Cathy, Cathy, Cathy

edited December 2010 in General
I don't know if this would be useful or not, but I'm starting a running record of VP Cathy's pronouncements over at the other place. Her declarations have all the clarity of the Book of Revelations and cause just as much conflict.

Here she is from today:
Many of the issues you mention are decisions we have made for the sustainability of the business:

Higher prices for DATED material - the new pricing system has been created to allow us to obtain more content (including newer releases) and create a sustainable business. We think you will continue to see the value of eMusic with member prices that are consistently 25 - 50% less than iTunes a la carte prices. We did acknowledge that existing prices for some content may increase in the notification for the new content/pricing system.

No redownloads - We sympathize with your frustration on this. Unforunately, I can't comment further on this beyond what we have already said in our FAQ and on the boards.

No possible outs for annual subscribers - Again, we understand your frustration, however, this is subject to our Terms of Use.

Loss of a good chunk of your Top 100 - After doing everything we could, we were very sorry to see Beggars, Merge and Domino leave. Honestly, we love those labels' artists as much as you do. We want to offer you complete catalog and we hope these labels will return in the future as many others have.

Very, Very limited new releases, especially since the label departures - During December, there are typically very few new releases, especially on indie labels. This will pick up in the first quarter, and we will also have new releases from Sony and Warner labels.

Lower (generally) bitrate Fraunhofer mp3s from who knows what source files - we are looking into this.

A poor performing site - we are aware of these problems and are working on them. If there are specific issues you are referring to, please be specific and I will get you more information if I can.

I realize this may not be what you want to hear on each point, but I hope this information is helpful.

Thanks,
Cathy
eMusic

This suggests that the Fraunhofer decision was there to allow eMu to digest as many tracks as possible as quickly as possible, as Kargatron opined. Of course that would not preclude re-encoding at a higher rate later, but that would piss everyone off after they already downloaded the tracks.
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Comments

  • I think the fact that she is responding indicates they know they have a real problem. Seems like the Frankenheimer thing really caught them unawares.

    The bitching and moaning over there is getting (has long since gotten) a little silly if you ask me. I've stayed out of it, but I made sure to sling in a brief comment that re-upping was "the right thing to do." Because it is. You make a mistake, you fix it, even if it costs you. I don't know what you're going to do about those who DL'd the tracks...offer the chance to re-DL to those who request it, would be my suggestion. I would not bet that any of this is going to happen, however.
  • I haven't even looked at the eMu board in a couple weeks. It has been liberating.

    I understand she's gotten a little pissy in some of her replies. Almost makes me want to go hunt them down. Almost, but not quite.

    Craig
  • I'm shocked the message board is still open. It'd be real easy to have an oops happen and it's all gone. Or they could just do like Blue Note did and let everyone know they're yanking it as punishment.
  • >No redownloads - We sympathize with your frustration on this.

    I noticed the Rolling Stones were back, so for grins I checked on a couple I bought during the short time they were at eMu. I was surprised to find that they were still in my "purchased" list, although I would have to re-buy them.
  • i'm with craig. not having a clue about the latest gibberish from the likes of wanderer, cathyhn and natsgm is like (hold on, i'm going to try and dig up this really old, lame simile i once saw on a billboard in door county...o christ it was too sappy and i willed it out of my memory banks > something to the effect the love songs the local radio station played were like a pair of earmuffs for your heart.)

    but that's not it. sappier.

    in any event, i'm damn-near euphoric.
  • i'm damn-near euphoric.

