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Digital Download dying?


fohat

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12 month ago I could see that more and more labels were offering their stuff also through Beatport and Trackitdown. I could find lot's of brandnew and back catalog releases from well known and also smaller labels. I used it a lot and was very happy to refresh my collection with single tracks and not "fillers only" compilations.

 

But what I see these days, that almost no new release is finding it's way into Beatport or Trackitdwon anymore. Would be curious why? Was it not succesful enough or is it the platforms taking so much commission that it it's not worth anymore to support this distribution channel?

 

Any ideas?

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I vaguely remember an older thread in which people were talking (or complaining) about some online stores for downloadable music have changed their prices. Maybe the thread even was about Beatport, maybe the sales have gone bad since then? I'm not sure but the thread was by Nemo I think, maybe you wanna look for it?

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Beatport will own the market if they open up and start taking all labels who want to join. All they have to do is read up on the Long Tail--it is a recipe for success for them. Instead, from what I hear, it is becoming much more difficult, as a label, to join up and offer new music through their service. Rather than working with new labels who integrate digital distribution into the basis of their enterprise, the service seems to be courting established labels already enjoying success from their physical media sales. If there is a shred of truth to any of this then they truly have lost their visionary spirit.

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by no means man, trackit down and beatport are at this point the defacto term for digital downloads in electronic music, but their own status should not be equated with state of digital downloads. Why and how are not questions i will adress here, frankly cause i can't tell for sure what's wrong, but i'm currently working in http://elementoftime.net as new option to offer music at accessible pricess, stemming not only from music but VJ material and audiovisual content. as for the music we have releases coming soon in chillout, techno, and prog as well... the real dillema we face here is creating awareness of how digital downloads are ready for prime time... It's not a battle against cd's or any other medium, but is about opening new options... personally we saw no benefit to replicate old business models to offer music which has already been releaed (and thus available in your favourite p2p program).

but that's for another conversation... there will be a full article exactly on this matter soon...

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It's not a battle against cd's or any other medium, but is about opening new options... personally we saw no benefit to replicate old business models to offer music which has already been releaed (and thus available in your favourite p2p program).

but that's for another conversation... there will be a full article exactly on this matter soon...

I don't see the point here. There *are* imho enough guys out there asking for original quality (not mp3) willing to pay for it. files on p2p networks are just useless (except of the value of prelistening whole tracks) for me and i know i am not the only one.

 

a good idea had been established by groove zone in releasing just the best tracks from older compilations in trackitdown. so no need to put in the whole back catalog in paying just for the presence of every single track.

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I don't see the point here. There *are* imho enough guys out there asking for original quality (not mp3) willing to pay for it. files on p2p networks are just useless (except of the value of prelistening whole tracks) for me and i know i am not the only one.

 

a good idea had been established by groove zone in releasing just the best tracks from older compilations in trackitdown. so no need to put in the whole back catalog in paying just for the presence of every single track.

you got a great point there, i'm not saying it's not useful to have bigshops with back-catalogues of their music, that's clearly an advantage. from my perspective, we did not see the need to go out there and compete in that market of who's got the most selection, because it did not seem like wise move. Instead we're simply focusing of musique a la carte, select releases, quality music, no fillers. There's still shops out there that did that and specialized only music that's already released and they went down as well... It's a tough market for sure.

 

The problem is digital music is being offered with the same price tag as CD on some places, when the value is clearly not there... I love having my cd collection, i got something to show for and a portable hard drive will not make up for it, so we charge less money for a compilation ($10.99 for WAV). Likewise, files can get lost easily, so we offer options to download tracks up to 4 times... and that file is there for you for 365 days, so whenever it gets lost we are also storing it and you can retreive at any point. anyway, enough evangelization...

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I don't see the point here. There *are* imho enough guys out there asking for original quality (not mp3) willing to pay for it. files on p2p networks are just useless (except of the value of prelistening whole tracks) for me and i know i am not the only one.

 

a good idea had been established by groove zone in releasing just the best tracks from older compilations in trackitdown. so no need to put in the whole back catalog in paying just for the presence of every single track.

No way. Put the whole back catalog up. Put everything up. Put every track that someone might possibly want up for sale. Put it all. And give us an intelligent way to search for it. Give us a way to recommend stuff we like. Give us, as users, a way to interact with one another. More content plus smart ways to find appealing material is the golden recipe for profit and success in the new digital music market.

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No way. Put the whole back catalog up. Put everything up. Put every track that someone might possibly want up for sale. Put it all. And give us an intelligent way to search for it. Give us a way to recommend stuff we like. Give us, as users, a way to interact with one another. More content plus smart ways to find appealing material is the golden recipe for profit and success in the new digital music market.

I am talking about how things are actually working and not about wishes things should be. For the wishes I agree 10000%

 

But as long as the download platforms are asking for flat fees just for the presence of tracks (and not only for comission in sales) there will be no chance to get whole back catalogs listed. The economic risk is way too high. That's why I thought the idea of Groove Zone is not that bad in putting up bestof tracks from their back catalog.

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