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Are you a CD buyer? (What's missing to make this product more stainable?)
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V3NOM
Inactive User
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2234
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 12:05
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I always have bought cd's, never downloaded a single illegal file in my life and never plan to.
I won;t stop buying cd's until they are completely dead, until then digital just doesn't interest me.
I like a nice picture on a cover, a picture disc and that makes me happy.
A picture of the artist or dj is always cool, but costs are high now so I understand such things aren;t done.
  I hate you, you hate me, we are all so hap hap happy! |
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monno
Grapes Of Wrath
Started Topics :
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454
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 13:13
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someone mentioned greed? Ok i must say that is a very low blow dealt from the cozy confines of ones armchair. Try even breaking even with a run of 500 cd´s, while paying everybody involved what they ought to have for their work. If there was no physical media and only a download for pay model i doubt the sales would even be near 500 for a release in most cases. The ones buying the product are showing a very real way of appreciation, supporting the music they like!
In the case of downloads only free stuff is king. 10 years of studying music production and a 20000 dollar studio cannot compete with a kid and a laptop in a world where quality has become such a difficult word for people to understand.
Mastering available here:
http://www.bimmelim-soundlabs.com
http://soundcloud.com/onkeldunkel
http://www.myspace.com/onkeldunkelownz
http://www.parvati-records.com |
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Yidam
IsraTrance Full Member
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3171
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 14:35
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It's a switchover period right now so a good model would be a bit of both. An example would be the Polish producer Artha. He grabbed peoples attention with a highly acclaimed free EP release and then sealed the deal with a short run album release on a relatively new label.
Of course Artha is also a fantastic producer so the quality aspect is very important.
Compilations should be free imho, unless a cult label is releasing it, in which case newer artists jump on for promo purposes to make a workable model.
@ monno, don't think the decrease in CD prices will help the cause though I'd love to see that. Better option is to do a smaller run of CDs (200-400), up the price a bit and give the buyer something more personal than economy packaging, cutting out the middleman in the process.
CD biz on a whole though is finito... if anyone here is into events & artist management you'll know why label sharks have also changed their hunting ground.
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Dogon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
50
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8779
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 14:59
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i just ordered full Parvati Catalogue from the newest local distributor in India at around 10$ each inc shipping & all stuff, good deal u reckon?
We were born naked & grow up to become wicked. |
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monno
Grapes Of Wrath
Started Topics :
9
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454
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 17:29
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Mike A
Subra
Started Topics :
185
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3954
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 17:38
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On 2010-10-11 14:35, Yidam wrote:
It's a switchover period right now so a good model would be a bit of both. An example would be the Polish producer Artha. He grabbed peoples attention with a highly acclaimed free EP release and then sealed the deal with a short run album release on a relatively new label.
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That relatively new label would be Cronomi Records, aka myself. 
The EP release was an idea I had, and I had to convince Artha a bit because he didn't like putting out his music for free. Point was to expose his music to a wide audience, and maybe get some more sales for his album.
It did not happen. Out of 1000 pressed, less than 500 were sold.
Quote:
| BS!
If $2.50 was enough to keep a stamping factory, a store and an army of crooked cops and tax auditors happy – I don’t see why $4 wouldn’t do the same thing. When I buy a track from iTunes store for 99 cents – how much does the artist get? Are you gonna tell me that 4.00-2.50=$1.50 per CD is not enough for an artist? Are you out of your mind? Britney Spears doesn’t get paid that much. |
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BS yourself.
Let's use your numbers, ok. I made a run of 1000 cds, and I earned 1.50$ for each. Let's just assume all were sold - this makes a revenue of 1500$. That would be around 1070€.
Most artists take only this amount for an album.
Let's take the cheaper alternative - a compilation of 9 tracks where I pay really low (100€) and one of the tracks is my own. So that's 800€ to the artists.
We are left with 270€. What about mastering? Good mastering will cost you around 250-300€. Let's say it costed 270€. So now I have no money left.
