eMusic subscribers sound off

The "99 cent gold standard" for iTunes tracks is a myth. It only applies if you buy singles songs at a time. If you buy whole albums, the price per track falls as the number of tracks goes up. Albums can even be cheaper at iTunes than eMusic at the old prices if they have a lot of tracks...and iTunes and Amazon often have albums on sale for $7.99 or $5.99. With the new prices, why have a subscription at an inferior site which will still feature far less content? Many albums will be similarly priced on all three services. eMusic has always competed on a price advantage and they are losing that advantage. That and the rabid grassroots subscriber base are what have kept them going in their niche.

With the eMusic website growing more decrepit and broken by the day and the ham handed way things are being run, I'm sad to say this is looking very much like the beginning of the end for eMusic.

eMusic haven't got a clue what they're doing. Ask any subscriber who has been with the service for a few years and you'll hear the same complaint. They introduce much ballyhooed features and content, which, often than not is half-baked.

I stayed with eMusic despite their foul ups in the past, this time it's different, I'm not cancelling, but that's because my account is annual and paid up, it doesn't expire until next year. It won't be renewed.

I have used eMusic since 1997 licensing music for compilations. I signed up for the service when it was $14.99 with unlimited downloads. i just got off the phone with a "supervisor" who could not explain to me why the services was changing. She kept saying but we now have Sony. My only answer was great, you have gotten in to the "death" bed with the majors. I hope you have a skill because you certainly won't have a job soon. What a shame. I really loved the service. Why would ANYONE at eMusic think that someone downloading the ESP catalog would be excited about the addition of Sony? I currently get 65 downloads for $14.99 and now I will get 37. She actually said but that is now your plan, like as if I was supposed to say, "YEAH, awesome, thank you!" I asked her if her insurance company did this with their service would you remain a client and she said no. I asked her what do you expect your current users to do then? Her response, "but that is now your new plan." The Music industry has become so bloated and lazy nothing but actual people who love music could save it but unfortunately no one at a major label seems to even like music. What a shame. Funny, how listening to Walmart and American Idol hasn't made the current state of music even slightly interesting, who would have thought? I mean come on Walmart and American Idol are so great. Music will never die, creative people will always exist and part of that creativity is sharing your talents. No one says you can’t make money from what you love but when that becomes the focus then you aren’t making music you are just making money. When that happens then you are just making widgets. Crap in will always equal crap out. I hope eMusic is smart enough to tell Sonny to "f" off and go back to being a portal for interesting and important music not just another distributor of pablum.

the update states that they are not seeing many cancellations - that's because the changes are not effective until July & most folks who are having their monthly accts slashed (mine goes from 90 DL's/mo for $20 to 50/mo for the same price - an 82% price increase)will wait until July or August (when we get the token 25 free DL's) to do so - I would check back w/her in late Aug or Sept.

People are not canceling because there good deals run through a wide range of months in the future. My subscription is good until October when I will be rewarded with a 70% song reduction per month and a 10% price reduction. And in addition I get Sony. Don't worry I am not dumb enough to cancel today--but I ain't renewing in October. Did you really look at the blog post--have you ever seen a more consistent group of comments at a blog space which usually creates a wide range of views

What isn't being mentioned is the fact that many people use eMusic very very differently than they use iTunes or Amazon. I go to those sites specifically for individual songs or, less often, to download a full album. I go to eMusic to discover and sample music I didn't even know existed before, whether old gospel tracks from the 1920's, little heard Bedouin music, psychedelic music from Peru, indie pop from Scandinavia, you name it. My current plan, which gives me 90 downloads a month, encourages that sort of approach. If eMusic raised their rates 10%, even 20%, I'd still be a loyal customer.But my rates will double, and I'll be in a position to second guess, to think twice before sampling new music. And this changes the landscape dramaticaly....
Incidentally, I have a new release on a fairly established indie label distributed by eMusic. They knew nothing about this, were not alerted by eMusic and have no reason to believe that the royalties they receive will increase. So much for that story.

