Well, look at it this way - there's no "normal" level - prices have gone up. So the "bonus" keeps us at the same lower price, but only for the cheapest tier of music. That undoubtedly is a smaller set than before, but we'll only know how much value is lost when we see examples. It's possible that there will be enough for me to not resent the changes, but as many have commented, I expect a significant drain of their subscriber base, since prices have neared competitors.
I don't think it will be immediately clear what the prices will be, even in the first month. If I remember correctly, the new pricing only seemed to apply to Sony releases when the change occurred July of last year. Over the course of the next two months labels began transitioning to the album model. tlmucla corned them effectively. They really don't know what things will cost. Moreover, I doubt that all the labels have had time to think what they want their albums to cost. They may choose to price things as they are regularly priced at Amazon or iTunes, which would be tragic.
Think about this: Rounder, Document and Fantasy are $9-10 albums at Amazon. Even a generous 35% discount would bring them down to only $5.85. However, that kind of discount may only apply after the labels have had a while to ponder the new pricing system--months from now, not days.
So those complaints about limewire, how irksome were they?
I've recently considered picking up a month to get the rerelease of Waldron's Tokyo Bound (4 tracks). The quirks of its search engine still give me pause.
Yeah, it all depends on how the stuff I want is priced. If old ECMs and Verves go for 0.49 per track, I am probly good! But I'll believe it when I see it. Part of the deal too, is when do I start weaning myself off the steady glut o' music habit?
I would be really surprised to see ECMs go for as little as .49. I think you better brace yourself for .79-.89, even for old titles. ECM isn't a label to bargain shop on. Verve? Not sure, but doubt it. I'm sure emusic will promote some Verve "deals", but they'll be lessor compilations and titles not worth picking up. Besides, Verve and Blue Note have been mining their catalogs for years and distributing one reissue after the other; it's much better to pay a bit extra and get the physical copy on Amazon or a brick&mortar... that's where the deals are to be found on those titles. Impulse will be on this, too, yeah? I'll be interested to see if emu offers some of the labels odder titles, but really, it's already being done for the most part on the Impulse site. Besides, all Impulse has are their old titles. They haven't been relevant for years.
OMG - They have awoken the dreaded Sucklechimp!
At one point, in the middle of a post, he says, "Suck my cock, etc." Golden. I wish that phrase had come out of my own keyboard.
"Deal" only means that there are 12+ tracks and it costs only 12 credits. Not necessarily a bargain, though there are some 12 credit albums that have more than 80 minutes of music.
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. The chance that this marks the beginning of the end of eMusic is probably about 75%, but that's because there's still a 20% chance that the Sony drop was the real beginning of the end.
I just don't get how they are keeping the subscription model with this. People had trouble zeroing out their Amie Street accounts at the end, can it really be done on a monthly basis? Anyone who has an annual plan should be seriously looking into class action lawsuit (not hyperbole here, just pointing out that a complete overhaul of the terms in the middle of a subscription is very suspect business practice - more so than their previous changes).
Glad I did one more month, no more for me.
And people keep asking questions that they obviously won't answer before the switch knowing that it will upset subscribers. They hid the specifics last time, they'll do it again.
And people keep asking questions that they obviously won't answer before the switch knowing that it will upset subscribers. They hid the specifics last time, they'll do it again.
I can't help myself. I have a bit of a masochistic streak on the emu forum.
The thing is, I would like emu to find a way to convince me not to leave, and I hope, hope hope hope, that they give me an answer that I can use as justification to stay. Right now, not leaning toward it. I was still having difficulty justifying the last increase.
Another factor that will lead to canceling my emu account... the demise of Amie. I could always justify my monthly music cost by saying, yeah, I'm not getting as much from emu any more, but I'm cleaning up on Amie. It was as if emu became my secondary support site for music I couldn't get on Amie, and so of course I'm gonna have to pay a little more for that backup music. But now it's emu standing there all alone.
I had forgotten about Limewire. I'll definitely give that a shot. Maybe Guvera, too, though I have a low tolerance threshold for ads, so maybe not.
Generally, albums released more than 12 months ago will be available at a 35% savings compared to iTunes a la carte prices. ... Most of the single tracks in our current catalog will be available to members at $.49 which is generally 50% less than iTunes a la carte prices.
This indicates to me that 'Deals' are going down in value - album prices will be higher than 12* track prices, for the cheapest tier. That's interesting in a bad way.
I would be really surprised to see ECMs go for as little as .49
Yeah, that's probably right. Indeed, what they are telling us is:
$0.49 for most tracks currently in our catalog
$0.69 - $0.79 for more popular content
Which might be read to say, *nothing* currently in the catalog is going to be 0.49.