But wait! Someone has to make the artwork? You gotta pay the man. Also promotion, for example a banner here on an ad on mushroom mag. We are already losing. And this is assuming that all 1000 are sold. Get the idea?
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| How do you know that I won’t buy CDs at $4 a piece? What do you think I did in the store I described earlier? Granted, those were $3 CDs, not $4. Big deal, I would’ve bought them at $4 as well. I’d rather pay $4 for a CD and go on with my life than roam through endless list of pirate blogs and download God knows what. |
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So maybe you will, but the majority of the people will not. People will prefer to download instead of buying. They wouldn't buy even if someone came to their door and offered it to them at 4$. Because they have it for free. Heck, I would do the same.
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Dogon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
50
Posts :
8779
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 17:48
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Quote:
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On 2010-10-11 17:29, monno wrote:
Well i am biased naturally, but i´d say that is a rather good deal for rather memorable music
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point!!
i am happy with the deal 
We were born naked & grow up to become wicked. |
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
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1659
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 18:15
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On 2010-10-11 11:23, DETOX wrote:
Do they have an option in Northen Africa to download those cds for free?
I seriously doubt that.
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They have the very same DSL and 3G connections available that you have. Often from the same carriers even. It's just that those cheap CDs are on every corner, and people tend to spend more time outside than hunched over their laptops, that's all. It is simply easier to pick up a CD on the street for the price of an espresso shot than to sit at your computer and crawl through pirate blogs.
On a related note: I noticed that there are some very content-rich Tunisian pirate sites out there. If my little theory here is right, that must mean that their government cracks down on “physical” piracy much harder than on the Internet kind.
Regardless, everything we discuss here is a function of several variables: the ease of getting physical records vs. downloads, the ease of buying legal downloads vs. finding pirated releases, personal preferences for physical vs. downloads, personal preferences for buying vs. pirating (known as scruples in some parts of the world ), and last but not the least – price. Every one of these factors matters. Some may be tweaked to the degree that they render others irrelevant. For example, giving music away as free downloads bypasses the issues of scruples and prices – but still does not deal with somebody’s preference for a nice plastic case with a colorful picture of Ganesh on it. Making your albums available for download the minute they are officially released takes care of the stupidest situations when an official download comes out 2 weeks after a pirated release. Etc., etc., etc…
All these factors matter. You cannot say it’s all about price or it’s all about one’s Internet connection speed or whatever else your favorite argument may be.
BTW, Ektoplazm covers all the bases here. 
And yes, CDs will be dead very soon.
All I was saying was that $4 CDs would die off much slower than $15 CDs (ceteris paribus).
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tomicdesu
Started Topics :
0
Posts :
9
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 18:50
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I actually buy all my music; I will share a bit with friends back and forth, not to "save money" but so I can hear my friends' music and they can hear mine. I buy 99% from SaikoSounds (and just this morning got my big stack from them!)
I feel really bad swiping money from my friends, and pretty much all trance music people are at least potential friends. The labels are small, mostly, few are getting rich here.
Besides money and ethics, most pirate downloads suck in quality. Just crap! Everyone gets degraded.
I do rip all my CDs, at the highest possible quality (FLAC and/or mp3 at highest VBR and least compression) and they sit on a shelf. I don't get to see album art while I play.
I would gladly pay for digital download iff: (1) highest possible audio quality, maybe even FLAC or WAV, or at least, mp3 VBR 320K. (2) album art (easy).
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DETOX
Moderator
Started Topics :
296
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6194
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 18:54
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Maine Coon the percentage of people that have internet access in countries like Egypt,Algeria,Tynusia and Morocco has to be around 25-30% based on a fast research i did online.
Also i guess internet regulations must apply to some sites since we are talking about Muslic countries here so i doubt that downloading music online is an easy task.
