Music Industry Set To Introduce the "Ringle"

mrneutron2003 writes "The RIAA has officially backed a move by the recording industry to reintroduce the CD single. Populated with three songs and a ringtone, this brilliantly clueless idea is to be marketed as a 'ringle,' complete with an even more clueless retail price of $6-7 per CD. Apart from the fact the industry hasn't agreed on how the ringtone is to be redeemed (Sony BMG, the initial proponent of the idea, is the exception here), the pricing puts it way out of line with legitimate digital music downloads." At $7, retailers would enjoy a profit margin they haven't seen since the days of cassette tapes and vinyl.

This Brings to Mind a Question

Here's a question I'd love to ask the music industry:

How many times must I buy the same music in order to "legally" hear it on any music-playing device I own? (No, I will not tell you what devices they are, nor what formats they can play.)

Re:This Brings to Mind a Question

Dear Concerned yet still Valued Customer,

Although we here in the music industry consist of a collection of the world's greatest and most creative geniuses, we cannot with any certainty predict how many music-playing devices will be invented over the course of your lifetime, so we regret that we are unable to give you an exact answer to your question.

We can tell you, however, that due to the exciting pace of technology in this century, you can look forward to rewarding your favorite musicians over and over again by sending us money each time you purchase a new electronic device. It's thanks to your efforts that we are able to give songwriters and musicians a small portion of the profit that their hard work results in.

Thanks for submitting your question via our website, we will keep your ip address on file so that we can compare it to those found on file sharing networks, for your convenience and for the safety of your music.

Sincerely,
The music industry.

Plus the ringtone...

Midi ringtones are outrageously priced..real tones even more so. The price isn't THAT inflated compared to what we already spend.

No way...

One thing hanging over the 'maybe new, maybe not' idea that didn't factor in twenty years ago, is the 'green' factor.

What is the carbon footprint of three songs on a packaged CD versus three songs purchased over the internet? And to bring it into even sharper focus, the CD packaged songs will end up on a player just like the downloads.

Game over, man...

Brilliant!!!

Brilliant! Finaly, the solution to piracy! Increase the profit margin, how didn't they think of it earlier? ...wait...what???

lovely quote from TFA

Just when you thought stupid ideas had become an endangered species

Uh, right . . .

Thanks for that little gem, which helps prove there's not much danger of that ever happening.

Re:

I only know of one bit of media that would benifit from a re-release in its original format...Cheech & Chong: BIG BAMBU -those liner notes... ya just can't download art!

1990 called...

And in Cupertino and Austin, the iTunes business teams are high-fiving. As the industry insists on implementing 20-year old business models, Apple Inc. no longer really needs to update their iTunes services, as it will be another 25 years before the indus

Re:

I, for one, really do stil want to buy plastic discs. It's just that I can traipse over to any major shop, and get a used or sale copy of the full album for less than they'd like me to spend on three songs.

Three songs or two?

The summary says three songs and a ringtone, but the article reads, two songs and a ring tone. Which is it?

reminds me of the Scrooge movie

"Ringle, ringle, coins how they jingle," Scrooge's lustful song of money and greed.
Quite appropriate name considering...

I'm opposed to this...

...speaking as someone named Ray Ingles.

Given that cost...

I'm going to invent the Pirated ringtone single

I'll call it a Pringle

Re:Given that cost...

Once you swap, you can't stop!

Re:Given that cost...

I'm going to invent the Pirated ringtone single

I'll call it a Pringle

I think they are missing a bet, sharing is another form of marketing.
I propose Shared ring singles

Free with every purchase Shingles [wikipedia.org], share with your friends, there is no cure for Shingles(tm).

{modded down in 3, 2 1...}

Ringtone Hell

My bet is that people will avoid buying these in droves simply because they can't find a CD slot on their cellphones. Imagine the customer support calls?

Ringle Haiku!

I am single,
If I buy a ringle,
With me will women mingle ?

or will it be an iPod haiku - ( scene: chic sees guy with iPod )

My Gawd,
An iPod,
Must have a big rod.

Re:Ringle Haiku!

