New York – While many in the Jewish music business have forecast the end of the industry due to rampant copying and illegal downloading, one music distributor has taken matters into its own hands, by addressing consumers’ main complaints and meeting them head on.
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According to Mostly Music, which distributes albums under the name Aderet Music, two often cited reasons for illegal duplication of music are the cost of new albums and the time involved in either going out to buy new music or complicated download procedures on music websites. In response to feedback from the public, Mostly Music has taken it upon themselves to tackle both of these issues by lowering the price on downloads and by introducing new software that makes downloading music from the site almost instantaneous.
“With the old system, after buying an album as a download, the customer would receive a link via email which they had to click on, download the file, unzip it and put in a particular directory on their hard drive,” Sruly Meyer, director of marketing at Mostly Music told VIN News. “With our new downloader all you need to do is buy the download, open up the program, refresh the screen and all your music is right there waiting for you.”
The standalone downloader has been under development at Mostly Music for the past six months and Meyer hopes that its convenience will encourage more listeners to obtain their music in a manner that is halachically appropriate.
Additionally, in an exclusive announcement to VIN News, Mostly Music has revealed plans to lower its price on all full album downloads to $9.99 in the upcoming weeks, with prices on older albums being dropped even further. The first album to be offered at the new low price is Lipa Schmeltzer’s Leap of Faith, which was released this morning.
“People complain that CD prices are too high, that going to the store is inconvenient and time consuming and that downloads are too complicated,” said Meyer. “We hope that by promoting lower priced downloads and providing a simple, legal and inexpensive way to download music, people will be more likely to buy music instead of copying it from a friend.”
Meyer admitted that currently, in the case of almost every new release, not enough people buy CDs to justify the amount of money invested in them and that the Jewish music business will be in serious jeopardy if the practice of illegal copying and downloading isn’t brought to a halt.
“We asked for feedback from the public and we got it,” said Meyer. “We have addressed those concerns because we don’t want anyone to have any excuse not to purchase music legally and easily. We heard you. We made the changes you asked for. The ball is back in the consumer’s court now and we hope that you respond in kind.”
If they aren’t making money on the CDs because of their investment and they keep making CDs, they should not complain!
From the way they krechtz all the time, one would think even if everyone who copied the CD would have purchased it, they still wouldn’t have made money.
I believe that people will continue copying..Yiddishe customers as well as not yiddishe want to get it all for FREE if possible…Maybe stop producing new cds for a few years and this will change their misbhavior or maybe find sponsors to introduce jewish music..
Also it would be great if we can buy individual hit songs for about 99c that would be very popular and they would sell like wildfire..
Mark, they are saying they arent making because more people are stealing their product than buying it. If a silver company kept making leichter and more people were stealing their leichters from the silver stores than buying them would you say they should stop making leichter or they should combat stealing?
Yossi, see above.Also – If something is taken which has a price tag but is not paid for, that is not considered free, it’s considered stealing.
The Jewish music business is going through the same transition as the rest of the music business.
1. People don’t even want CD’s anymore.
2. Many people only want to buy one or two songs, not a whole album of 80% mediocre music.
3. The cost of producing strictly downloadable music is a small FRACTION of the cost of producing an album on CD, cassette, etc.
Secular artists know there there is no more money in producing CD’s. They don’t really make anything at all on the album anymore, the record company takes whatever profit there is. Today, these artists make 90% of their money by performing LIVE.
This sometimes means doing longer tours and playing smaller venues for less money per show.
I remember when Kenny G. was still playing weddings, even after his first big tour because he had such a bad record deal that he barely got a dime.
The music business has changed and those who are unwilling to change with it will get left behind.
I agree with #3. Also will it be as easy to download as iTunes?
Although these distributors predict otherwise, I will respectfully disagree with them and voice my opinion that the Jewish music industry is not, and will not, come to an end.
The problem that the industry encounters, which is that most people copy albums rather than purchasing them wasn’t born now, it has been happening ever since CD’s replaced tapes. The artists have been losing money on every album they released all this time; yet not only they still keep releasing new ones, but they also spent close to $100,000 for top quality music and studios!
Why?
Why would they invest so much time and money on an album that they surly know it won’t bring them any profit? And why spend so much on it when you can do it for cheaper?
The reason for that is because they’re not in the releasing albums business; they’re in the singing and preforming business. If they want to be able to charge $1,500-5,000 per wedding, or $5,000-50,000 for a concert, they better keep releasing top quality albums, build up their names, make sure everyone speaks about them, and keep up to date because otherwise people will forget about them, and then they can go look for another job.
Now don’t challenge me with MBD, who at the release of his previous album said that since he doesn’t make any money on albums he won’t be making them anymore. He has been releasing albums for the past 20-30 years, and all the time (especially the past 10-15 years) more people were copying than purchasing, which means that he probably lost money, but still kept coming out with new ones. And why did he do that? Just like the other ones; to build his name so he can make money in other ways.
Moreover, he is already a senior singer, everyone already knows all about him. His fans will always love him and keep using him, and the people who dislike his style will never use him anyway. For him name building, (almost) doesn’t apply anymore, and therefore he has no financial advantage by investing in an album.