Also:
New payment system paves the way for more music!
Oy. I realize this kind of spin is standard PR practice, but but but. Kind of reminds me of North Korean propaganda: "Dear Leader paves the way to glorious futureI" Guess it's hard to tell people "We're raising prices" and make them like it.
Just signed up for a trial at mtracks - hey, they've got kranky. Apparently they do double credits for songs longer than 10 minutes. But that means that a 7 track album I just looked at cost 9 credits instead of 12 - fair enough. Although they don't do album discounts. At least not that I see so far. Will be re-signing up for Limewire sometime soon, too.
I have a funny feeling that one day in November people will wake up to find most of the albums on eMusic are $7.99. And Cathy's response will be to say that they didn't know for sure and we're real sorry but "Ack! I think I'll go eat some ice cream." The disgusting thing is that she's trying to play the loyalty card...
Vis a vis Rounder - they are a test case for me in several ways. Even now I have trouble plunking down 12 credits or vicinity thereof for releases that are only 30 something minutes long because they are country/bluegrass/folky kind of material. It has to be an album I've got to have. If they go up significantly I'll be even more reluctant. I wonder what pricing they'll put on some of the long compilations I jumped on when they went Album Pricing? I somehow doubt they will be such a bargain any longer.
mtraks, i forgot about that website. I joined for free month awhile ago. at the time it had some of the same catalog of eMu, but had a lot of crud to wade through, much like amiestreet used to.
I agree with, Bad thoughts , eMusic seems foolish to face off with Amazon by price, now that Amiestreet and Lala are gone. I get the whole expand the customer base, but pushing the vets away is silly.
I've been a (somewhat) loyal customer for almost 5 years now and I just cancelled my account. I will do most of my shopping at Amazon and my local brick & mortar now. It's not a huge price difference, but it's enough to make emusic no longer worth the commitment to me.
No hard feelings, just thought you'd want to know. Goodbye, good luck, and thanks for all the music.
amclark2.
email from customer service at 12:52 pm:
Hey A[mclark2],
We saw your post on the message board and wanted to reach out to you.
The change to your plan is related to a major expansion to eMusics catalog that is set to begin in November. We understand this change may be concerning but it will also give us the ability to sell both newer and more popular albums within a more flexible pricing structure.
As part of this change, we have to revise our membership plans and the way in which downloads are purchased. However, to help with this transition we would like to offer you 50% off your membership cost for the next 3 months in this new currency structure. We want to give you the opportunity to decide on your own terms because we know once you see this change in action, youll agree its worth sticking account.
To take advantage of this offer, reply back to this email and well be sure to adjust your account accordingly for this transition.
Please be sure and let us know if there is anything else we can do for you and thank you for being a passionate and important part of the eMusic story.Regards,
Lilly -
Customer Support
to which I of course responded:
Lilly,
Thanks for your response and I would like to sign up for three months at the 50% discount. At 50% off it would definitely be worthwhile to me to check out the new system.
So I logged into my original account. Not too surprisingly they don't mentioned a single thing about the new pricing change but still offer to sign me up for annual or quarterly plans. This account was active for over 5 years and never received a single e-mail asking me to come back.
Not going to take this stuff personally, but they have become a very disreputable website.
Amclark2,
Regarding the line in the email you received from eMu: "Please be sure and let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.."
You should've asked for a 60% discount, some free credits to use now, or... or... something....
Seriously though, nice to know that they're watching and apparently concerned about trying to do some sort of triage to mitigate the hemorrhaging of paying customers... almost lends credence to the theory that they're simply trying to keep their subscriber numbers up and position themselves to be bought out.
Interesting. Wonder if they make that offer to all in the U.S. who cancel. Seems like they could have offered ALL their long-term, loyal customers that deal without a person having to cancel.
This type of thing -- all the freebies to the folks who kept canceling and coming back for the free downloads, offering 50% off if you come back -- only increases my dislike of eMu and how they do business.
I remember the Sony drop and spending hours on the PC just to read and rant with everyone. I'm kinda glad I don't feel compelled to do that, this time.
Um. I may go have a look at Sucklechimp's post, though.
I wonder if they'll give me some offer in a I log in with a long-unused 2nd account? I know they won't on my Katrina account, since I get the daily with it. Every day.
I just canceled by alt-account. I would quit and take the disloyalty bonus, then quit again. This time they offered me a free month, no strings attached, starting on my next rollover date. I took it, and will quit again.