While absolutely hilarious I'd just like to let you and all of the other science and math nerd here (I include myself in that) know that haikus follow a 5, 7, 5 syllable format. Consider:

Haikus can be fun!
But sometimes they don't make any sense.
refrigerator

Some basic math

Lemme see. I have one of them funky new iPods that holds, what, 40,000 songs? And let's see, I'm going to fill it up with ringles? Hmmm. I don't think I'll bother putting the ringtone on the iPod, but the three songs? Sure. So, let's see. Divide 40,000 by 3 = 13,333.33 ringles. Each ringle is $6? 6 x 13,333.33 = $80,000. And that doesn't include sales tax. Here in Toronto, that's 14%, making it $91,200.

WTF ARE THESE IDIOTS THINKING??? That I'm going to spend over NINETY THOUSAND DOLLARS to load up my 160gig iPod?

They must be doing some mighty fine crack, because THAT is pure unadulterated BULLSHIT if they think I'm going to spend even 1/2 of one percent of $80,000 loading up my 160gig iPod, and it certainly isn't going to be spend on ringles...

Good god. What a bunch of losers. Left curve of the IQ bell chart. Morons. Mafiosi. Dead enders. Feh.

RS

Uh, It's 1982 on the phone..

They want their marketing and manufacturing excuse back. 6-7 dollars? Don't you think that's a little steep?

How do these people get jobs?

This pretty much is the usual from the music industry. Badly thought out plan that has no chance at all of succeeding spearheaded by some management guy that lives in a fantasy world of catch phases. I will bet that this will be dead before first quarter 2008.

Audacity and BitPim for me, thanks

No thank you, RIAA. I'll just take songs I currently own (either ripped from my purchases CDs or bought from AmieStreet.com) and use Audacity to cut/re-encode them. Then I'll use BitPIM to transfer the files to my phone for use as ringtones.

Cost for the music: Free (raiding old CD collection) or Free to 98 cents (AmieStreet.com)
Cost for the ringtone: Free.

(Expected a "priceless" joke here, didn't you? ;-) Well, it's the end of a long day and I'm not feeling witty, so I'll leave that to anyone replying to my post.)

Dissenting View - it'll be a success

Sure, this seems stupid, but consider some consumer behavior I've seen recently:

- A household where every family member has a Mac and an iPod. Family members often buy the same song instead of using sharing because it is "too difficult".

- A household where working computers are thrown out on a yearly basis and replaced with new ones because that's "easier".

- A household where computers with sensitive records are just left out on the curb.

Different households, all fairly affluent, all in the NYC area. So while ringles may be stupid to the Slashdot crowd, they'll sell to the people that are even dumber than the record execs.

Re:Dissenting View - it'll be a success

Totally. All those stupid affluent New Yorkers. They are probably spending time on their boats instead of spending all weekend troubleshooting their old Macs! God, if they'd just have put in 8 hours working on it, they could have saved 2 grand and gotten a decent meal at Alain!

My point is, I don't think this behavior makes stupid "stupid" ipso facto. It just means they have more money than you (or me), which might mean they are not so stupid.

Have I got this right?

Lose market share because customers don't perceive value.

Remove even more value from the product and raise the margin.

Profit !!!!

Who says this business thing is hard!

This is Government-Style Logic

FTA:

Each ringle is expected to contain three songs -- one hit and maybe one remix and an older track -- and one ringtone, on a CD with a slip-sleeve cover. The idea is that if consumers in the digital age can download any tracks they want individually, why not let them buy singles in the store as well? It also enables stores to get involved in the ringtone phenomenon.

Wow. Only the recording industry and the government can write contradictions like that and not see the logical fallacy.

Apparently, the industry understands that consumers want their tracks individually, and wants consumers to get their individual tracks from retail outlets. So to facilitate this, they package the individual track with 2 other unwanted songs and a ringtone. Then they double the price of downloading the songs individually and force you to drive to the store?!?!

Wow. That logic is shocking. I just have to repeat it to actually believe that some executive thought this up: Consumers want songs individually, so lets package 3 songs together with a ringtone and double the price!

The person who came up with that idea probably makes more money than everyone who reads this post put together. JSDFKGLHADFYGUHQO@W*%ORILU@#WERLJKC!@%$)*

Better make it a bundle

In addition to the "ringle" CD, the following must be included:

1. - A self-destructing DVD, which will auto-destruct after a week, or 3 viewings, whichever comes first.

2. - A Blue-Ray DVD player with a slef-destruct mechanism which activates in case the inserted disk is not deemed "genuine" by the SONY servers (broadband connection required).

