Name Your Price
There's some buzz in the blogs about the move by the world's best known art band, RH -- and their move to go it alone without a record deal, and self-distribute their new album due out on 10-10.
The biggest buzz is over the band's decision to let fans name their price of how much to pay for digital D/L of the music -- which could be as little as 2 cents, to how ever much someone wants to pay.
This move is interesting. I think that a lot of people are skeptical of this "honorbox" approach to music distribution -- some would criticize that this is similar to Mr. King, the horror novelist, going name your price and that failing miserably in moneymaking terms.
Well, we'll see how this goes -- it certainly is a pretty bold move.
Nice blog at TheLede in NYT this morning on this very topic, check it here.
Comments
I have a feeling that this will fail miserably. I'm not sure there is any "honor" in the youth of today... or at least not when it comes to paying for something or playing by the rules. It seems to me that most kids haven't bought a CD for years and most don't see the value of paying for music at all... especially when it's so "easy" to get it for free via bit torrent.
It's a sad, sad state. The same thing is happening in the anime industry where DVD sales are dying because there are groups that call themselves "fan subbers" who are doing people a "service" by distributing the japanese anime with translations for free via bit torrent. But I digress.
Kids haven't paid for music in a long time. I think the only way to stop piracy is to make the music so cheap, that it would be silly not to just buy it outright. $.10 to $.25 per track seems about the right price to me.
Posted by: janitor | October 1, 2007 12:32 PM