Um, have you checked the claim for increased royalties to artists? Or are you simply rewriting a company claim? As far as I know, increasing royalties is something the big music companies almost never do, Actually, I think they are all pretty famous for this. And every time they are about to cheat some indie artist, they tell the press they're going to raise royalties, and the press prints this, even though it is almost never true.

Brian C is absolutely right. On eMusic I could afford to be adventurous and sample all kinds of things. Now, not so much. And why? So I can access to downloading loads of music I already know about? Meaning I already own it or don't care to.

We're talking about this on the rock block, http://rocktownhall.com

They did this surreptitiously, by automatically boosting the prices of the plans while simultaneously decreasing the number of downloads for your current plan, come July 1.

That's bad business, and once I get through my 50 songs, I'm dumping them.

I suppose I'm just one of the many furious soon to be former emusic customers but I can't help but ask, does anyone have a clue how we can reach these people to try and find a middle ground? So lets say they actually do need to increase the price for music. I'll pay it. Just don't come to us with a price hike and reduced downloads in the name of the sony back catalog. Why can't they keep the number of downloads the same, raise the cost a reasonable amount and dump this whole load of sony BS?

I know it seems ridiculous but I've actually lost sleep over this. I'm trying to work every angle I have to set anything in motion to stop this nonsense. Chris is right. Nobody is canceling right now because they have remaining downloads. It's going to be a slow painful death but mark my words, this is the beginning of the end for emusic.

I couldnt believe when I read this how upset I was. Who the hell thought that this would be a good move? I dont get it. And on top of that, they are going to keep it where for 75 songs you have to commit to three months. I just dont get it. My thing about cancelling is that if I start seeing less of the indies and obscure music that I liked this site for, then I will be cancelling also.

In Oct. 06 I received an email from eMusic stating the following…
“If you are happy with your current plan, simply do nothing. Your old plan will be GUARANTEED as long as you keep your account active and in good standing.”

I have in no way deviated from the agreement I made with you. When one party says that they will GUARANTEE a service/product the buyer has every right to expect that GUARANTEE to be honored unless of course while using the product the BUYER violated any of the terms.

The words Commitment, Character, Integrity, Respect, Honesty, Accountability, Morals and Values come to mind when I make an agreement. I fail to see any of that on eMusic’s part.

Emusic may not have seen many cancellations yet, but they just removed a major incentive for members maintaining a subscription month-in month-out: there's no financial cost for opting out of the plan for a few months out of the year. Members will lose their ability to re-download songs they've already purchased (a nice, but not particularly necessary benefit). One reason I haven't cancelled: holding out hope that they may have a change in heart offer a little more to long-term subscribers. And one thing I'm fairly sure of: the marketing department's decision to peg the price change to the Sony deal demonstrates a phenomenal misunderstanding of who emusic's most loyal members are; they really bungled this. A price hike before making any announcement about Sony, and with a thoughtful explanation of how the increase would be going to the independent labels already on emusic, would have been far more appropriate and easily understood by the emusic members, who care about the well-being of indie labels, but certainly not of Sony. Talk about a tin ear.

This is a crazy move on their part. In these tough econimic times people want better deals, and theyre doing just the opposite. Geesh!
When their income drops maybe they will realize the mistake they made.
Take care,
Blazing Hot Concepts

yep, i'm quitting right after i burn through my current downloads and the 30 "i'm sorry to raise your rates and ruin the company with the Sony back catalogue" tracks. what a sad event...it was good while it lasted.

I was wondering what happened to the cretins who had to leave Enron and Lehman Brothers after driving the companies into the ground. Apparently, they've joined emusic. Sure, it hurts to see prices shoot up and your downloads halved but boy oh boy I can't wait to get my hands on all those classic Billy Ocean CDs that will now be available thanks to the Sony deal. Emusic, you were once a great thing, but you deserve all the lost revenue you got coming your way. Wouldn't be surprised if Sony's "deal" was designed to take you out of the picture. Bet you guys got nice little incentives; enjoy them before you wind up in the unemployment line.

In the sort of remarkable blunder that will go into the biz school casebooks next to "New Coke", eMusic has alienated it customer base in order to reposition itself as iTunes Lite. It may not have seen any immediate cancellations from its infuriated subscribers, but neither will you hear it claiming 400,000 subscribers in September.