3. - An additional CD containing only the mandatory rootkit, without which the 3-song + ringtone CD cannot be played.

4. - A Betamax tape, just for the heck of it.

Re:Huh? What's wrong with this?

"Hmm...I can get the one song I want for 99 cents...*OR* I can get the one song I want, a remix of a song I hated anyhow, some crappy B-side number *AND a ringtone that isn't compatible with my phone for only TWICE AS MUCH??!!! where do I sign????!!!111"

That's what's wrong with that.

Re:Huh? What's wrong with this?

Well - there's nothing wrong with them trying to sell people stuff. Just because we won't buy it doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it a failed attempt. I'm also starting to wonder why the heck the editors are allowing through these "news" pieces where even the summary is calling people clueless? I mean - "news for nerds" - let US decide what is clueless. News isn't supposed to be so damn slanted, I mean slashed.

Re:

Wasn't it us lot that said SMS messaging would never take off, I mean 160characters for 10p or so?

Giving the consumer a product which gives them what they think they need will be an amazing moneyspinner.

Re:Huh? What's wrong with this?

It wasn't you who said it first. It was the European GSM provider who said it first. So they bundled the SMS-Service often for free or for very little money with their calling plans, because they just thought it a nice feature with not much practical use.

After all, SMS was never really thought for the broad public, it was more or less thought to replace the beeper in some circumstances or to send technical status messages.

But then the public discovered the SMS and turned them in a cheap chat system. And suddenly a technical byproduct became a main selling point for GSM plans, and the prices for SMS services skyrocketed.

Ringle?

Is the first release a re-issue of him singing "Photograph?" Or are they going back to his days with The Bingles?

Oh, well. Barbara Bach is still moderately attractive [bbc.co.uk], anyways.

Re:Huh? What's wrong with this?

Well - there's nothing wrong with them trying to sell people stuff. Just because we won't buy it doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it a failed attempt.

One problem is that this failed attempt will inevitably be blamed on piracy. Watch.

Don't be stupid, you moron.

I can get the one song I want, a remix of a song I hated anyhow, some crappy B-side number

If you don't want it, don't buy it. Same with full-length CDs. No, only wanting one song from a CD does not justify illicit downloads anymore than it justifies st

Re:

If you don't want it, don't buy it.

This is the problem with the music industry. The correct response in a capitalist system should be "if you don't want to put up with their crap, go to a competitor". But there are no competitors in the music indus

Re:Don't be stupid, you moron.

Just for one example of how nonmainstream tastes don't work this way, go find a way to legitimately buy Hank Snow's version of "Casey Jones."

If you can get it any cheaper than as part of a 13-CD $150 collection, send me the link and I'll put my money where my mouth is. I've been looking for a copy for months (it is available for piracy though).

Re:

Just for one example of how nonmainstream tastes don't work this way, go find a way to legitimately buy Hank Snow's version of "Casey Jones."

Umm... As you point out in your very next paragraph;

If you can get it any cheaper than as part of

Re:

Why complain here? Why fight them? Just short their stock and laugh all the way to the bank. Instead of complaining, short em while publicly declaring this to be a good move. Somebody's got to pay for my Christmas.

Re:Huh? What's wrong with this?

My teenage daughter likes to have cool ringtones, and with a freeware utility and a basic audio editor, I can make dozens of custom ringtones from her favorite tunes in just a few minutes. I get points as a cool dad, and I don't have to suffer the indignity of giving Sony or Warners or whichever evil empire an additional dollar. To my great surprise, the homemade element seems to please my daughter rather unlike the ugly sweaters her mom used to knit for her. I don't know if the RIAA deems my handiwork a violation of their property rights, but I sincerely hope so. I've even made myself a ring tone from an old recording of Super Freak by Rick James that I use only for when my wife calls me. It gets a chuckle from the kids in my class.

Years from now, business schools will teach the behavior of the music labels and the RIAA at the turn of the millenium as a case study in the way to kill off an entire industry sector. Musicians will swap stories about how their predecessors had to deal with a business relationship to the labels that was not so different from the ones the coal miners had to suffer under half a century earlier. One difference being that when the coal miners died, at least the company couldn't abuse them any more.

