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Music Media Businesses

Amazon Invests In Dynamic Pricing Model For MP3s 280

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fun-models-to-play-with dept.
NittanyTuring writes "Amazon recently closed a Series A financing deal with Amiestreet.com, a startup selling DRM-free MP3s with a demand-based pricing model. All music starts out free, and prices increase for popular tracks. Jeff Blackburn, Senior Vice President for Business Development, Amazon.com: 'The idea of having customers directly influence the price of songs is an interesting and novel approach to selling digital music.' What does this mean for Amazon's own intentions to sell music?"
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Amazon Invests In Dynamic Pricing Model For MP3s More

Amazon Invests In Dynamic Pricing Model For MP3s

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  • Novel idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by rlp ( 11898 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:19PM (#20161797)
    A novel new business idea - the recording industry HATES that.
    • yes, but much as they may whine and bitch, this new business model does seem to be grounded in reality. Distributing music for free will now cause your music collection to have less "resale value".

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sleeper0 ( 319432 )
        This seems like an incredibly bad idea to me, at least if it were to become the dominant pricing model - but I highly doubt it will.

        I mostly listen to artists that don't sell a ton of records, where a big success could be shipping 20,000 or 50,000 units compared to radio acts that can ship millions. I don't know how their model would work in reality, but let's assume these tracks might be 25% the cost of a big radio single. The process values popularity over all other factors, doubly reinforcing it. Not
        • But maybe the popular artists would be less popular if their songs cost $1000 each to download? This might encourage poor people to go out and look for other options.

          I agree, the industry will not like it.

    • Re:Novel idea (Score:5, Interesting)

      by innerweb ( 721995 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @07:33PM (#20163859)

      I may be way off base on this, but if I remember correctly, this is starting to sound like free market economics (supply and demand). As demand increases, so does price. In this case, supply for each individual song for practical purposes is infinite, so they will have to use an *adjusting* system to manage price. It solves several problems if done correctly.

      • It allows new artists to be exposed without the risk to the consumer of buying music they hate. No risk means more consumers will try it.
      • No DRM means I use the music where and when I want.
      • The market will be used to determine the price of the music. That may be the sweetest part of this deal.

      At the risk of being redundant (on slashdot?), CDs are a dead medium. They are very expensive compared to digital downloads. They force bundling of musics that are not desired by the majority of people. They are fragile (heat, nicks, etc), though better than tape. They require an immense infrastructure (compared to digital files) to distribute. They make as much sense anymore as tape or vinyl did a few years into the age of CDs.

      Those in the industry that learn how to grapple with this will survive and thrive. Those who do not, like so many other players in other industries before them, will die.

      InnerWeb

      • Re:Novel idea (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jlarocco ( 851450 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @09:25PM (#20164741) Homepage

        I may be way off base on this, but if I remember correctly, this is starting to sound like free market economics (supply and demand). As demand increases, so does price. In this case, supply for each individual song for practical purposes is infinite, so they will have to use an *adjusting* system to manage price. It solves several problems if done correctly.

        Yeah. A bit off base. First of all, demand by itself does *NOT* determine price. There's a huge demand for water, and yet it's not very expensive. In an ideal free market price is determined by the equilibrium between supply and demand.

        Having said that, now I'm going to explain why normal supply and demand applies very, very poorly to the music industry:

        • The supply of any particular song is infinite once that song is created. The marginal cost of one more copy is $0. It's an economy of scale gone mad.
        • Personal preference plays a *huge* roll in people's decisions. Several orders of magnitude more than in other industries. To illustrate: I'd pay $5 a song for some genres long before I paid $0.01 for any "gangster" rap song. Contrast that to buying most other items, like toothpaste, or a bookshelf.
        • There's only one supplier for any particular song. If I really like the Eagles' "Hotel California", my choices are "buy it" or "don't buy it". In a "normal" industry, I'd also have the choice "Buy this other one that's practically the same thing but cheaper."