    What's your secret? Pills? Booze? Lack of sleep? Mushrooms? Awesome music?
  • The message board has become a well of vitriol and impassioned goodbye's. I'll admit I used some high emotion to compose a few letters to the executive boards. It's very uncomfortable, I'll admit. There doesn't seem to be any other way to get an effective and direct response on any question. Indeed, that it took a week to get an answer about Fraunhofer and that it had to come from a member of the board (albeit the lowest one) suggests that there's a lot of dysfunction in how eMu runs. Closing the message board would probably increase alienation as well as close off a resource that keeps subscribers interested in the catalog.
  • I've wondered why they've been keeping it open too. Kind of sad to say, the smart companies these days don't given you opportunities to bitch/moan/criticize online. It kind of indicates how they're caught between identities: center of an online music community (past) vs big-time online music store (future, they hope).
  • I. Can't. Look. Away.
  • Look! More Cathyness:
    This thread is being created to address the concerns about bit rates on UMG tracks. As posted earlier, we had our tech team look into this. UMG's tracks are encoded with Fraunhofer encoder. The decision to use Fraunhofer was made on our end from the encoding options offered to us by UMG. For FLAC files, which are delivered to us by most labels, we typically we use the LAME encoder. After reviewing an earlier message board post, we did a small scale analysis of bit rates with tracks from a variety of labels and found only a small difference among them. We understand your frustration on this issue and further updates will be posted in this thread in the future. Please be patient as we continue to explore it; this will take some time.

    For clarification - most of you probably know that the VBR (variable bit rate) as displayed is the average bit rate for the tune. Some parts of the song may use a very high bit rate. Other parts of the song – which may not be particularly human-distinguishable -- may use a very low bit rate. This is different from CBR (constant bit rate) in which the entire song is encoded using the same bit rate. We do target 256kbps, but that doesn't mean that every song will have a VBR of precisely 256kbps.

    Nothing that hasn't already been evaded before.
  • I think that one was created as a driect response to this:
    Greetings,

    just read your response in insults and sarcasm, as much as i don't like the response, i do appreciate A response -- might i make a suggestion...

    Start a thread and indicate where things are with tech issues -- especially the low bit rate from UMG... otherwise, we have to go digging through the various threads, not knowing which one contains responses, and which ones do not...

    thanks,
    discokvn
  • I haven't read every thread over there, but I have read some. I do believe people have a right to expect good customer service, as well as the right to complain when they aren't getting it. However, I am finally beginning to be disgusted with some of the puking and mewling over there.

    Most of my working life I have had to deal with the public, way back working for an insurance company calculating and paying Railroad Brotherhood health claims, up to dealing with patients and their families in a state psychiatric hospital, building relationships within the court system, and finally as a "mini executive" within the hospital system, supervising psychologists, who can be some of the most independent and opinionated people in the world, (Yes, that includes me.) and carrying out the wishes of the 2 or 3 top dogs. In all that time, I have learned how to usually get what I want, and it isn't using the language I am seeing on that board. I know the annuals cannot leave without leaving a bunch of money behind, but the monthly people can just leave, which I suspect a lot of them are doing. I do have some sympathy for Cathy, because if you want to keep your job, you do have some limits on what you can and cannot say to the public. It isn't easy these days to walk away from a job -- I wouldn't do it without another one already in place.

    When I lost my 90 downloads at the Sony drop, I read the TOS very carefully before my annual expired in October 2009, and I did not want to be locked into another year if the service changed. It didn't change that year, but . . . I'm still there on a basic monthly, pondering how long I will stay. There are still things I want, mostly based on jonahpwll's recs, as that is a skimpy area in my collection. It will take a while, though, unless I start buying booster packs.
  • They did shutdown the message board when they went from unlimited to credits. It was ugly to say the least.
  • edited December 2010
    They did shutdown the message board when they went from unlimited to credits. It was ugly to say the least.

    And thus emusers was born.

    I think this is where I came in this movie
  • And thus emusers was born.
    Is it that old already? :-S

    I'm thinking of the time in 2003 with people jumping to mixtapers, last.fm boards, and various darknets. Come to think of it, eMu has been surviving despite itself for a very long time.
  • puking and mewling

    Word. We have become a nation of whiners, as I apparently do not tire of saying.
    They did shutdown the message board when they went from unlimited to credits.

    Heh. This was before my time. So people thought they should just get unlimited DLs forever for 10 bucks a month, did they?
  • I am sure somebody is going to be a better historian than me but I am really focusing on the whole concept of where the board at the other place goes rogue and the users felt threatened by the possibility that they could just shut the whole thing down and we would never see (erm virtually speaking that is) each other again.

