O'Reilly Network Weblogs: EMusic is a freedom-proof business model

Published on The O'Reilly Network (http://www.oreillynet.com/)
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3592

EMusic is a freedom-proof business model

by Lucas Gonze
Aug. 1, 2003
URL: http://emusic.com

I feel awkward ranting about a product -- it makes my sense of skepticism hurt, but it's worth it to me because what's good for EMusic is good for everyone. The labels want us to believe that we have to give up freedom to get music. That's simply not true: EMusic is a freedom-proof business model for the music industry.

MP3s. No DRM. High audio quality -- 192k VBR.
The client software is excellent from an engineering perspective. Minimal and useful rather than bloated and timewasting. Runs on Linux.
The design is respectful of users. No assumption that the user is a criminal. Few download limits. An appreciation for non-evil business methods.
Users love it more over time, not less. People keep their subscriptions for a long time. Like HBO, staying in business requires the company to make its customers happy.
A different way of thinking about the music business. The company sells a really great discovery tool, something that helps you browse rather than something that helps you acquire hits. It doesn't hurt EMusic if you share, because you're sharing the bytes instead of the browsing experience.
Levels the playing field for musicians, since it enables users to find great stuff they've never heard of. If the recording industrywere built around discovery services like EMusic, middle class musicians would be the big winners.
Owned by Vivendi Universal, which is jarring because it's so clueful and they're so clueless. If you're boycotting the RIAA, you should make an exception for EMusic, since the success of EMusic will encourage RIAA members to compete on value rather than intimidation.
The only geek-friendly commercial music service. Calculate audio fingerprints, chop up your downloads into samples, normalize volumes, browse with Gronk, edits the tags, whatever. You have the freedom to tinker.
Good for freedom. When you download something from EMusic, you own it. When you buy an EMusic sub, you show that the recording industry can do well and do good at the same time.
An outrageously good value for your money.

Shawn Yeager is the former iTunes store lover who moved to Canada and found his collection revoked by Apple. Shawn's a good guy who I know a little bit -- here's a snippet from an email he sent me:

BTW, EMusic is fantastic. Thanks for the push, though you may not have known you did it. :)

Ok, it's hokey to collect testimonials. But it matters when the alternative is to believe that freedom and music are incompatible.

Lucas Gonze works on Webjay, XSPF, and a survey of playlist formats.