Sony Agrees to Provide Its Older Songs to eMusic

[quote]In another example of struggling major music labels and Internet services finding common ground, Sony Music Entertainment has agreed to make its back catalog of songs available on eMusic, one of the largest music retailers on the Web.

EMusic, a company based in New York City, has some 400,000 subscribers who pay a monthly fee to download a certain number of songs. Its service is primarily aimed at adults who are fans of music from independent labels.

The company plans to announce on Monday that it will add all Sony Music tracks that are more than two years old, including material from artists like Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.

The major labels had long been skeptical of the economics behind eMusic’s proposition to consumers. Subscribers to eMusic’s “basicâ€

I read this on emusic. The difference is 40 downloads goes down to 30 at $11.99 rate.

egh. I just got the message that said I now will be down to 50 dls a month. Not cool, emusic. Not cool.

Just to make amends they are giving a *free* 25-track booster. Still, not cool.

They'll have a shit-ton more stuff, though.

Oh, from a logistical standpoint its great. From a subscriber standpoint (one who has 90/month) it sucks. The trade-off isn't worth it.

They should have a choice--Sony package or Independent package.

From 90 to 50? Geez, what a blow.

Are they allowing you to opt out of your contract?
My subscription was up for renewal in Jan and I didn't.

What emusic could really use is the ability to provide good, personalized recommendations for future dls. I quit last year because I just got sick of spending the time every month looking for 5 albums to dl. In that respect as they've added more and more labels, it makes the browsing for new interesting stuff more cumbersome. Its scary how well amazon knows me from my purchase history. If emusic made it easier for me to find what i might like, I might have stayed a member. Then again, i probably only spend 20-30% of the hours listening to music that I did 5-10 years ago so maybe it still wouldn't really make as much sense for me as it once did.

i did the same.

I've quit a few times. They always offer like 50 or 75 freebies to come back. DL those, stay for a while, and then get out.

I mostly come back for the jazz stuff. They have that Gitanes Jazz in Paris series, which is pretty killer.

Christ. That entire Jazz in Paris series is posted up here:

emuleland.net/showthread.php?t=17729

Screw emusic.

Yeah, this isn't cool at all. Emusic is the only way I buy music nowadays and I'm pretty pissed. I will go from 65 dls to 37 at $15/month. Might be the end of my subscription...

I was about to give a gift subscription...prolly pass now.

i'm going down from 90 to 50. i'll probably give it a couple months, but it does suck. i'd rather have the old plan than the sony stuff.

Same here. I don't understand why they can't just do variable costs based on agreements with different labels. You know, Sony songs are $.75 a dl, Merge is $.50, etc.

Some of you guys were getting way better deals than I was, I guess. I'll be going from 50 down to 37. Not quite a deal breaker yet.

Of course the only real reason I have a subscription is that they kept offering me 75 free every time I left - happened four times this year between 2 separate accounts - and I guess that's going to stop now.

Have you guys that remained subscribers been receiving free downloads? Last month I received 25 free downloads, which brought me up to 75, and now this month they gave me 50 more dls. 100 total. Odd how they are giving away all these downloads. They say its a "thank you" for sticking with them.

Some changes that I've noticed for the worse:

1. Charts/New & Noteworthy are flooded with Sony label releases. I knew that was going to happen. You offer Thriller up or various Springsteen and people will download them over the new Dirty Projectors album. Unfortunate for smaller labels, because they aren't featured as much. Speaking of...

2. More PR for Sony than smaller labels. Obviously part of the deal. Banner ads for "Six Degrees of Nebraska" or such is taking the place where they used to announce new releases.

3. Albums are no longer 1 track = 1 credit. This is the biggest bummer. Used to be that I could use 3 credits and get a 3 track jazz record that was 70 minutes long. No more. Now, its more length-based. I was looking at a Coltrane album that was 3 songs...12 credits now. Hmmm.

I can't say why I've remained a subscriber. Maybe habit. Maybe the deluge of "free" downloads. Maybe the ease of finding an album.

Any of you still subscribers?

Yes, I'm still a subscriber, and I don't really share your overly negative view of what's changed.

For now, it's worked out OK for me. On the one hand, yes, you have 3, 4 track albums that are now 12 credits to download. Usually these are at least 40+ minute albums so technically there's no real reason they should be cheaper than albums with more tracks that may even be shorter length-wise. The whole thing where albums with fewer tracks were a better deal always seemed like more of a quirk to me, and I can't say I'm surprised that they finally changed it. I also can't say I'm surprised that they've raised their prices, although as you've mentioned, I've gotten plenty of freebies from them over these past few months.

On the positive side of the pricing change, I've been able to download a 44 track album for a reasonable 12 credits, and several others that exceed 12 tracks are now 12 credits to download as well. Unfortunately this isn't yet true of every 13+ track album, but hopefully they'll be pricing every standard-length (I'd say under an hour) album at 12 credits or less. And some albums on there in less popular genres (like, say, noise) are still one credit for one track and are a pretty good deal.

I'll hang onto my subscription until it seems like it really isn't worth it, but so far, I think it's still a reasonable deal for longtime subscribers (new subscriber plans aren't nearly as good).

Noticed the same but damn you're getting more dl's than me on the loyalty praise. I'm still finding the indie stuff fine, cause really that is what I'm looking for there. Under the "Music You'll Love" they throw out pretty good ones my way. And the "Save it" feature is great because it reins me in from the impulse buy. I've always got 35 or so albums rotating through that feature. Also, in ref to your 3rd point, I'm pretty sure I have dl'd some albums with 12 tracks for 8 credits so it has a flip side bonus to the crapper down side.

Agreed. But it still stinks when I've been a subscriber for a number of years, and this was the case. Also, my musical taste in downloads on emusic tends to be towards jazz and ambient. Two genres I've profited from on the 1:1 ratio.




Once again, I'll agree as I just downloaded a Pete Seeger record that had 20some tracks for 12 credits. I haven't found this to be the usual though, and more the exception.



Well, and really that's why I've stuck around. It hasn't become such a bad deal as to pull the plug.

I've stuck with it but reconsider every month. I got the 25 initial dls but not the other 50. When did they give you those?

I think overall 12 credits for most albums (I've dled a couple for 10) is fairly reasonable. Overall, emusic definitely isn't the bargain it once was but for $15/month I still get about 3-4 albums some of which would cost me $15 or more by themselves.

I'll stick with it a while longer but I basically see it as paying $5 an album so if something better comes along I'll go that route.

I quit late last fall when i ran out of things i was interested in from the fania label, blood & fire and several other reggae labels. It started to feel like a chore to search for 5-6 albums every month to dl. I quit before they lowered the monthly credits so my decision was unrelated to that. I know a lot of people have gone all digital and don't care about the album art, liner notes, physical cd, etc. I do though I and am more inclined to pick up a used cd for $7-8 than I am to dl something for $5. I need more of a discount for the dl to seem worthwhile.

That said, having 5-6 albums I had to dl every month did force me to pay more attention to new releases and take more flyers on newer indie stuff than I am inclined to do when I have to buy things individually. I somewhat miss having to do that a little more.

I was kind of surprised to check my emusic account today and see that loyalty bonus of 50 downloads added to my balance. Wasn't expecting that. I'm not sure how much longer I am going to stick it out with them, but I can't bring myself to quit just yet.

Hey I got the extra 50 too!

Happy birthday to me four months early!

I got the 50 free dls too which is nice, but I hate the new plans. For the same price, I now get 50 dls instead of 75.

Yeah, in the end this is what really sucks. I went from 65 to 38 I think.