Resnikoff's Parting Shot: Is eMusic Jumping the Shark?

Nightfly

Quote:
Is the eMusic that music aficionados love going buh-bye? The arrival of a major label may not seem like a big deal, especially since legacy catalog is involved. But the content ingestion involves Sony Music content as young as two years old, hardly the dusty catalog of yore. It also involves songs from huge artists, including Michael Jackson and Outkast, hardly the lost gems that eMusic is known for.

For the rest of this sad story:

Resnikoff's Parting Shot: Is eMusic Jumping the Shark? — Digital Music News

guvnor2175 · 06-04-2009, 12:25 AM

just heard probs cancel me subscription now. shame.

ipodfan · **eMusic jumping the shark -** 06-17-2009, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfly

Quote:
Is the eMusic that music aficionados love going buh-bye? The arrival of a major label may not seem like a big deal, especially since legacy catalog is involved. But the content ingestion involves Sony Music content as young as two years old, hardly the dusty catalog of yore. It also involves songs from huge artists, including Michael Jackson and Outkast, hardly the lost gems that eMusic is known for.

For the rest of this sad story:

Resnikoff's Parting Shot: Is eMusic Jumping the Shark? — Digital Music News

This really upsets me. I've been subscribing to eMusic for many years and have always raved about their catalogue and their prices. This seems to be going against their very nature and what made them so special. I could always find albums there that I couldn't find on any other website and the prices couldn't be beat. Now I may as well buy the physical CDs on Amazon or half.com. I sent them an email telling them how I feel and I got the following email in response. I still don't know what I'm going to do. They're changing my plan on July 12th. For years I paid annually for what amounted to 18 cents a track. I couldn't afford that anymore so I changed to a quarterly plan for 25 cents a track. Now they want to switch me to 42 cents a track. That's a big increase. Here's their email:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting eMusic Customer Support,

We understand your concern and want to assure you that we truly value loyal customers like yourself and we are very grateful to you for staying with us this long. This is a big change, but not one that was made lightly. The new plans enable us to better compensate all of our labels, plus add new content from Sony starting in July, and even more new labels in the future. In order to offer you more content from Sony and other labels, we simply can no longer sustain the lowest cost plans that some members have, but we are pleased that we can still offer you prices at less than half the average price per download on iTunes and Amazon.

Many of you have expressed concern that eMusic is abandoning our focus on independent artists and becoming like "the big guys". This is simply not true. We've given it a lot of thought, and we're confident that we can integrate Sony music in a way that does justice to eMusic -- and not just eMusic as a business, but eMusic as those of us who use it every day know and love it. As you know, we have an exceptionally talented staff of music editors who are excited to highlight the hidden gems in Sony's deep catalog that will only compliment the collection of awesome and unusual tunes already in your eMusic collection.

So yes, while this is a big change, we believe the end result is a better music experience for everyone in the long-term. We hope you will have patience and stay with us to enjoy all the new content coming soon. Regards

Nightfly · 06-19-2009, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ipodfan

This really upsets me. I've been subscribing to eMusic for many years and have always raved about their catalogue and their prices. This seems to be going against their very nature and what made them so special. I could always find albums there that I couldn't find on any other website and the prices couldn't be beat. Now I may as well buy the physical CDs on Amazon or half.com. I sent them an email telling them how I feel and I got the following email in response. I still don't know what I'm going to do. They're changing my plan on July 12th. For years I paid annually for what amounted to 18 cents a track. I couldn't afford that anymore so I changed to a quarterly plan for 25 cents a track. Now they want to switch me to 42 cents a track. That's a big increase. Here's their email:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting eMusic Customer Support,

We understand your concern and want to assure you that we truly value loyal customers like yourself and we are very grateful to you for staying with us this long. This is a big change, but not one that was made lightly. The new plans enable us to better compensate all of our labels, plus add new content from Sony starting in July, and even more new labels in the future. In order to offer you more content from Sony and other labels, we simply can no longer sustain the lowest cost plans that some members have, but we are pleased that we can still offer you prices at less than half the average price per download on iTunes and Amazon.

Many of you have expressed concern that eMusic is abandoning our focus on independent artists and becoming like "the big guys". This is simply not true. We've given it a lot of thought, and we're confident that we can integrate Sony music in a way that does justice to eMusic -- and not just eMusic as a business, but eMusic as those of us who use it every day know and love it. As you know, we have an exceptionally talented staff of music editors who are excited to highlight the hidden gems in Sony's deep catalog that will only compliment the collection of awesome and unusual tunes already in your eMusic collection.

So yes, while this is a big change, we believe the end result is a better music experience for everyone in the long-term. We hope you will have patience and stay with us to enjoy all the new content coming soon. Regards

Hello Ipodfan,Good to see you.

The letter you got back is a cut and paste with just a bunch of rhetoric, and no substance.They are taking a gamble by replacing their old customers with younger one's with more disposable income.It's all about making more money
and nothing else.I see them now as a bunch of sell outs,that made a deal with the devil for a few gold coins.Leaving their old customers who started
their business ,out in the cold, by doubling their prices.

I will wait and see,but I see nothing good coming from this.

rolly · 06-19-2009, 11:03 PM

Quote:

The new plans enable us to better compensate all of our labels...

I think they must of meant to say "the new plan will enable you to better compensate all of our labels", but what is one word being misused?
Blasted liars with their deceptive words.

And so goes on the saga of how legal entities go under.

Nightfly · 06-20-2009, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rolly

I think they must of meant to say "the new plan will enable you to better compensate all of our labels", but what is one word being misused?
Blasted liars with their deceptive words.

And so goes on the saga of how legal entities go under.

Yes Rolly,well done.

Its we, not them, that is making distribution more fair to the other labels!
By doubling loyal members prices! They didn't have to dig into their pockets
to get the "benefit" of having CBS on board.

They are no longer one of the good guys,they are now one of "them".

Look what CBS did to Last.Fm all the old execs bailed out because they didn't like how they were proceeding with the company behind their backs.And now
CBS is giving over membership information to the RIAA.
Nice bunch of fellows........