Downloading Jukebox Gives More Evidence That The Music Industry Doesn't Get It

Culture

from the let's-try-this-again... dept

Earlier this month we wrote about a bar owner who built his own ultimate jukebox by ripping all of his own CDs, and including a nice front end that would even tell people no when it decided a song had been “played out”. At the time, I said it seemed silly that someone should go through the trouble of having to rip all their own CDs for such a product, when the music should just be accessible over the internet. In the comments, someone mentioned that a company named Ecast offered such an internet jukebox, and according to this article the way it’s used is surprising many in the music industry. The industry execs predicted that only a small percentage (15 – 20%) of the available CDs would ever get played via the system. That’s because they still believe in the lowest common denominator system of music. They believe consumers are sheep and they all want to listen to the same mass-produced, overhyped musical act. Turns out (surprise, surprise) that isn’t true. Ecast found that over a 3-month period 98% of the CDs in Ecast’s library are accessed for download. In other words, people like all different kinds of music – and are willing to pay to get access to it. In fact, Ecast also added a feature that lets people pay extra (an additional $2.50) to move their song to the top of the playlist, and many people pay up for that kind of service.