eMusic mess

[CarlSeibert]

The disquiet over Last.fm's founders making for the door added to the mess at eMusic makes this a crappy couple of weeks for online music services. (Although HDTracks advertising the Plant/Krause album in 24/96 would count as a piece piece of good news.)

Anyway, for those who haven't heard, eMusic signed a deal with Sony for all or most of the more-than-three-year-old content in Sony's library. That pissed off their die hard "indie" customers. At the same time they announced a price hike that amounts to just a hair under or over 100% for their oldest and most loyal customers.

If that wasn't enough, their communications were a PR train wreck, and if anybody had missed the message that they've become full-fledged corporate scumbags, the crowning glory was censoring a bunch of blog comments that contained references to a Twitter hashtag (#emusicfail, for those who just can't wait) that was being used to protest the affair.

Here's the blog in question: More of the good stuff at 17 dots

and an item on the Twitter affair: Emusicfail stories at Techdirt.

The price increase puts an album from eMusic in the same general price range as full-resolution music delivered to your house on little plastic disks from "New and Used" at Amazon, and comes in a time when people are hurting for money and are looking for recurring expenses to cut. Add in the "abandonment of indie music" perception, and I doubt I'm the only customer they'll lose.

So why are they trying the shed their oldest customers? Pure stupidity is one explanation, of course, and there's a fair bit of evidence to support it. Or maybe the new Sony deal changed their cost structure enough that those old plans - which must have been profitable at the time they were sold - are seriously underwater now. (eMusic, of course, denies that the price increase and the Sony deal are related.) Maybe they're doing so poorly overall that they feel the extra pinch would bite harder than blowing off a lot of continuing revenue and goodwill. Who knows.

Personally, I was very enthusiastic about eMusic for years, but you know, it's probably time to stop cluttering up my collection with 192 KBS MP3s.

-Carl

[HeadphoneAddict]

I've been with eMusic for a few years, and I know nothing about this. Is the lack of informing us of the change intentional? Seems like it. Time to log in and see what's up....

[blessingx]

Most of my friends left eMusic 7ish years ago when they were bought out and changed their pricing structure away from unlimited downloads. Their membership numbers though significantly grew as they added labels. Greater selection with higher price won out. Seems about the same move here.

[Dusty Chalk]

I've been with eMusic for a few years, and I know nothing about this. Is the lack of informing us of the change intentional? Seems like it.

x2 (except in my case it was only for a few months) -- thanks for bringing this to my attention, Carl.

Any idea when the price change kicks in? I'm presuming they'll let me know before they charge my card? Or should I just cancel now while the canceling is good?

EDIT: Okay, looks like July, so I'll let the current refresh go through, and then cancel.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Dusty Chalk

[CarlSeibert]

I think I'll stay with them for one more cycle, to see what happens, download fifty tracks worth of "hits" and kiss them goodbye.

-Carl

[HeadphoneAddict]

I've got 62 albums in my "saved" for later page. I guess I shoulda' bought bonus packs when they were still cheap. I think it sucks, they are dropping me to 37 downloads/14.99 instead of 50. At least with the 12 song/cd max cap it wont be as bad as it could be, and some CD are still only 1-5 songs for almost an hour of music. Those 1 hour new age CD with 1 song have always been a steal, and I hated blowing songs on the 17 songs for 50 minute albums.

I may upgrade to a higher package to download my wish list faster, and then sayonara, because a 50 song bonus pack for $24.99 sucks.

[Asr]

Personally, I was very enthusiastic about eMusic for years, but you know, it's probably time to stop cluttering up my collection with 192 KBS MP3s.

I'm with you on that. I haven't been with eMusic that long (joined in August '07) but at the time the plan was 40 downloads per month for however much that cost (and which I still have) and with the new plan being less cost-effective I might as well just continue to buy more Redbook CDs instead of piling on even more 192-256K MP3s. The only reason I use eMusic is to horde lots of electronica (which they have a lot of) for computer and DAP listening which I don't do much of.

[Dusty Chalk]

I may upgrade to a higher package to download my wish list faster, and then sayonara, because a 50 song bonus pack for $24.99 sucks.

In all honesty, that's still a good value on those <10 song/album dealios (especially if it's <7; and it's not just new age -- some ambient, experimental, drone, and doom metal albums also worked out that way...if that kind of music interests you [which it does me]). I might get some less decent values this last iteration, and then work out exactly how many more of those I want, buy the booster pack, and be done with it.