Yes people buy music from the streets (in illegal copies ofcourse) but the prices have to be well under 1 dollar since we are talking about poor countries here (i actually know the Egyptian reality quiet well since i deal with a lot of Egyptians in my morning business).
So to sum it up people in those countries buy illegal copies from the street for very very cheap prices because the price is cheap,they dont have computers and internet access is not available to everyone.
If they had more computers noone would buy anything.
Toodaloo Motherfuckers!!!!! |
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
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1659
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 19:23
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^
Maybe you're right. It's still about prices and availability: CDs are cheap and available to everybody on every corner - fast Internet connection may not be.
And you're right about prices too: they are about $2. Which only proves my previous point: a label (as in a printing press and a distribution system) can survive on $2 a copy. Whatever you charge on top of these $2 is what artists and engineers are paid. Britney Spears gets $1.00 from each CD (and maybe she doesn't get even that much any more). I seriously doubt that Ocelot should get more than that. And in that case - what are they charging $13 for? |
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
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1659
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 19:40
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Quote:
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On 2010-10-11 17:38, Mike A wrote:
Let's use your numbers, ok. I made a run of 1000 cds, and I earned 1.50$ for each. Let's just assume all were sold - this makes a revenue of 1500$. That would be around 1070€.
Most artists take only this amount for an album.
[...]
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Mike,
I get your calculations. It’s tough and I probably wouldn’t have enough courage to venture into this business.
But I can’t help noticing that a lot of what you’re talking about has to do with your business model. For example, who said you should pay artists and mastering engineers upfront? Who said you have to print 1000 copies? Nobody. The only “rational” answer that I can imagine here is this: “That’s how it’s always done”. That doesn’t cut it for me.
Well, here is a little fantasy of a layman who knows nothing about your line of business (yes, I mean me):
1) You don’t pay anybody upfront. Artists (music and graphic) and mastering engineers form a temporary partnership with you. They invest their time and effort into producing an album. You invest your time, effort and money into arranging physical production and distribution.
2) You don’t print 1000 CDs. Instead, you advertise the release on your Web site well in advance, collect pre-orders and use them as a crude form of market research. Then you order an estimated number of CDs needed from the very same company Ektoplazm uses. Alex does not make any secret about where their CDs come from: the link to the company’s Web site is right there, and their pricing information is just another click away. To make a long story short: they will print any number of CDs – complete with a jewel case, artwork, and shrink wrap – for $1 each. They can even package it, put your company’s return address on the package and ship it to the customer (I don’t know the price of that – you can look it up).
3) Your partnership is not a pie-in-the-sky vague verbal agreement: it’s a company with a certain ownership structure and debt subordination schedule. You are the full (and managing) partner. Everybody else is a junior partner. You hold preferred stock, they hold common stock. That means that whatever revenue comes in, you first pay to your suppliers (that CD company and the post office), then you compensate your company for the initial outlay of advertising money and Web hosting costs, then you pay your creditors (if any), then you pay the tax man (if you made any pre-tax profit). From what is left, as a preferred shareholder, you pay yourself a fixed amount of money per CD or a fixed amount of money per time unit or a fixed percentage of your initial cash outlay (whichever way you and your junior partners agree on).
Then the remaining part is split between artists and engineers according to the proportions agreed upon in your partnership’s charter.
That is, instead of paying $1000 to the producer and $200 each to the mastering engineer and the graphic designer upfront – you pay them nothing but give them 10, 2 and 2 shares of common stock in your venture. So, if $1.40 comes their way, they get $1.00, $0.20 and $0.20 respectively.
4) Because of this company structure, your break-even point will be reached much earlier than with the model you currently use: you will have to sell just enough to cover fixed costs of Web hosting and advertisement and variable costs of $1 + S&H per CD. You don’t have to worry about recovering the $1500 you paid other people involved, simply because you have not paid them yet. Can you afford to sell your CDs for $4 each under this model? Yes. Should you charge more? I can’t know that – what does your market research say?