As for my main account, I will probably keep that a couple of months and see what happens. With my loyalty bonus ($6), I will be able to afford 7 $5 albums. I do not buy that many a month on Amazon at$5 since the specials are rarely something I want. Maybe three times a month is a >$5 special appealing. Like most of you, I am hoping that 5 cut Jazz albums will be priced less that $5, if so, I will stick around for a while.
First AmieStreet died, now eMusic is trying to divorce me. This is changing the way I have been buying music. By which I mean I might have to spend real money again....!
Thanks Daniel, I will be sticking around here. I will be leaving emusic eventually I think, if they ever stop offering me deals to stay. And then I will finally try to find the time to listen to more of that great free stuff that Brighternow is always recommending.
Wow, very nice that CS proactively contacted you based on a post on the MB. I've been trying to get Cathy to clear up some confusion all day and not a peep.
This whole thing actually seems even less thought out and planned ahead than the Sony drop. Tons of FAQ items that don't really say anything, and lots of copy/paste from CathyHN. The part that sucks for me is that my annual sub is up after my refresh in November, so I've got very little time to evaluate if it's worth renewing the annual for the "bonus" they're offering.
Yeah, I just made my last eMu downloads too. As far as I'm concerned, its only business. They have to do what they have to to make the dollars work. However, it's been getting harder and harder to find that last 2 (out of 4) albums each month that I really wanted. Now that they're raising the prices again they gave me just the activation energy I needed to quit. They have the right to raise prices... hey I help run a smaller company myself, I know that sometime you just have to. But I think they're now to the point where there's not enough savings to justify a subscription model. I've gotten a lot of good music from them over the years and I'm glad of it. Best of luck eMusic!
I'll hang around here though, as usual mostly lurking.
Browsing mtraks, looks like there's a fairly hefty portion of decent jazz labels there. Some obvious bigger indie rock holes, but not that big a deal to me. 30-ish cent tracks, and some reasonable album-pricing, looks awfully attractive relative to the upcoming emusic changes.
Anyone have a mtraks vs limewire comparison regarding label participation and interface?
I knew the time was coming soon for me, but now I know I'm definitely done at emusic. Which kinda sucks, because I just discovered all of you over here on this forum after 5-6 years with emusic.
This new subscription pricing model doesn't work at all for me. I sometimes find myself downloading albums or tracks I don't really want or need to own, just to get rid of my credits for the month, or just to try something new that some people recommended to me. But I was fine with it, because the price per credit and occasional freebies made it a good value.
But now with the increases it would be much more difficult to take those risks, or purchase back catalog albums I don't really want or need. Yeah, emusic may end up being cheaper overall than other services, but I think in the long run I will save more money by shopping around for the best price for the things I really do want - rather than being forced to purchase something or lose my money at the end of a month. I'd rather just pay the $8 at Amazon, than "save" $2 by paying $6 at emusic + another $6 or $12 additional for the right to purchase more music that month.
"Yeah, emusic may end up being cheaper overall than other services, but I think in the long run I will save more money by shopping around for the best price for the things I really do want - rather than being forced to purchase something or lose my money at the end of a month."
Comments
Think about this: Rounder, Document and Fantasy are $9-10 albums at Amazon. Even a generous 35% discount would bring them down to only $5.85. However, that kind of discount may only apply after the labels have had a while to ponder the new pricing system--months from now, not days.
I've recently considered picking up a month to get the rerelease of Waldron's Tokyo Bound (4 tracks). The quirks of its search engine still give me pause.
BTW, the Roach-Waldron double album (Explorations to the Mth Degree) is $9 at 7dig.
- I've never seen that before in my country.
Any guesses what this is about ?
I would be really surprised to see ECMs go for as little as .49. I think you better brace yourself for .79-.89, even for old titles. ECM isn't a label to bargain shop on. Verve? Not sure, but doubt it. I'm sure emusic will promote some Verve "deals", but they'll be lessor compilations and titles not worth picking up. Besides, Verve and Blue Note have been mining their catalogs for years and distributing one reissue after the other; it's much better to pay a bit extra and get the physical copy on Amazon or a brick&mortar... that's where the deals are to be found on those titles. Impulse will be on this, too, yeah? I'll be interested to see if emu offers some of the labels odder titles, but really, it's already being done for the most part on the Impulse site. Besides, all Impulse has are their old titles. They haven't been relevant for years.
At one point, in the middle of a post, he says, "Suck my cock, etc." Golden. I wish that phrase had come out of my own keyboard.
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. The chance that this marks the beginning of the end of eMusic is probably about 75%, but that's because there's still a 20% chance that the Sony drop was the real beginning of the end.
