I’ve been a subscriber to the Emusic mp3 download service on and off for about 2 or so years. I was originally turned on to the service due to a free trial I got with the purchase of a CD burner. I stayed on because Emusic was the most rational of the music download services — (mostly) unlimited mp3 downloads for a monthly fee, with no DRM and the right to burn all the CDs you want (for your personal use).
That all came to a screeching halt today when Emusic subscribers received an e-mail from the company announcing that it had been acquired by “Dimensional Associates LLC (“Dimensional”), a private equity group focused on
providing innovative online music distribution services. ” The e-mail also informs subscribers that the terms of service are changing drastically:
“Unless you visit the link below:
http://help.emusic.com/cu/index.cgi?cmd=step2&st=1&categoryID=1198
and notify us of your intention to cancel your subscription
prior to November 8, 2003, your EMusic subscription will
convert into Emusic Plus. Under EMusic Plus, you will be
billed $14.99 per month for access to the service with no
minimum monthly commitment, but you will be limited to no
more than 65 downloads during your monthly billing cycle. “
(Here’s a FAQ from Emusic that explains the change).
From (virtually) unlimited mp3s to 65 a month? That’s a big change. At 14.99 a month that makes mp3s costs about 23 cents each, which is cheaper than iTunes 99 cent downloads.
But Emusic is not iTunes. First of all, Emusic has always been focused on small and independent labels, and as such is virtually devoid of Top 40 hits or superstar artists. Whereas one of iTunes strengths is its hoard of popular artists and hit songs.
In my opinion one of Emusic’s strengths — aside from cheap mp3s — was the exposure it gave to indie artists, making their music much more accessible, and giving people the ability to try it out in an unambiguously legal way, which (I presume) also compensated them.
Emusic had been an independent company, which was then acquired by Universal/Vivendi back in 2001, which worried subscribers then that the terms of service would change. Although there had been a slow encroachment of restrictions in the last year or so — limiting how many mp3s you could queue up at once, sending warning e-mails to people downloading “too many” mp3s in a month — by and large the service remained the same as when I first signed up.
Needless to say, I will be cancelling my current subscription before Nov. 8 (though I’ll probably download a ton before that). My guess is that most Emusic subscribers will be following suit. Which makes me wonder how Emusic’s new master expect to make any money with all their subscribers gone.
A quick search of the web, business indices and Lexis-Nexis turns up no information about Dimensional Associates LLC (probably because they are an LLC), so figuring out who they are and their motive is still difficult.
Emusic’s subscriber message boards are closed down today, too. Emusic subscribers tend to be an outspoken lot, so I’m sure it’s a move intended to quiet the anticipated firestorm by not giving subscribers a common forum to vent their frustrations.
Now, some of you might be thinking, “23 cents an mp3 seems pretty reasonable to me, why all the bitching from you spoiled brats?”
And, compared to iTunes’ 99 cents, I guess it does seem pretty reasonable, but compared to downloading entirely for free on Kazaa or other P2P services, it’s not such a good deal, especially since you can’t download unlimited quantities at that price, just 65 a month — then you’re done.
In the bigger picture, this is another example of the music industry shooting itself in the foot over simple greed. I don’t know the financials of Emusic, and I’m sure the selloff is due to the impending merger of NBC and Universal/Vivendi, but from a user’s standpoint it was a very successful service that I was glad to pay money for and never felt ripped off from, even though sometimes mp3s sounded like shit, albums were mislabeled or otherwise screwed up. You’ll tolerate those kind of inconveniences when you’re getting a good deal. I sure as hell wouldn’t tolerate them if I’m limited to just 65 downloads a month.
Will all these former Emusic subscribers now be flocking to other d/l services like iTunes and Rhapsody? I think not, since they won’t have the artists and songs that Emusic specialized in. No, I think they’ll be flocking back to Kazaa, and more secure alternatives, and to their public libraries’ and friend’s collections, where they can borrow and burn with (relative) impunity.
Good bye Emusic.
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