Finally, who says that is really what’s going to happen? I won’t be surprised if he does pop out on day with a new album…
i just bought the lipa album, and it was Ok. not very fast, but fast enough. i had an issue getting into my new account. but I did not need to download the Mostly Music player, that they wanted to push on me. i just saved $8-9 over buying in a store, and $115 on a parking ticket
They should probably not reduce the prices of CD’s because today, if you have Apple Itunes, you can easily share the music and that is not illegal. I am sure that of course, it will be good and people will buy more music. As for me, I have noone to share with… but of course, I have bought quite a few CD’s from Mostly Music. They are pretty good and I will buy more if the prices fall sometime too. I do not usually download but I suppose that is a good way to go. I have all my CD’s on my Apple Itunes today and of course I might be able to download right into there. Either way, if you look at music today, most secular music you can get on Ebay for 2-5 $ a CD so it makes a 14 $ CD from Mostly Music an expensive investment.
To Part 1, 2 and PMOinFL –
Quick note – iTunes is a one of a kind system that they have copyrighted and pattented. There is no other music downloading service like it because they will sue you if you try to copy what they built. In fact, any app that has ever been made to enable stores to allow downloads direct to your apple device are removed and banned from the appole store.
Now, a couple points about album sales.
The numbers I’m goign to share are not guesses. They are numbers direct from the distributors. If you want, call them, ask to sit down, and they will be more than glad to confirm what I’m saying.
1) Producing an album costs the same whether you release it on cassette, CD, download, or invite someone to your home to listen to it. There is PRODUCING a CD, which involves costs of first hiring a producer, buying song(s) from a composer, paying an arranger (some charge as much as $3000 a song), musicians, studio time which is very costly because its anywhere from 75-100 an hour, and they do the engineering, comping, vocal time in the booth, editing, and then of course paying for mixing and mastering. THEN, only then, do you spend any money on duplicating it. The different between releasing it on an actual CD and just releasing it online is a fraction of the cost of the overall price tag.
In fact. Since downloads only bring in 10-12 dollars, and they split that with the download website, they get about 5 or 6 dollars a cd. If they sell a cd they get closer to 8 or 10 dollars a cd. The market is still selling 80/20 in favor of CD’s, not downloads.
That is also the biggest proof that people DO want CDs. Because the people who do like music and are fans and are mostly buying CD’s are the 80 percent.
2) You are 100% right that in the secular world artists make almost nothing off of cd sales. Allthough the big names, Lehavdil, their MBD and Frieds. Do quite well. Thats why once you are big, you usally establish your own label, as has been the practice for the last 15-20 years. (See Matisyahu now under Fallen Sparks records, when he did not renew with Sony, or they did not renwew with him, depending on who you ask)
Yes, they make money off gigs, and not the big ones, as you wrote, you are dead on. The big players get tens of millions of dollars. Justin Beiber earned 65 million last year in cocnert sales. The smaller people do shows in clubs, music cafes, colleges, etc. It’s not ane asy business for the middle and lower level secular artists.
LAST ONE …
BUT, and this is the huge but, the distributors (and stores) do not make a single penny off any of Shwekey, Fried, Lipa, Miami etc’s shows. Not one red cent. If an artist releases a CD and the distributor investedor paid upfront for a lot of albums, if they have a hit songs, or well liked CD, they can go from $600 a night at a wedding to $1200 or higher. They get asked to be on HASC or OHEL or sell out large theaters in Israel and France. They dont make money on the CD. true.
Here it comes … if the CD doesnt sell what it needs to make back its investment the artist still benefits, but the distributior and stores lsoe their pants.
That’s the real issue here. Copying music does not hurt the artists. If the CD is good, whether it sells or not, the artist makes it big and starts making a living doing shows. BUT – the distributor is left with 10,000 CDs that didnt go anywhere because everyone copied it and emailed it to their friends.
Everyone wins, except the guys who wrote the check for the 10,000 CD’s upfront.
I have a problem, that they scratch so fast, i spend alot of money on CD’s we listen to it for a few weeks and then it cant be used anymore, I feel like in the 1980’s with the record player, u have to run to it every few minutes to shake it.
I believe that although producing CD’s may be a losing proposition it is an advertisment. If the CD rocks you will pay them to sing at your next chasna or concert. So they make it back Don’t feel bad. They still make plenty of $$.
People stopped buying music, because the music is not like it uses to be. Singers that lost there voice still give out albums. Some of the new singers just have no talent.
They need to let you download individual songs like the non jewish music sites. They could charge $2.50 easily
This is about changing economics in the industry. The industry, including the Jewish music world no longer tolerates $16.99 as a price point for an album. The going rate is now $9.99. While I prefer to support Jews, I bought many of my Jewish albums on Amazon as the prices there were almost always lower than through seforim stores or Jewish websites.
Artists need to embrace the behaviors of their audience, they need to deliver for their audiences if they want to become profitable. This demands rethinking revenue. I know at least two names in the field who said that a good CD is at best break-even, and they make their money in concerts and simchas.
Who even owns a cd player?
No one has mentioned the fact that the QUALITY of Jewish music is generally very poor. To my ears most of it is SOOO repetitive…how many ‘oy oy oys’ can a person take. An entire album can sound like one long, continuous, monotonous song. And when some kid starts screeching (which for some reason is mislabelled as ‘singing’) it just drives me up the wall. I sometimes can’t stomach shopping in a kosher supermarket or Judaica store because of the terrible piped-in music bombarding the shoppers from overhead. Thankfully, there are alternatives — Moshav Band, Diaspora Yeshiva Band, Soul Farm, Blue Fringe and the like — but they are few and far between the Oy Oy Oyers who don’t have the musical inventiveness to deserve to have their stuff sell to begin with.