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by vuffi_raa ( 1089583 )

          There's only one supplier for any particular song. If I really like the Eagles' "Hotel California", my choices are "buy it" or "don't buy it". In a "normal" industry, I'd also have the choice "Buy this other one that's practically the same thing but cheaper."
          that would be cool- if there were cheap Chinese imports of knockoff songs... hoter carifolnia and other great hits-
          seriously man- I would pay for that

  • pissed off customers, thats what it means (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fotbr ( 855184 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:19PM (#20161803) Journal
    You know there will be much whining about people that bought $Song for $PriceA only to find that it fell to $PriceB.

    And those that complain that $Friend bought $Song for $PriceA but now its up to $PriceC and its not fair that they have to pay more than $Friend for the exact same item

    • Re:pissed off customers, thats what it means (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Joe Snipe ( 224958 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:22PM (#20161837) Homepage Journal
      more to the point, what is to stop me from "selling" my free versions when the band gets popular? What if I give them away?

      • Re:pissed off customers, thats what it means (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:27PM (#20161933) Journal

        more to the point, what is to stop me from "selling" my free versions when the band gets popular? What if I give them away?
        Er, maybe a sense of morals or ethics?

        Besides, instead of saying, "Yeah, I was into that band before the got uncool," you will be able to say, "Yeah, I was into that band before they got expensive." This is going to be a boon for frugal hipsters and poseurs.

        • Re:pissed off customers, thats what it means (Score:5, Insightful)

          by omeomi ( 675045 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:31PM (#20161993) Homepage
          Er, maybe a sense of morals or ethics?

          Not sure where morals or ethics are involved. If I buy something for one price (even if that price is $0), and the price rises, I don't see why I should be prevented from selling it at the higher price. Obviously, to be legal, I would have to delete any copies that I may have of the mp3 after I sell it.

          • Obviously, to be legal, I would have to delete any copies that I may have of the mp3 after I sell it.

            To be legal? Which legal system is this? Intellectual Property is governed by different laws than physical property.

            Personally, I would prefer the creation of some sort of "mass media" license which allows resale, and anything not under the mass media license would have to be negotiated face-to-face between the IP rights holder and the licensee. But no such law exists TODAY, so "to be legal," as you put it,

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by omeomi ( 675045 )
              To be legal? Which legal system is this? Intellectual Property is governed by different laws than physical property.

              Bullshit. If I own a license to use a software package, for instance, I'm fully able to sell that software license to somebody else. If I own a copy of an MP3, I can sell that copy to somebody else. The only thing I can't do is sell it to somebody else, and retain my own copy of it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by alteran ( 70039 )
          >> more to the point, what is to stop me from "selling" my free
          >> versions when the band gets popular? What if I give them away?

          > Er, maybe a sense of morals or ethics?

          Well, as long as he wasn't selling COPIES, it'd be perfectly legal, not to mention moral and ethical.

          Just like anything else you buy that goes up in resell value.

          • Well, as long as he wasn't selling COPIES, it'd be perfectly legal, not to mention moral and ethical.
            Can someone explain why it isn't "ethical or moral" for me to give copies away for free?

            I'm not saying it is "moral and ethical", I just want someone to explain why they think it's not.

      • Re:pissed off customers, thats what it means (Score:5, Funny)

        by omeomi ( 675045 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:29PM (#20161963) Homepage
        more to the point, what is to stop me from "selling" my free versions when the band gets popular?

        One could set up an entire MP3 futures trading market! You could invest in MP3's, hoping that their popularity will grow...

      • Re:pissed off customers, thats what it means (Score:5, Interesting)

        by yali ( 209015 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:31PM (#20161983)
        As demand drives prices up, the incentive to illegally copy MP3s will increase; but large-scale infringement would lower demand. So eventually (at least in theory) the prices will hit some sort of equilibrium point. This could be a pretty interesting natural experiment.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Jherek Carnelian ( 831679 )

          So eventually (at least in theory) the prices will hit some sort of equilibrium point. This could be a pretty interesting natural experiment.
          If not for the monopoly provided by copyright law, that equilibrium point would be independent of the music, it would equate to the value of the service providing the music, essentially how easy is it to use the service to get the music versus using the p2p flavor of the month to get the same music.

          • If not for the monopoly provided by copyright law

            I'm not sure what monopoly you're referring to here, or how copyright law grants monopoly power to any particular actor in the music business. I'd agree with you if you'd said there is a music cartel (an oligopoly [wikipedia.org]) that has managed to manipulate copyright duration to its benefit, but I don't see a monopoly.