I've gone almost two years without buying a single music recording from anyone but the artist, and my collection is richer than ever. For the classical music and opera that I sometimes enjoy, I simply rip the CDs I can borrow from the excellent collections at the Chicago Public Library and then I use the savings to pay for a pair of season tickets to the Lyric Opera (which is doing La Boheme, La Traviata AND Atomic City by John Adams/Peter Sellars this season).

Re:

I thought the default wife ringtone was the Imperial March.

Re:Huh? What's wrong with this?

Serious question: is that legal?

The making your own ringtone part: yes (though record companies wish it wasn't). The ripping CDs from the library part: no (not even a little).

Ringtone

Wow, and you are getting a ringtone as well. That's a $3 value absolutely free!

Re:

So it makes sense that I have to go to a store and buy the CD even though they're providing the ringtone as a digital download?

Sure. Provided ...

... They are the 3 songs you like. Isn't that the whole point of downloading songs? Getting only the ones you want? This combines the worst of both worlds - high price and no consumer choice. Well, no choice other than not buying them. Which seems in line with the rest of the music industry in general.

Re:Sure. Provided ...

Do people really only tend to like a handful of songs from an album? This ball gets kicked around quite a bit here, but I have to say I honestly have no idea what people are referring to. I can only think of cases where I've liked most or all of an album, or disliked everything from beginning to end.

Question of tradeoffs.

I'm in that camp, sort of.

There are lots of CDs where I liked most or all of the songs on the disc, but I wouldn't have purchased them individually if I'd had a choice. That is, they're acceptable, but they're obviously filler. At $6-10 for the whole disc, I'll buy it, because the value of the songs I like makes up for the somewhat lower value of the filler songs, and I don't find them so offensive that I need to skip over them when I'm listening to a disc or anything ... but if I was going to buy the music a la carte, I'd just pick out the handful of songs I want and discard the rest.

It's a question of alternatives. If I like three songs on a disc a lot, and the rest not quite so much, I'm only going to buy the three songs. It's not because I hate the other songs on the disc, but because I know I can save the money, and then turn around and spend it on the best few songs from three or four other albums. By doing that, the net quality of my music collection (in my own, totally subjective, estimation) is higher.

I know there's a virtually limitless quantity of music out there to discover; the limiting factor is going to be my money and time, not the available music. So therefore, it makes sense to only buy the best tracks from each disc, if that option is available.

Re:

The first thing that is wrong is that anybody would ever want a ringtone. You'd have to pay ME, AND remove the ringtone before I'd even consider your offer of a crappy pop-single with an even crappier "remix" and a third filler to go along with the ringto

What's wrong with this? Um ... Numbers?

THREE uncompressed (CD-quality) DRM-free songs for $6?

The Summary says THREE, but TFA says (quote):

Populated with two songs and a "ringtone"

Which of course makes the $6 seem so much better value.

For the Record Companies.

Re:

They need a lesson in Econ 101 about how supply and demand only works with things that are in DEMAND.

Considering the profit margins on physical sales is what's keeping the RIAA machine going, they've got to do something. This is just another sign that their ship is sinking.

Ringle sounds like it'd be a delicious snack, though. Like a Pringle, only flatter

Re:Cost of manufacture

"This was back before we could even create CDs at our own PCs and when CD prices were at their premium of $16-18 each. (Then again, aren't they still around that price?)"

No. The average price of the top ten CDs on Amazon (the nation's #1 music retailer, apparently) is $10.28. Audiophile recordings, CDs with bonus DVDs, and the like can get up to $16 - $18, but nowadays, the effective price for most new CDs is $10 or $12.

"Yes, I know there is more than just manufacturing..."

Manufacturing is typically the smallest component of the cost of sale. The record company typically pays more in royalties than they do in manufacturing costs. And, of course, that doesn't include production costs, shipping, returns, marketing programs (a big piece of the pie), overhead and the myriad other costs that are a reality of the retail business no matter what you sell. But, for what it's worth, finished CDs don't cost $0.25 to produce.

"but consider that every $.25 profit to each disc was 100% profit. So, even if the labels made $1 profit for each disc sold, they made 400% profit."

I am not sure I follow your math. A buck net profit per CD sounds a bit right. If they sell in to distribution at $8, and net $1, that's about 12 points of margin.

Remember -- after several quarters of reporting really, really low profitability, Warner Music lost money last year. I know the "record companies make obscene profits" story is a popular one on Slashdot, but it is generally not correct.