New Music Business Models: Amie Street

Ok well I’m just going to put this out there- I fundamentally disagree with the concept behind this site.

If you are not familiar with the site, here’s how it works. All music starts out for free and then increases in price as more people download it. The maximum price for a track is $0.98.

My overall opinion is that rather than being a useful or advantageous pricing model, this is just a marketing gimmick. I guess it’s working – I’m talking about it, right?!

There are a lot of good artists on the site so perhaps they are doing something right, or have been able to develop a good audience. But here’s why I’m not a fan, conceptually.
1) The inherent value of music does not change based on popularity or lack thereof, so why should popularity have anything to do with pricing? The fundamental assumption seems to be that new or unknown music has less value than popular music and anyone with common sense can tell you this just ain’t so. Can anyone explain to me (yes, an open invite for responses from the founders of the site) why an artist is only entitled to make more money if they are popular?

2) It seems gimmick-y because at the end of the day, the highest price a track can rise to is all of $.98. So they’re saying that a song is only worth more when it’s popular, but when all’s said and done, it’s never worth more than $0.98? So what exactly is the point here? Why not have the conviction to carry this idea through to a more logical conclusion – the more popular a song, the more you should have to pay. After all, the more people like it, the more it must be worth right?! Not only that, but at the lower prices there is pretty much zero money to be made by the artist or Amie Street so again, its not serving a functional purpose.

3) According to the site, they say the songs start free or cheap to give fans incentive to experiment with new music. But they also offer free streaming of the tracks – isn’t this enough for a consumer to judge whether he/she wants to pay the full $0.98? Why even go through the motion of allowing people to pay peanuts for them? Obviously giving away free music has always been a useful promotional tool for artists – a way to attract new listeners, and hopefully turn them into paying fans. But the difference there is that the consumer and artist gets to make that decision – it’s not based on an overall popularity contest. As a consumer, if I find an artist I really like, whether or not I decide to spend $0.98 on them is going to have nothing to do with if anyone also likes that artist. Why, as an artist considered to be ‘unpopular’ should I be restricted to only giving away my music for free? Why should only popular artists be given the ability to make more for their music?
To artists, I’m not saying you shouldn’t participate in the site based on this; if they have a good audience then maybe it’s worth signing up in order to access that audience, but I would just say that you should be conscious of how you and your music is being treated before you sign up.

And let me just qualify this by saying I think the intention behind the site is good (check out the interview with Joshua below -he sounds like a nice guy), I’m just not convinced of the purpose or use behind the pricing model.

Here’s some alternate perspectives on the matter…make up your own mind:

TechCrunch called it “awesome”:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/23/amie-street-awesome-new-music-model

Muzzle of Bees calls it “genius”:
http://www.muzzleofbees.com/2008/02/26/digital-music-sales-amie-street

Listen to an interview with one of the founders, Joshua:
http://www.centernetworks.com/interview-with-amiestreet

I’d be interested in hearing from artists/labels/users that have used the site to shed another opinion – what they like or dislike about it etc.