            • I'm not sure what monopoly you're referring to here
              If you own the copyright on a record (say, Micheal Jackson's Thriller album), you have a monopoly on that record. No one else can sell Micheal Jackson's Thriller except you or someone you give permission to.

              A copyright on a specific piece of music gives you a monopoly on that music.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by eric76 ( 679787 )
                That's not quite right.

                Under the First Sale Doctrine, you are explicitly permitted to sell a copyrighted work you have purchased even if the copyright holder objects. There are some limitations for a "restored copyright". As I understand it, the "restored copyright" is when the copyright expired and then became available again when the copyright term was extended.

                So if you have a legal copy of a current song, you can sell it to someone else.

                Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. If yo

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by RexRhino ( 769423 )

                  So if you have a legal copy of a current song, you can sell it to someone else.

                  If you have a legal copy of a current song, you can sell that specific copy... you can't sell as many copies as you want. The supply of legal copies is controlled by the copyright holder, therefore the copyright holder has a monopoly.

                  As an analogy, Ford has a monopoly on the Ford Mustang. Sure, you can buy a Ford Mustang, and then resell it used, but Ford has absolute control of the supply of new Ford Mustangs manufactured. The used market doesn't count, because you can only resell the supply that Ford ori

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by starfishsystems ( 834319 )
          So eventually (at least in theory) the prices will hit some sort of equilibrium point.

          Or they might be so dynamically unstable that the system would thrash itself a couple of times and then end up jammed in the opposite state from that intended.

          The only control input is the price per copy, which as formulated has a destabilizing effect on market share. Charge more when there are more copies being purchased? That's not your usual supply and demand economics, certainly not with nonrival goods where ther

      • I say let you sell your music, that would discourage you from devaluing your music collection by giving it away.
      • Folks who are as smart as you, who have the same insight as you about the band's future popularity, and who therefore buy up the tracks early in the hopes of reselling them later for a profit. This will drive the early price up, of course.

        There's this other novel object called "stock," bought and sold in much the same way via a facility in New York City, for which an obvious parallel to your moneymaking scheme is:

        (1) Find new, unknown company which will later hit it big. Buy their cheap stock.

        (2) Wait for

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eric76 ( 679787 )
        I think the "First Sale Doctrine" would explicitly permit you to sell your copy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Endo13 ( 1000782 )
      Customers should know how the system works before they buy. And if they didn't bother to find out, and they waited too long to get it at the same price, then it's their own tough luck.

      I think this is a novel idea, and hopefully it will work well.

      My only question is, will they go strictly by number of sales for a song overall, or will they continuously monitor popularity of each MP3 and then reduce the price again once the popularity drops?
    • Yeah I wonder about that from a customer service perspective. However, I think people could get around to liking it.

      Initially, I know a lot of people who were very put off by eBay's business model. They were bitter about being outbid at the last minute, or seeing something that sold for $X last week, but now only finding similar items for $Y (where Y is greater than X). However, they don't seem to be going out of business. (Although admittedly they have done more flat-price 'auctions.')

      There might be a lot

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by alteran ( 70039 )
        I agree, this could really work in surprising ways. It would obviously encourage people to browse. Currently, I go to iTunes looking for something specific, and immediately get back off. And DRM means I limit what I do get.

        It could get also get people like me who want to rebuy old, not-so-popular stuff to find a price they're comfortable with. It could reinvigorate stale music catalogs.

        An intriguing idea.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by radarjd ( 931774 )

      You know there will be much whining about people that bought $Song for $PriceA only to find that it fell to $PriceB.

      You mean like people who complain when there's a sale at $Store, and people riot outside because they purchased before the sale? There are demonstrations against Fry's every weekend, after all...

    • Yes, just like everyone always complains when they buy something then find out that their friend bought it a week earlier and got it on sale. Or just like how stock market investors whine about having to buy shares of Google for more than their stock market investor friends did yesterday. (Second example is assuming that Google's shares are rising in price. If they aren't, feel free to substitute a stock symbol that is rising in price.)

  • Won't higher prices = more piracy? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Xtravar ( 725372 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:20PM (#20161815) Homepage Journal
    Won't higher prices mean more piracy? Or is that exactly what this system is avoiding?