[aardvark baguette]

allflac.com

lol

[CarlSeibert]

allflac.com

lol

Those rascally Russians.........

-Carl

[aardvark baguette]

If only the server was faster...dear god if only the server was faster...

[Dusty Chalk]

Dude, don't pay for stolen flac's.

[Dusty Chalk]

So my friend claims that he got grandfathered in at 30 Downloads/$11.99 instead of 24 on the new plan. Anyone else get grandfathered in? As in, long term? Or is it because he only had the basic plan?

[grenert]

I have been grandfathered in on a basic annual subscription (40 songs/month for $96; about 20 cents a song) for a few years now. Unfortunately, they now tell me that when the subscription is up in April I will be converted to a different subscription at about 50 cents a song.

Well... no I won't. I'll leave then

[Torpedo]

I have been grandfathered in on a basic annual subscription (40 songs/month for $96; about 20 cents a song) for a few years now. Unfortunately, they now tell me that when the subscription is up in April I will be converted to a different subscription at about 50 cents a song.

Well... no I won't. I'll leave then

I have a similar deal with them but with monthly payments. I got it raised about three years ago when they opened the European branch, so they charge me close to 10 euros for 40 downloads every month. They haven't warned me that any raise is coming yet, but I suppose they'll do sooner or later.

[Dusty Chalk]

If you want to know, log in, then click on this link.

[Torpedo]

If you want to know, log in, then click on this link.

I have no notifications Looks like they'll keep billing me 9.22 euros monthly for some time. If they raised the quote, then I'd consider canceling my subscription.

[Dusty Chalk]

Sounds like you're golden, grampa!

[Torpedo]

Yep. I joined when you had no downloads limit for a quite low fee. Then they changed to the plans system with limited downloads, so I canceled my subscription, but a couple of years later, I decided to join again. They billed me USD9.99 for 40 tracks/month until they started the European branch, then the fee changed to 9.22 euros (dollar wasn't as weak at that time). That's been my fee for a few years, they've tried to convince me to change to other plans, but all them are way more expensive, so I've been enduring.

I suppose they're considering my initial joining date, when the deal was so irresistible, to calculate my status.

[CarlSeibert]

I had 90 downloads a month for $19.95. When they tried to get everybody to "upgrade" to fewer downloads for more money a year or two back, they said that as long as I kept my account in good standing, they would honor the 90 downloads/$19.95 deal. So I was grandfathered from then to now. Now, I never really took them literally, (I don't know why not, actually) but literally, they are now breaking their word and I'd be a little less miffed if they were a lot more polite about it.

-Carl

[zChan]

So my yearly subscription went out and I get hit with this when I tried to buy another year.

I guess I'm back to renting CDs. :/

We're sorry, eMusic is not available in your country.

We know everyone everywhere loves music and we want to bring the world of music to everyone. But we have to play by the rules and there are many when it comes to the global distribution of music.

Unfortunately, due to licensing restrictions we are unable to offer service in your country at this time. We understand that you are currently in Japan (your IP address XX.XX.XX.XX). If this is not where you will be using eMusic, please send an email to [email protected].

[zChan]

Er. Never mind. I was logging into my old account linked to a Japanese credit card.

I could still access my new account linked to a US credit card from an Japanese IP.

I wish I could buy a zuneHD and use zune marketplace though...

[CarlSeibert]

Just canceled.

I logged on to clean up a couple things in my Saved for Later list and to download one Sony title just for the hell of it.

These people know no bounds. They have designated certain tracks to only be available with the purchase of an entire album (which is annoying, but not necessarily sleazy - Music Giants does it) but they have the nerve to charge several credits for that one track. "Born to Run" on the Springsteen album of the same name is four credits Ditto for one track on a Modern Jazz Quartet album. Good grief.

To add annoyance to injury, the download manager quit working somehow in the transition. I thought maybe it was just a problem with my Linux version, so I downloaded the Mac version. Nope. It was broken, too.

eMusic was nice while it lasted, but I can't say I'll miss the bums.

-Carl

[ecclesand]

That sucks. I'm thinking of ditching my membership too. I was browsing just recently and noticed that some of the more popular songs from an album require a full album download, but I didn't notice that they were charging more for a particular song. That's bullshit IMO.

[Dusty Chalk]

I put my account on hold, will probably cancel. The multi-download for one track thing is especially irksome in the cases where it really is only one track. I wouldn't mind it so much if they "charged" multiple downloads for a 30-minute track, but for a normal length track is just wrong.