to listen to music. I think that
was the first time I used them. Their first method of making money was to
harvest email addresses to sell to businesses.
I've done a lot of thinking about this since I started this thread.
Regardless as how it started, mp3.com had to act like a business to draw
enough income to pay for the immense bandwidth/hardware, as well as the
employees that keep it running. What's surprising is that they've kept a
pretty bad business model for years - depending on banner ad sales for the
primary source of income - even 2 years after the dot com fallout. If they
were founded at any time other than dot-com-madness-time, they'd probably be
charging fees to ALL artists, and/or maybe all downloaders. Instead, they
are still providing web space to artists for no charge. (I honestly don't
believe that the unpopular artists bring in enough traffic to pay for
webspace they take up.)
I'm not saying that everyone who's pissed at mp3.com should forgive them and
give 'em a big hug. Just that I can't really bring myself to see them as
evil (other than the above-mentioned email harvesting). What I'm saying is
that they are still more of a good thing than a bad thing on the internet,
and that many a suburban garage band will cry when they finally go out of
business.
Meanwhile, IUMA has become the best site out there. They have good
intentions and the potential to become a great online community (that is, if
they allow artists to link to each other's pages, create playlists, fix the
load times, etc). I hope they stick around, but they too are a business -
one that has already been bailed out from financial demise twice and
probably still isn't generating enough income to pay for itself. Is it
possible for them to sign up for "non-profit" status?
I guess the lesson to be learned here is that nobody is required to give us
a free web presence. If you want it, you have to buy/create/arrange for it
yourself - but then it'll be yours. Not saying I learned it yet, but that's
the lesson.
Matt
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