    By nobody buying a track (which *could* mean piracy) the track's price would come down and then people would buy it?

    Wow, I think I answered my own question! This sounds pretty cool - less known music gets more exposure and more popular music gets set at a price people are willing to pay. Now, will they actually have a supply of music?
    • I think "harder access to music = more piracy."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xtravar ( 725372 )
        You don't think higher price = harder access? :P
        • You don't think higher price = harder access? :P

          I think, to the potential copyright infringer, that the difference between $0.68 and $0.98 for an MP3 file is not enough to sway their choice. At either of those prices, the convenience of buying and being done with it measures the same against searching for black-market music repositories, filtering out invalid/mislabeled content, etc.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Xtravar ( 725372 )
            Even when it comes to downloading the whole album vs buying the whole album?
            10 songs per album @ $0.98 = $9.80
            10 songs per album @ $0.20 = $2.00

            It really adds up if you're on a budget and want some new albums. Especially if this ranges from free to $0.98 per song. Perhaps it's not that great of a price barrier for white collar professionals such as ourselves, but the forces of the market cannot be completely thrown out.

            All this is moot, though, since I'd still rather own the CD or not listen to anything.
        • Not really, no.

    • Free-market piracy inflection point (Score:4, Interesting)

      by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:33PM (#20162017)
      If the volumes stay low then the price stays low and the motivation for piracy should also stay low.

      As the volumes increase, the price increases and the piracy might increase.

      What is interesting is that this model possibly finds the "perfect price". So much for economic theory.

      In reality, a pirate will not buy some low-cost stuff and pirate high-cost stuff according to some built-in threshold. Once they have free piracy access to music they will use that for everything they can.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nbert ( 785663 )
        I was just about to write something similar before I read your comment and though I had basically the same idea I started to wonder: Can a perfect price be determined if the product is available for free? Right now it works the other way around than how you described it: People buy music if they are not able to download it for free (because it's too rare to be on a torrent site for example). Since there's a price cap in this case it gets even more complicated.

        On the other hand I quite like a pricing model
    • Won't higher prices mean more piracy?

      Yes, but it doesn't matter, because *fans* always buy the CDs, go to concerts, get the merchandise, or pass the buzz around to their friends. That's what makes them fans.

      The non-fans are irrelevant to the sales ledger, since they would never have bought anything anyway.

      The RIAA wants to everyone to pay of course, even if they've downloaded the music but hate it.

      But that just shows that the RIAA are fucking morons. They can't distinguish between the economics of virtual

  • Fast Refresh (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Shambly ( 1075137 )
    I for one plan on using my first post skill by downloading as many songs for free legaly as possible. But seriously after they reach over 0.99$ who is going to ever buy that song from them again?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 )
      You bring up a valid point. This could be an interesting market experiment. How much are people really willing to pay? Unfortunately, due to the MAFIAA's history of price-fixing, we couldn't truly know before. But now we can.

    • after they reach over 0.99$ who is going to ever buy that song from them again
      I guess people willing to pay for the DRM free part... Or people who just hate Apple...

    • RTFM (Score:2, Informative)

      by brian1078 ( 230523 )
      From the article:

      As more people download a song the price rises, capping at $0.98

  • This could work really well (Score:4, Interesting)

    by uncreativeslashnick ( 1130315 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:21PM (#20161835)
    Have you ever found yourself telling someone, "yeah, I liked that song before everyone else thought it was cool." I can see this model encouraging people to explore and download and try new stuff so that later on, when the price goes up, they can brag about how they downloaded it first, for free, before it was selling for $5 a pop.

    It also might open the door for more quality indies to actually make money. People might be turned off by high prices of what the RIAA cartel marketing is pushing, and go for the cheaper indie stuff. Then again, I am probably being too optimistic, as most teenagers will pay any price for "cool"

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jandrese ( 485 )
      The only problem with it is: will the Music industry buy into it? I mean iTunes has a decent selection, but it's far from complete. How many major record labels are going to be investing in a market where they'll be giving stuff away?
      • I don't know how much they'll go along with the DRM-less part, but the music industry has been asking Steve Jobs for tiered pricing for a long time now.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jandrese ( 485 )
          Yeah, but read between the lines there. The music industry isn't interested in tiered pricing, they just want a wedge that they can use to increase the prices now that online music sales have taken off. Tiered pricing that tops out at less than what iTunes currently charges is of no interest at all to them.

