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  • From: Alexander Wilson <alex AT awstudios.net>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Music industry to shoot itself in the foot, again
  • Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 14:58:49 -0400

On Apr 8, 2004, at 2:03 PM, Ian Meyer wrote:

Self Portrait, Bob Dylan
iTunes $13.99
Amazon.com $10.99

Yes, Amazon is a lot cheaper, but you *do* get 24 songs for $13.99, so its still cheaper than buying per song. As long as the iTMS has been around, there have been large compilations/albums and multi-disc sets that have cost more then $9.99

As the size of the audio collection becomes bigger, I think there's a point where the seller's manufacturing and shipping of physical CDs become about equal to (or even cheaper than) the seller's bandwidth costs. I run an audio project that does very well selling pieces under 7 minutes for 25 cents, under 30 minutes for a dollar, currently up to 1 hour for two dollars. Now that's cheap and, after royalties, my biggest cost against those revenues are for bandwidth and hosting, but I still come out ahead on a per-download basis. If I was a behemoth like Apple who could negotiate for a better deal with ISPs or run my own, I'd obviously be in better shape, but bandwidth and hosting still isn't free.

An hour-long recording at Amazon is going to likely be over $10. But if I scale my prices up to twenty hours for an unabridged novel, then suddenly Amazon's offering the same thing for $25-30, and to those people who don't have broadband, that's a MUCH better deal than downloading, and I don't know how much I could lower my prices at that price range with the same royalty rates and not lose money after bandwidth costs, transaction fees, and other costs.

Alex.

www.awstudios.net - Alexander Wilson Studios
www.undersweet.com - A New Comic Strip Every Monday
www.telltaleweekly.com - Funding a Free Audiobook Library





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