Subscription Services 10/6/03
In another experiment for this essay, I signed up for an on-line music subscription service*. For a nominal monthly fee you can download as many MP3s as you want, and the music can be stored in whatever medium you choose (hard disk, CD-R, CDRW, DVD, etc). You just aren't allowed to distribute copies of your downloads to friends.

Without mentioning the name of the service*, I would like to show some statistics after only two days of downloads. I had some time on my hands, so this might look extreme, but it is meant to prove a point. Based on downloads from one weekend, and assuming I wouldn't download anything else for the year:

826 songs = approx 68 albums (assuming 12 songs average per album)
Let's say an average album costs $12
68 x $12 = $816 retail worth of CDs (with cases, lyrics, etc.)

On-line Subscription cost = $10/mo. so for 12 months we have $120

So let's look at the actual per song cost in this example:

On a yearly basis (assuming no additional downloading)
$120 subscription / 826 songs = 0.145278 cents per song ($1.74 per album of 12 songs)

On a monthly basis (assuming no additional downloading)
$9.99 subscription / 826 songs = 0.012094 cents per song ($0.15 per album of 12 songs)

And whether we looked at this yearly or monthly, the per song cost goes down the more you download.

No matter how you split up $0.145278 or $.012094 cents, it doesn't come out to much. I have no idea how artists (or labels, or web sites for that matter) are supposed to make money on this. This is an extreme example. Based on statistics received from the service after using it for a couple of weeks, I learned that I fall into "less than 1% of users" - most people will not download 70 albums in a weekend. But currently, they can; and I would argue that they will, which points to how the current subscription model as flawed.

Unless you are a full-time music listener with nothing else to do, it is hard to keep up with the file storage, cataloging, etc. Many people might not even download a fraction of 70 albums in a month, or even in a year. And it should be mentioned that some of the stuff I downloaded is not all that good and will probably be deleted shortly.

Interestingly, after posting this article, I received a message from the subscription service indicating that they were curious about all of the downloads made within a two week period of time. (Realistically I don't think they read my essay - the email arrived at month end, probably when their software kicks out monthly download reports.) Based on their figures, an average user should be downloading no more than 2000 songs per month, which comes out to 24000 songs in a year.

Even if we use their numbers, the resulting profit isn't much:

Subscription fee ($120) / 24000 songs = 0.005 cents per song

(0.005 which presumably is then split with the artist somehow)

The pros, so far, are:

Locating hard-to-find material: Let's say you were a huge fan of the Blooper Ponies back in the 70s, but your vinyl or cassettes have since been ruined or lost. You just might find their whole catalog online.

Saving yourself from bad CD purchases: I recently downloaded a CD from one of my favorite acts. Had I found it in the store, I would have purchased it on site. Boy am I glad I didn't. It sucked, and now I can clear my hard drive of it with one click.

The cons, so far:

How do people make money? It is highly questionable how money can be made from a subscription service like the one I found.

Listeners who want tactile experience: Many people like lyrics, art and liner notes. You won't get that with a subscription service.

Upkeep: I soon found that downloading so much music was, in a sense, counterproductive. Besides the fact that my hard drive was now 4 GB smaller from the files, the only way I could possibly listen to that much music was to make CDs that I could take with me (away from the PC) to use in the car and the various CD players throughout the house (we now have one in practically every room).

Making CDs gave varied results. One series of discs I burned had bad tracks. I couldn't determine if this was the program (in that case, Nero), or the media. My guess is the media, as I have been having problems with Sony 80 MB discs ever since I bought a spindle of 50 with one of the Staples Rebates. Sometimes I think there are reasons that CDR media is so cheap.

Anyway, switching to Record DX, I had fewer problems with burning CDs. When listening to CDs burned with Record DX, I noticed that they do not stop when the last track is done playing. Instead, the CD player continues to spin the CD, as if the "stop" command isn't processed. So far troubleshooting has shown that the problem isn't with the CD player, or the CDR media, as this has happened with both Sony and TDK CDRs. Record DX doesn't seem to have any options that would affect how the CDs stop, and in preliminary comparisons against manufactured CDs, they have the same sessions and tracks. Obviously something isn't the same, because a manufactured CD will stop.

This CD stopping issue may seem minor, but when using a battery-powered CD player, the continued spinning of the CD will wear out the batteries. This has already happened to me while listening to a CD at bedtime. I woke up to find the CD spinning long after the CD had completed its program. Powering my portable with an electric hookup, the CD was left to spin indefinitely, heating the unit to potentially dangerous levels.

So, as a music listener who just wants to listen to music without hassles - downloading music doesn't offer everything.

10/6/03 Update
After living with the downloaded material for month or two, I noticed that creating CDs from MP3 tracks was, in a sense, counter productive. Most downloaded tracks include the title of the song, album and band name in the file name or in the ID tag. That's fine if you are listening on a PC, but I prefer to take CDs on the road or listen to music before bed in my portable. Since I don't have an MP3 player, I decided to make CDs.

Turning an MP3 file into a track on an audio CD strips all track detail away. So if you want that info, you need to print the info on a tray card or write it on the CD itself.

Further, the added variables of making a CDR meant the occasional bad burn that would waste a disk. Even on disks that came out OK, there were variations in disks/software that created problems. The most annoying of these was a problem where the last track of an audio CD would not stop. While annoying at first, wearing down my CD player batteries, ultimately this problem killed the motor in my Sony Discman.

Then there's the physical storage of the CDs themselves. Without booklets and art, the CDs took up less space than a store-bought CD, but I still had to put them in carry cases to keep them organized. While the cost is still nominal for the amount of music we are talking about, making and storing CDs from MP3s really just takes away one of the main benefits of MP3s to begin with - ease of storage.

It would perhaps make more sense to make a backup copy on CDR or DVD and just invest on an MP3 player.

70 X 0.25 X 0.11 = 25.20 (not accounting for the time required to burn and label everything)

MP3 players start at $50 and go up to $500.

Either way, listening to music, especially on the go, costs the listener more money in the form of materials (CDRs), time (burning), and equipment (burners, players, etc.). This is a good example of how the listener is taking on the burden of the music industry. (Some have argued that en masse music sharing is taking the place of marketing, but that is another matter for another time.)

I've decided that my best bet for now will be to get a combination CD/CDR/CDRW/MP3 player so I have most of the bases covered for the foreseeable future. This allows backwards compatibility with my existing physical CD collection, as well as compatibility with the large number of (legit) MP3s I now own.

*Note that I have left out the name of the subscription service. Posting the name could have contributed to abuse of the service. They may be re-evaluating their policies right now. Also, artists signed up with their service may not like the fact that so much material is available so easily. This essay is offered to provoke further thought and discussion on the subject - I didn't want this independent study to trigger any battles

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