  • SWEET! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vigmeister ( 1112659 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:22PM (#20161839)
    T-Pain will sell for tens of dollars while I can get Manu Katche for cheap!

    Finally! All that non-conformance pays off!!

    Cheers!

  • Umm read the article.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Duffy13 ( 1135411 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:22PM (#20161847)
    For those who didn't, prices start a $0.00 and cap out at $0.98.
  • Early adopters are usually the ones who subsidize the latecomers. This is entirely backwards, as the latecomers are subsidizing the early adopters.

    Will all the cool kids be saying, "I listened to , back when they were only 5cents a track"? It would be worse than people obsessed with their low Slashdot UID!

  • Love it (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:24PM (#20161891)
    The stuff I like will cost 0.01 while the popular spooge hits the cap. I love you, free market. :)

  • This could actually be nice for some people (Score:5, Funny)

    by Optic7 ( 688717 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:26PM (#20161925)
    Those who prefer to listen to non-mainstream artists would get cheaper music, while those who prefer to listen to mainstream artists would pay more for it. It almost sounds like a tax on lack of musical taste to subsidize music geeks!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      Now indie snobs will have a genuine reason to gripe when their favorite dreary crap picks up a larger audience! It'll actually cost them money instead of just snobbery rights about how they were fans before whatever single got radio play...
      • Now indie snobs will have a genuine reason to gripe when their favorite dreary crap picks up a larger audience! It'll actually cost them money instead of just snobbery rights about how they were fans before whatever single got radio play...

        Funny, for those of use who like to see bands play live, this is exactly what we have to deal with as a band gets bigger. There are more than a few bands that I've seen for free in small clubs or coffeeshops in their early days, only to see their popularity take off to

  • Might this help the long tail? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Otis2222222 ( 581406 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:30PM (#20161977) Homepage
    I'd like to see a model like this. Ever since I installed a satellite radio receiver in my car, my musical horizons have broadened significantly. A lot of the artists I hear on some of the more obscure channels aren't indexed on iTunes or even available on illegal services like Limewire. This mostly applies to older music that is out of print, or never made it to CD.

    It would be nice if there was a service like this that had just about anything ever recorded digitized and made available for download. Let the market sort out what's popular and what isn't, but give us access to EVERYTHING.

    In this day and age, there is no reason why virtually every album ever recorded isn't available to buy a digital copy of.

  • Brilliant (Score:3, Funny)

    by harvey_peterson ( 658039 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:31PM (#20162001)
    The screw-you pricing of the airline industry and the crappy product of the corporate music industry.

    Can't fail.
  • Now, for everyone who wonders why cookie cutter pop songs sell....

    While it's somewhat neat this is only going to make the unimaginative pop artist richer and the indie artist poorer. When this model goes live and pop goes for $$$$ don't sit there and ask why big labels only seem to produce pop. At least with the old static model the indie artist could still make a buck off a few sales instead of having to have half the iPod owning population buy their song to finally make the rent.

    Or in a much shorter for

  • Amazon music stock market (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bluesman ( 104513 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:32PM (#20162009) Homepage
    Who wants to start this? I'm selling options for indie band A at 35 cents a song.

  • The idea of having customers directly influence the price of songs is an interesting and novel approach to selling digital music.
    Yeah, having supply and demand affect the price of your wares must be really frickin' strange.
  • Dang it...I need to record some audio books of the bible or the dead sea scrolls...heck even Scientology....

    I'll make a ton as the same 'customers' buy it again and again...

    I better include a sony rootkit just to make sure....

  • No way the Big Four go for this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Arathon ( 1002016 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:41PM (#20162127) Journal
    There just isn't. Because this can't possibly mean more money for them, if prices cap at 0.98. And if they didn't cap there, no one would buy the more expensive tracks from them anyway. But unless these "trail-blazing" people either forfeit all profit for themselves in order to transfer it to the recording companies, or come up with some other, novel way of incentivizing this process (theoretically, at least using a simple model, averaging 50 cents a download) which will halve their profits compared to what they get from iTunes, there is NO WAY the Big Four will go for this.