Now, at the break-even point some may say “Unfair! Artists did not get compensated for their efforts!” Well, neither did you, right? You only recovered your cash – your time and effort are still not paid for. And once you’re in the black – you get paid a preferred dividend and others are paid a common dividend. Again, there is nothing unfair about this arrangement: since you’re the only one who took financial risks here, your profits should have a priority over everybody else’s.
Simple? Yes.
Legal? Yes.
Fair? Yes.
Will it make everybody involved tons of money? Probably not. But this model is more likely to take you out of the red than the one you’re using now.
And on top of that it proves that I was not crazy about that $4 price tag.
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DETOX
Moderator
Started Topics :
296
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6194
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 20:04
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Dear Maine Coon mentioning numbers is easy to do but trying to find the facts behind the numbers is something that very few people know and understand.
I will make myself clear since you asked what the stores charge 13 dollars per cd for.
Here is a list of FIXED expenses that a label faces for printing and distributing 1000 cds.
1) Mastering : A decent mastering costs around 200 euros.
2) Artwork : A decent artwork also costs around 200 euros.
3) CD Printing : Standard Jewell Case CD for 1000 copies costs between 700-800 euros in most European countries. And please before mentioning that someone can print in India or China or Romania or wherever take into consideration that shipping 1000 cds from one of the above mentioned countries anywhere can cost even more than the printing cost.
4) CD Distribution : Sending 1000 cds all around the world (and especially in countries like Japan and USA) costs a lot of money and is one of the biggest problems for a label. Actually distributing cds costs as much as printing them which means 70 cents per unit or 700 euros in total for all 1000 cds. Price per unit is an average one since sending 200 cds to Japan from Greece for example costs around 150 euros which is 75 cents per unit.
5) Promo CDS : Printing on your own 50 cds and sending them to various people around the world costs around 100 euros and is something essential in my humble opinion. These cds have to be sent to artists and djs, other label managers, shop owners, festival organisers and more.
6) Label Office Expenses : Maintaining a label is like maintaining any other legal form of business which requires you to own an office, an accountant and pay the label owners social security expenses. For example in my own country Greece you need to pay the following for maintaining a music label. 150 euros per month for the labels office, 100 euros per month for the accountant and 250 euros per month for the label owners social security if he is not working already somewhere else. So this means that you need a fixed 500 euros per month to maintain the label which translates into 1500 euros per cd release if a label released 4 cds a year which is one in every three months. If you dont have a legal label then you cant issue or receive invoices which means you cant pay or get payed, not in legal terms at least.
So far we have 3400 euros per release (one release in every three months like i said already).
This translates into 3.40 euros / 4.7 dollars per cd.
Keep in mind that no money have yet been payed to any artists or mechanical rights or bank transfers or taxes or VAT or distributors profit or promotion or anything else.
So i dont know how exactly you proved your point that the cost of a cd is 2 dollars because this number is innacurate to say the least.
Toodaloo Motherfuckers!!!!! |
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Yidam
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
144
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3171
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 22:24
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@ Mike A. 500 in 6 months is a pretty good roll, you'll sell those 1000 in due time.
Yes numbers are still quite pathetic. One of the reasons the whole label business turned me off years ago, one of the reasons I started to buy more music and one of the reasons we got to starting a netlabel.
@ Detox, you missed out barcode registration and copyrighting costs, ~200$.
Just one thing, it's really messed up to see digital download sites selling releases at the cost higher than a physical CD. Never got that... and it's one of the reasons to still buy CDs for tracks I'd like to spin.
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
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1659
Posted : Oct 11, 2010 22:38
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Detox,
You're right. It's not $2 per copy then. Almost half of the difference comes from everything you described in #6, which I didn't account for. And it's no wonder: those are exactly the type of things Third World pirates would skip.
Thanks for the numbers breakdown.
P.S. BTW, all the things you mentioned here, except for printing and shipping costs, will apply to legal Internet releases as well. |
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