This is silly - why couldn't emusic charge an extra fee for people that *want* Sony. I don't think that emusic should punish existing loyal customers for acquiring a new label. Why not just charge an extra $5 or similar for people that *want* Sony music? (similar to premium cable channels)...or offer Sony discounted as a boost on emusic. Christ - I have a year paid 75 DLs @ 191, with the new pricing tiers I will have 171 @ 35 DLs a month. So what is the benefit here?

I'll be leaving once I use up my current downloads and my "surprise" booster pack. emusic's prices made it easy to download artists you'd never heard of *just to give them a listen* - now that will be impossible. Shrug. But they will have lots of mainstream music available for download.

I went to cancel my 50/$14.99 account and was offered 25 free tracks to stay. I took the 25 free tracks, will stay until I get the 15-track "booster pack" and cancel then.
I wonder how often they'll offer the free tracks to not cancel?

It utterly makes sense to raise prices to help independent labels, but this is hardly how Emusic framed the decision in Stein's announcement. We were told that Sony would be added to the catalogue and nothing about the pricing structure.

If they had simply used some common sense and tact, they probably could have avoided most of the backlash.

I think ultimately the will have a huge negative affect on the indie artists that emusic used to support. I can't tell you how many bands I have discovered because of the ability to take a chance on an artist due to a high number of monthly downloads. Now bands that I may have found through emusic I may never here, never go to their shows when they come through my town, not be able to buy there merch, and generally support them in ways that are more profitable to them than the money made from their emusic downloads.

@AM - Confirmed, I just did the same thing, and got a 25 booster pack too.

My plan was similar to yours. I was going to put my plan on hold, then come back in August to start it back up, get my booster pack and then leave.

FYI, below is the letter I recently sent to eMusic...

Dear eMusic:

I've been a loyal eMusic customer for a few years now ...And by "loyal," I mean that not only do I love your service, but since I became a subscriber, whenever the subject of digital music came up in conversation, I always made it a point to bring up eMusic, then literally praise it and urge others to subscribe. That being said, I am highly disappointed with the changes you plan on implementing in July.

I understand after reading the letter from your CEO that the upcoming rate hike is mainly due to a) adding the entire Sony music catalog, and b) the hope that eMusic will now gain further attention from other major labels. Granted, 40-50 cents per track is still a better deal than most digital download services and therefore makes eMusic attractive to prospective customers, but I think you've lost sight of the fact that the new pricing structure is a very significant hit to your existing customer base. I could understand an occasional increase of a few cents/month or even an extra dollar or two per month (like last year), but with this new price change in July, you're literally just about doubling the cost to current subscribers.

I'm currently on a plan that provides me 75 tracks/month - and being the music addict that I am, I need this higher plan considering my "Saved For Later" list hasn't dipped below 200 albums in quite a while. But now, in order to get the exact same number of downloads per month, I'm expected to pay $31/mo. instead of my current $16/mo.?! ...This is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion - in fact, when I read the new plan options, I honestly thought it was a mistake at first.

Granted, for this higher price, I will now be able to download albums from the Sony catalog, but the reality is that I never asked for this. Instead, I was simply told that I will have to pay twice as much for something I didn't want. Even if I had petitioned eMusic for the addition of the Sony catalog, I would've said "no thanks" as soon as you told me that it would practically double the cost of my subscription in order to get it.

Though it's been a tough decision given my previous love and advocacy for eMusic, I'm very sad to report that due to the lack of accommodating options for existing subscribers and the general inconsideration displayed by your company surrounding the proposed changes, I plan on cancelling my eMusic subscription out of principal when my renewal comes due in November (unless something drastically changes in the meantime).

Please keep in mind the voice of a concerned loyal customer before going through with the proposed changes.

Thank you for your consideration.

The reason E-Music hasn't seen many cancellations yet is because they make it ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO CANCEL. I put my account on a 3 month hold, and while in hold THERE IS NO OPTION TO CANCEL ANYWHERE ON THE SITE, and that is probably illegal. No different than the A-HOLES over at Audible.com - what another joke they are!