    On the other hand, maybe the simple model isn't true, and maybe popular = most everything that the average buyer buys, in which case it won't look any different to the average buyer, so except for the DRM-free part (another deal-breaker for the Big Four), why should the average buyer care?

  • Lots of good music on Amie Street (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:45PM (#20162159) Homepage
    This is really good news. There are some good songs to be had on Amie Street for not much money. So far, I've bought 91 songs and have only spent $6.29. That's about 7 cents per song. With no DRM at all. Beat that, iTunes! ;-)

    Oh, and if you happen to be interested in what I'm listening to, here's my playlist: http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/what-im-listening-to .php [jasons-toolbox.com]
  • In other news, the store announced that they would introduce music in order of popularity.
  • This is great for people who like to brag that they were listening to a band before they were popular. Now you can say, "Oh yeah, I was listening to them when their tracks were free. The fact that you paid $0.98 for them shows how much of a poser you are."
  • I think this is a great idea in the fact that it's a new idea. But, I'd prefer the business model be reversed.

    If "Mr. Super-Cool" sells 1000 tracks a day at 0.98 then the artist makes some good money, but what about "Mr. Not-So-Cool"? His track sells for free, or very little, and the artist gets nothing, mostly because he's not popular. What if it was revered, AND you provided a library that was practically every song known to man? I'd gladly pay 98 cents for a song that I just can't find anywhere, lega

  • No more supply/demand? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bugnuts ( 94678 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @05:04PM (#20162377) Journal
    This has interesting economics, clearly designed to help Amazon, but might also help smaller artists. I think I like it, but not sure.

    There's no such thing as supply and demand in this model. There's only demand, and the supply is endless. So why does an infinite supply with a finite demand not equate to free? Bandwidth? They certainly can get some advertisement into the pages of popular sound downloads.

    This seems almost backwards ... you'd think it'd be cheaper to d/l a popular song and make up pagehits with ads, but perhaps this makes smaller artists get more exposure.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @05:07PM (#20162399)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This wont work! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JamesRose ( 1062530 )
    Okay, first, the old artists taht sell few songs at any given time, but still do constantly sell, no longer get any money. Plus, the industry doesn't make any more money than they do now, cos its capped.

    Song costs $0.00 - I buy it
    Song costs $0.20 - I buy it
    Song costs $0.40 - I buy it
    Song costs $0.60 - I buy it
    Song costs $0.80 - I buy it
    Song costs $1.00 - I bugger off to the itunes store

    Well, I wouldn't, but many people would and you get my point. And this effectively means, this service could never reach th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by babyrat ( 314371 )
      Hmmm apparently slashdot doesn't work either - they give you a link to the article, expect you to read it and then make comments on it.

      it's in the frickin' third paragraph...not like you have to read more than 10 sentences...

      AmieStreet.com is the first digital music store propelled by social networking, where members of the community drive the discovery, promotion and pricing of music. All songs on AmieStreet.com start at a price of zero cents. As more people download a song the price rises, capping at $0.9

  • BRILLIANT! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by scribblej ( 195445 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @05:14PM (#20162499)
    I'm already working on my script to download all new music the minute it hits the service -- before it becomes popular.

    I can't wait for the madness that will hit once my script becomes popular in usage.

    (Note, I'm not actually writing such a script, but someone will.)

  • check it out - really lovely music and you get to determine the price you will pay. She's been doing this for about 2 or three years now.

    SHEEBA.CA [sheeba.ca]

    Frankly, I give her more than the average price. You should too - she's NOT rich, and could use the money... but if you're poor, then pay what you can.

    RS

  • Now, if they can pen a deal with Pandora so you can find music you like that would be spectacular. You could stream all kinds of music at random (based on preference) for free, but with a nifty "buy it" button.
  • Let us apply our scarcity model for pricing for our post-scarcity commodity! And we can do this, because people expect it, for they are dumb.

  • Expand the title (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @07:40PM (#20163927) Homepage
    Let's expand that headline title a bit shall we?

    "Patent troll firm Invests in Dynamic Pricing Model for obsolete patent-encumbered audio format."

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