    How could life go on never conversing again with your friends here.
  • How could life go on never conversing again with your friends here.
    Yes. Most of the people I listened to on eMu are here. Including Kez, who never posts here. She has become pretty quiet over there, too. And whatever happened to the Captain (Whiffle, that is)?
  • Two posts in a day! We might deign to call this a conversation:
    "There are bands on here that don't show up in searches, such as The Tubes and Styx. The Tubes have most of their A&M stuff here (what's available as MP3s on other sites), and Styx has pretty much everything. You can download by searching for the album name. From the album, if you click the artist name, it says nothing available to download in your country (the US) etc... yet you CAN download."

    This is a known bug that our team is working on and will be fixed soon. We prefer not to specify a date for a fix, but rest assured it is being actively worked on.
  • So people thought they should just get unlimited DLs forever for 10 bucks a month, did they?
    Maybe some did, I think it was more a matter of the sheer idiocy of communicating the change to the user base. It also fell in line with when Universal dump them as a fire sale to the current owners, Dimensional Associates, so I think most of the teeth gnashing was more in line with what it is today, "Where the fuck am I going to get my fix?"
  • I can think of more than a few forums that are far more aggressive than eMu's message board, most visibly Free Republic and Democratic Underground. The difference is that eMu's board is partial compensation for the organizations overall silence.
  • Seems like the inability to find Styx would be a feature, not a bug. [/snark]

    re: "get my fix": I don't know when I have DL'd less music than I did in November, which is appropriate considering the Guvera binge in Sept followed by cashing in a BB card in Oct. See, I can cut back anytime I want.
  • However, I am finally beginning to be disgusted with some of the puking and mewling over there.

    otm.
  • Wow, stay off the computer in the AM and do the things you're supposed to be doing, and in a timely fashion, and you can miss all kinds of drama.
    I too have sympathy for Cathy personally but that does not extend to her function wherein she is obfuscating and stretching the envelope of truth. I have not insulted her. I have merely made some pointed responses to her non-responses.
    As to puking and mewling I likewise can not answer, but I think the level and severity of the quite legitimate criticism of eMu's recent actions, as opposed to the usual this sucks and I'm going to quit, has been directly responsible for them providing more of a non-response response than we are used to receiving from them.
    I took a peek at the message board for something called hydrogenaudio.com in looking up opinions on the encoding issue, and it made the eMu MB look fairly tame, which being fairly limited in my MB exposure I found surprising.
    I'll be happier to get back to the pursuit of good music and righteous deals, but I'm not laying down over there until I get some real answers.
  • The reality is, it's taken that much vitriol to finally get eMu to communicate with it's customers more regularly again. During all of the crap that went on with Sony we got a few "We'll look into it" responses and then - BAM! - the change happened right away and management and CS pretty much hid. Now we've got people with legitimate questions that ignored for a week followed by a snarky reply.

    Do I agree with all of the crap going on over there? No. But I'm not sure that there would have been half as many responses from Cathy without it. She's actually listing out the issues and trying to explain that they are looking into them. When has that happened in the past?
  • edited December 2010
    A big difference between this and the Sony drop is that the conversation then shifted to the new stuff that was available. This time, not only did some popular material get pulled, but there are questions about the quality of the new additions. Their customer base is several clicks past disgruntled, and they know it.

    I am expecting an announcement sometime soonish that they've "looked into it" and determined that there's no major quality dropoff. It might even be sorta true, but now they are fighting the perception. Not an enviable position. Meanwhile, if there has been any promo push at all, I haven't seen it.
  • Latest message from Cathy, below

    in response to the message by Wanderer
    Our customer service team has reached out directly to this person. Since not every case is exactly the same, it's difficult to address these questions on the message boards. However CS does monitor these boards and will reach out to folks who report similar problems here.

    Cathy
    eMusic

    Note the customer!!!
  • edited December 2010
    Whether he's paid by them or not, this really looks like a manufactured problem being tee'd up to allow Wanderer to blather on and on about how he got useful help and attention from CS, and how if people would just be patient and nice, etc. etc. etc.
  • What I don't understand is -- if people are so excrutiatingly unhappy, why would they want to continue to give their business to such a company? Again I understand it isn't that easy for people who have annuals.

    I have stopped doing business with companies for less unhappiness than I'm seeing over there.
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