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Increasingly, we seem to expect great content for nothing. However, we would never expect to get iPods for free, or expect Google to stop showing us ads. Is content REALLY king?
As always, I’d LOVE to get your comments!
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I wonder if those people who would download an album for free would also steal a CD if they knew they wouldn’t get caught. I wouldn’t steal it either way.
Books aren’t the same, I will not pay the same money for an e-book because I don’t like the format, I like to have a real paper book in my hands.
I guess you can say the experience is part of the value too! I pay for the experience of sitting down with a print book. For me where that differs in music is I pay for the experience of discovering and CONNECTING with the artist. I don’t see that value in buying music from most artist people commonly pirate music from, partly because of the money just going into the pockets of the record labels and partly because the direct connection isn’t there.
As far as that value I would pay as much or more for a digital copy of an album on my terms (MP3), as long as I see that value, again for me the experience of supporting an artist who you can interact with and who gets it. Jay you know yourself how much I love to support artists that “get it.” I’ve paid for more albums that artists give away for free just because of that!
Thanks Bill! Great points, the upshot is format clearly IS important to you in terms of value, right? Clearly there has to be content you want, but is the premium paid to get it in the format you want constitute more of the overall value? Let’s put music aside — how much MORE would you pay for a book as a book rather than an ebook? That’s kind of my question.
Format is important to me for a book, less so for music. There are very few ebooks I’d consider buying or stealing. It’s not that I don’t see value in the content I just can get on board with that format. To put it one way if the ebook was $1, paperback was $15 and hardcover was $50 personally I’d probably go with the hardcover. I just get more satisfaction out of that experience and I feel it’s worth it.
Same as music, I get more out of sending $20 to an independent artist for an MP3 download, and I prefer the download over a CD although I don’t find that extremely important, then I do going to iTunes Store and giving $9.99 for the latest chart topper. I get my satisfying experience in this domain from the connection I get from that artist and helping to support them. I don’t think I’m alone and I think my view is catching on.
Great podcast! The discussions are well appreciated. Listeners of music definitely place more value on a manufactured CD than on the download in my esperience. I think there are a few reasons why. Firstly it’s relatively easy to recorded something, not master it, turn it into an mp3 and put it up on myspace. So potentially bad recording quality (distortion etc), to low an mp3 bitrate(warbly treble), unmastered (not loud enough)and listening through cd speakers (trebly sound) all leads to listeners’ being bias against downloads, from unsigned bands anyway. On the other hand if you get a thousand copies or so made up people see you’ve made an effort and you are perhaps more serious sbout what you are doing.
An artist who spends money on the CD is usually going to make sure it’s recorded better(no distortions etc), get it mastered (louder volume, Not that loud is always good), Spend money on Cover design etc and the speakers on most CD players are designed for music so they hear the way it’s supposed to sound.
Enda Reilly
http://www.myspace.com/endaderoad
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