EMusic RIP

It's not dead yet… But it's certainly DEAD to me! I will be doing some serious download now.

EMusic has been sold and has new price plans, both of which are no bargin! Gone is the nice unlimited downloading feature replaced with limits. Here are the new plans

Under EMusic Basic, you will be
billed $9.99 per month for access to the service with no
minimum monthly commitment, but you will be limited to no
more than 40 downloads during your monthly billing cycle.

EMusic Premium. Designed for our most
active subscribers, this plan allows you to download
up to 300 tracks per month (approximately 25 albums)
for a monthly charge of $50.00 - a price of just
16 cents per track - with no minimum monthly commitment.

Do you know when this is supposed to go into effect?

10/8/03 is the day they turn the lights out at Emusic…

I wonder what Napster 2.0 will cost and what will be available.

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
I wonder what Napster 2.0 will cost and what will be available.

Roxio's Napster will offer both a store and a subscription service, as will soon-to-be-launched alternatives from RealNetworks Inc. and AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online.

Although they mimic the traditional way of buying music, the stores offer one significant improvement for music fans: Customers can buy individual songs, not just full CDs or singles chosen by the record label. But there are downsides too. Not every artist or song is available, and the tracks are wrapped in electronic locks that limit their ability to be copied or transferred.

Subscription services are a more radical departure from conventional music buying. They offer an unlimited amount of music for a flat monthly fee, but most require that the music be played on a computer. And they typically cut off access to those songs if a customer cancels a subscription.

The technology behind Roxio's Napster was built around an overhauled version of Pressplay, the online music service that Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group and Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment sold to Roxio in May. Subscribers of the new Napster would pay $10 a month to play an unlimited number of songs from an Internet jukebox or download "tethered" versions to be played when they're not online. It would cost about $1 to move a tethered song to a portable device or burn it onto a CD.

By this time next year, Napster executives hope to enhance the service by allowing subscribers to move an unlimited number of songs onto selected portable devices and take them wherever they go. But that depends on Microsoft Corp. delivering the necessary technology.

http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-music7oct07,1,4071903.story

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
10/8/03 is the day they turn the lights out at Emusic…

I wonder what Napster 2.0 will cost and what will be available.

Well, how come i didnt get any kind of email or anything. Did my membership just change without notice?

oops that should be 11/8/03 and the email annoucing the new service was sent out this morning…

so napster will be doa… whats the point of renaming a already brain dead distribution system.

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
oops that should be 11/8/03 and the email annoucing the new service was sent out this morning…

cool, just got it, its on my old email, thanks for the post though, cause i never check that one. Looks like i have one month of hardcore madd crazy downloading to do!

can I subscribe for a month then cancel?

I better by nice to Jadetree again, I guess.

it's gonna be tough downloading stuff for the next month, loads of people are going whole hog including me…

the backlash has already started so it will be interesting to see if anything shakes out…

emusic always did seem to be offering a lot for a small fee……. Perhaps, just a higher subscription fee would have been better.

I never did it because I prefer having the actual CD.

emusic was nice because you could audition records with having to buy them. i bought stuff i heard via emusic. today i'm listening to the dirtbombs which i will likely buy when i see them live.

there is loads of stuff that is out of print or hard to find… the beggars back catalog is pretty amazing as is the bomp,

Now ain't that a coincidence, I was actually downloading The Dirtbombs' album when I first read this, and having just listened to it would love to see them live. Are you going up to the Baltimore show? Seems like there are a lot of tours hitting the Ottobar lately and skipping DC . . .

I'll sure as hell be quitting EMusic before the changeover occurs, but I'm going to be downloading like a mad fool until then. There's a shitload of good and interesting music on there, in nearly every conceivable genre, including a lot of very classic stuff (all of 4AD, Matador, Beggars Banquet, etc.) and a lot of the (relatively) recent indie up and comers, including The French Kicks (who played last night), Interpol, Ladytron, !!!, and more.

I'm definitely going to miss this service, but to change from "unlimited downloads" (which really meant up to about 2000 per month) to FORTY per month, for the same price, is downright ludicrous. I'll be amazed if they hold on to more than 10% of their user base.

anyone else got 50 loyalty credits yesterday?  ;D

Ha…I haven't checked yet, but the thread sent me into a bit of a panic. 

So Kosmo…how well did "It's not dead yet… But it's certainly DEAD to me!" go?  ;D

Ruiner wrote:
anyone else got 50 loyalty credits yesterday?  ;D

no so well :D  but in changing the all you can eat plan and management they definitely improved what was available then and there are also labels coming back on board lately after the price increase… 

i know a bunch of stuff disappeared recently, but that was more because a couple key distributors went bust and not the labels themselves pulling material.  obviously, those labels will want to signup with other distributors as it affects their product availability on other sites besides eMusic.

Ruiner wrote:
anyone else got 50 loyalty credits yesterday?  ;D

yup

I think 40 downloads for $10 is a better deal than I have now. 

Been getting a lot of nice offers from Emusic. Ten free dls for ten records rated, 40 dls for loyalty. I'll see how long this lasts and how much music I can get before reevaluating. I have lately gotten some really decent music that has appeared and it is still an okay price for me.

Ruiner wrote:
anyone else got 50 loyalty credits yesterday?  ;D

I did. 

Ignore the rest (which I've edited out) – hadn't noticed this thread was from 2003 originally!

according to the NYTimes, eMusic is destined to fail regardless of changes in terms and catalog… 

Swan Songs?
The music industry?s deathwatch kicked off about a decade ago, but it seems the vigil could soon be over.

the graph included in the article is pretty interesting… they forgot to label the X-axis (time, in years) but otherwise very insightful: