Great news for eMusic Subscribers

[Justin Tonation]

"Album pricing will allow you to download selected albums of 12 or more tracks for the price of 12 downloads. The change will be a boon to fans of classical music and two-minute thrash-masters alike."

Most classical music CDs have fewer than 12 tracks. This only helps those who listen to nothing but comps and baroque.

[Bags]

PS, I pay by the year ($192).  Not sure that makes any difference in the way they treat my account.

[kosmo vinyl]

actually this sucks for current subscribers and i suspect there will be a HUGE uproar over this, i'm glad that my two year subscription just got renewed.

was that just random luck on your part? do you think you'll still get the same # downloads or will they reduce them?

Yup very random luck on my part...  My subscription runs through 2011 with the same amount of downloads until then, at that point it get changed to a lower plan.  They probably are losing money at this point on those 2 year subs, which is why they no longer exist.  I suspect trying to change the terms of existing prepaid subs would have brought some legal headaches...

In 2003 on this very board the discussion was about the death of eMusic when they dropped the unlimited downloading accounts, only to become a better service.  here they are 6 years on again annoying subscribers with a major change.  It will be interesting to see what it will look like in 2 years. 

[kosmo vinyl]

PS, I pay by the year ($192).  Not sure that makes any difference in the way they treat my account.

most of the existing one to two year plans are gone, so you'll be moved into one of the downgraded new plans

[Sage 703]

Anybody on here use or know anything about the new Napster service?

[kosmo vinyl]

Actually the price increase would about 147% per track.

And it really is the long time customers that are getting the biggest increases, since they can't even get close to an equivalent new plan to what they had.  I suspect the impact is less on the casual user accounts that were paying higher rates per track downloads already.

[Bags]

Dang, I'm on one year, and it just renewed in March.  Oh well, I'll see what happens when I get there...

[vansmack]

Bummer.  I thought you were going to tell me I could carryover my DL's....

[vansmack]

Anybody on here use or know anything about the new Napster service?

I use it (the $15 unlimited DRM with 10 DRM-free DL's a month).  I saw no need for the $5 streaming only with 5 DRM-free downloads.

I will answer any specific questions in my thread as to not hi-jack Kosmo's thread.

[El Jefe Design]

Err.... not happy about going from 90 dls to 50 dls a month for the same price. What bothered me even more was that all the albums that I am supposed to be super excited about I already have or don't care about. I loved emusic because of the harder to find indie music, I couldn't care less about Beyonce or Aerosmith. Maybe if the Sub Pop catalog goes onto emusic I would be happy but having heard from someone who works for them, I don't think that will happen.

[bellenseb]

Bummer...if they had added Sub Pop, Drag City, Creation, Saddle Creek, Team Love, ANTI, Numero, et al, and approached it with "hey, this gives more payout to indie musicians and labels, and we need to do it to stay in business" this price increase/plan cut would have been received much more favorably I think.

As it is they've got lots and lots of angry folks on 17 Dots and pretty much no opposing viewpoint. They're really tarnishing their brand.

[kosmo vinyl]

Talk about your poorly rolled out changes, the use of the word slight in the NYT story was enough to piss people off and they should have done a much better job of explaining the new album pricing policy.  i.e. provide specific album titles as examples.  my heart says that the album pricing will soften the blow a bit of the newer plans, but my gut says they'll find some way to botch it.

in addition to the announcements on 17dots there is now some official info being posted on the message board over there. 

"Obviously, a lot of comments have been about the pricing. The Great Recession of 2009 is not the best time to be doing this. We own up to that. However, we - and our labels - simply cannot sustain some of the lowest cost plans that many of you currently have. The price increase is not just about Sony, it is for all of our labels, including the ones that have left over the years and those we have yet to sign."

[sweetcell]

Bummer...if they had added Sub Pop, Drag City, Creation, Saddle Creek, Team Love, ANTI, Numero, et al, and approached it with "hey, this gives more payout to indie musicians and labels, and we need to do it to stay in business" this price increase/plan cut would have been received much more favorably I think.

well, with this crowd, anyways... i'm sure there are plenty of people who actually are excited about having access to the sony catalog.

and,

"Obviously, a lot of comments have been about the pricing. The Great Recession of 2009 is not the best time to be doing this. We own up to that. However, we - and our labels - simply cannot sustain some of the lowest cost plans that many of you currently have. The price increase is not just about Sony, it is for all of our labels, including the ones that have left over the years and those we have yet to sign."

if you take that statement at face value (note the "if"), sounds like they are trying to funnel more money to the smaller labels.  they mentioned previously that they needed to change the plans and sony was the event that offered the best opportunity.  would these hikes have gone over better if they hadn't gotten sony, and you simply were getting less DLs without a greater selection?

[Vas Deferens]

"Effective Jul 26, 2009, your plan will change to the new eMusic Premium plan which gives you 50 downloads for $19.99 every 30 days."

OUCH...from 90 downloads to 50 downloads...that's about 3-4 albums I'm going to lose each month. Who here is cancelling their account?

They should just grandfather my already grandfathered plan   and restrict access to the Sony stuff!

[Vas Deferens]

Drag City used to be on emusic...

If they can finally get Sub Pop, Drag City, Numero, and other big indies on board, plus the album pricing, I might stick around...