I just don't get how they are keeping the subscription model with this. People had trouble zeroing out their Amie Street accounts at the end, can it really be done on a monthly basis? Anyone who has an annual plan should be seriously looking into class action lawsuit (not hyperbole here, just pointing out that a complete overhaul of the terms in the middle of a subscription is very suspect business practice - more so than their previous changes).
Glad I did one more month, no more for me.
And people keep asking questions that they obviously won't answer before the switch knowing that it will upset subscribers. They hid the specifics last time, they'll do it again.
In Europe we have:
ECM : 400 albums
ECM New Series : 134 albums
ECM Works: 3 albums
- For the same price as any other album.
Maybe someone else has put their sticky fingers on the US marked (Itunes) ?
I can't help myself. I have a bit of a masochistic streak on the emu forum.
The thing is, I would like emu to find a way to convince me not to leave, and I hope, hope hope hope, that they give me an answer that I can use as justification to stay. Right now, not leaning toward it. I was still having difficulty justifying the last increase.
Another factor that will lead to canceling my emu account... the demise of Amie. I could always justify my monthly music cost by saying, yeah, I'm not getting as much from emu any more, but I'm cleaning up on Amie. It was as if emu became my secondary support site for music I couldn't get on Amie, and so of course I'm gonna have to pay a little more for that backup music. But now it's emu standing there all alone.
I had forgotten about Limewire. I'll definitely give that a shot. Maybe Guvera, too, though I have a low tolerance threshold for ads, so maybe not.
Also: Oy. I realize this kind of spin is standard PR practice, but but but. Kind of reminds me of North Korean propaganda: "Dear Leader paves the way to glorious futureI" Guess it's hard to tell people "We're raising prices" and make them like it.
I have a funny feeling that one day in November people will wake up to find most of the albums on eMusic are $7.99. And Cathy's response will be to say that they didn't know for sure and we're real sorry but "Ack! I think I'll go eat some ice cream." The disgusting thing is that she's trying to play the loyalty card...
I agree with, Bad thoughts , eMusic seems foolish to face off with Amazon by price, now that Amiestreet and Lala are gone. I get the whole expand the customer base, but pushing the vets away is silly.
very glad to hear it.
email from customer service at 12:52 pm:
to which I of course responded:
So they are watching and have things to offer...
Not going to take this stuff personally, but they have become a very disreputable website.
Regarding the line in the email you received from eMu: "Please be sure and let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.."
You should've asked for a 60% discount, some free credits to use now, or... or... something....
Seriously though, nice to know that they're watching and apparently concerned about trying to do some sort of triage to mitigate the hemorrhaging of paying customers... almost lends credence to the theory that they're simply trying to keep their subscriber numbers up and position themselves to be bought out.
This type of thing -- all the freebies to the folks who kept canceling and coming back for the free downloads, offering 50% off if you come back -- only increases my dislike of eMu and how they do business.
Um. I may go have a look at Sucklechimp's post, though.
I wonder if they'll give me some offer in a I log in with a long-unused 2nd account? I know they won't on my Katrina account, since I get the daily with it. Every day.
As for my main account, I will probably keep that a couple of months and see what happens. With my loyalty bonus ($6), I will be able to afford 7 $5 albums. I do not buy that many a month on Amazon at$5 since the specials are rarely something I want. Maybe three times a month is a >$5 special appealing. Like most of you, I am hoping that 5 cut Jazz albums will be priced less that $5, if so, I will stick around for a while.
First AmieStreet died, now eMusic is trying to divorce me. This is changing the way I have been buying music. By which I mean I might have to spend real money again....!
This whole thing actually seems even less thought out and planned ahead than the Sony drop. Tons of FAQ items that don't really say anything, and lots of copy/paste from CathyHN. The part that sucks for me is that my annual sub is up after my refresh in November, so I've got very little time to evaluate if it's worth renewing the annual for the "bonus" they're offering.
I'll have to check out Limewire and mtracks.
Craig
I'll hang around here though, as usual mostly lurking.
Anyone have a mtraks vs limewire comparison regarding label participation and interface?
This new subscription pricing model doesn't work at all for me. I sometimes find myself downloading albums or tracks I don't really want or need to own, just to get rid of my credits for the month, or just to try something new that some people recommended to me. But I was fine with it, because the price per credit and occasional freebies made it a good value.
But now with the increases it would be much more difficult to take those risks, or purchase back catalog albums I don't really want or need. Yeah, emusic may end up being cheaper overall than other services, but I think in the long run I will save more money by shopping around for the best price for the things I really do want - rather than being forced to purchase something or lose my money at the end of a month. I'd rather just pay the $8 at Amazon, than "save" $2 by paying $6 at emusic + another $6 or $12 additional for the right to purchase more music that month.
QFT