Lady Gaga Says $0.99 Albums Make Sense, Especially For Digital
from the understanding-how-this-works dept
You may have heard that Amazon did a deal recently with Lady Gaga, in which it offered up her entire new album for $0.99. While Amazon did have some technical difficulties in making this work, it resulted in some mindless criticism, in places, that Gaga was "devaluing" her own work. We hear this argument all the time, when it comes to free music, as well -- where people suggest that giving away music "devalues" the music. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between price and value. Just because something is cheap, it doesn't mean that the value is diminished.In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, where Lady Gaga is asked directly about this issue, she almost seems offended, and notes that, especially when it comes to digital, pricing an album at $0.99 is perfectly reasonable, since it helps spread the music. After being asked if she thought her album was "worth" more than $0.99, she emphatically replied:
"No. I absolutely do not, especially for MP3s and digital music. It’s invisible. it’s in space. If anything, I applaud a company like Amazon for equating the value of digital versus the physical copy, and giving the opportunity to everyone to buy music."This isn't too surprising, given Gaga's previously stated views on her use of free to get her music out there, as well as her encouragement of people to download unauthorized copies. However, it's nice to see her make this point again.
Now, to be fair, she also notes that Amazon covered "the difference" with these albums as part of a promotion -- meaning that she (well, her label) got more than $0.99, but that's a separate issue than the whole question of the "perception" from giving away the music at such a low price.
Later in the interview, she makes another point that we've been making for a while, which is that record labels certainly make sense for some people, but the exciting thing today is that you don't "need" the label any more. She points out that she certainly needs her label, which is great, but that many artists don't need to go that route, saying, "not everybody needs a record label" any more. She also points out that the really valuable thing she's done is build a really strong connection with her fans, and it's that kind of authentic connection that makes her audience so valuable. These are all points that plenty of us have been making for years, and it's great to see such a prominent musician making the same points.
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Filed Under: business models, economics, free, lady gaga, music
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Re: Money Smart...
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Of course she doesn't care
But it is nice to here her speak out for reasonable priced music. The industry probably wants a million more Gagas ( they just wish they could price her higher ).
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Re: Of course she doesn't care
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http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/22/lady-gaga-oprah-winfrey-business-entertainment-celeb-100- 10_land.html
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Makes complete sense.
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http://www.docstoc.com/docs/78232116/Midwasteland
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Hell, I'd gladly give you explicit written permission to do so...
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I'll just point 'em to this comment :P
I've tried DocStoc. Holy cow. Can't get past the "sign up for premium membership" page. Any tips (or other links?)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Makes complete sense.
Whatever, just email me at tim at diggrp.com and let me know what form you'd like it in (PDF/EPUB/DOC/DOCX)...
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Re: Makes complete sense.
Email sent.
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The biggest and top selling artist in the world right now is telling you what we've been saying all along.
The change is coming!
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Good For Lady Gaga
They'll make it all back on the tours.
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The only difference? She's a total media whore and knows how to get coverage everywhere, including here.
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I guess that makes perfect sense. I mean, if I wanted to buy an album, I probably wouldn't buy it at the cheapest price point available, you know, because I'm not a human being.
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You would want the low price point, but I doubt very many people actually got it.
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She knows she doesn't get paid on album sales
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/06/02/136852702/born-this-way-and-the-end-of-the-alb um-as-we-knew-it
btw, 440,000 of those 1 million copies were the $0.99 amazon downloads. not to shabby.
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Value vs Price vs Worth
Now, we can define "Worth" as the total benefit (including both monetary and other benefits) to an individual or society. Clearly, cultural works like music, art, and film have great worth to our society.
Price is, of course, separate from Worth. In fact, Price for a work should _always_ be less than the Worth of a good (but perhaps somewhat more than it cost to produce). If a good were not worth at least the price, no one would buy it.
From the perspective of the consumer, "Value", then, is the difference between Worth and Price. The greater the difference, the more Valuable the good is to the consumer.
I say all this because it speaks directly to the idea the a low price for an album devalues it. In fact, we see here that the opposite is true: lowering the price of an album _increases_ the value created from the work.
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Boycott the RIAA
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HIGH prices that devalue products
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Unless you're trying to argue that they're worthless because you can't resell them, which is a hilariously poor argument, as people have paid for unresellable services since the beginning of time.
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As an example, I'll use Good Old Games. They sell older videogames and try and ensure compatibility with modern tech. Now, for most of these games, there is no DRM. However, there is a premium, and the items are all in one place. The value here is convenience.
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From the article:
Hopefully we start to see more albums priced like this.
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Good Gaga
Had to laugh at the idiot interviewing her; he sounded so appalled at the 99 cent deal. LOL
To me her music has zero value as I've only just heard of her about 2 weeks ago and am not at all interested (yeah, I know, never mind...) but more power to her. May she never travel the path of Brittany Spears.
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Lady Junk
A world without music would be like a world without air to breathe, absolutely unlivable.
Last I checked, air is still free.
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Saying artists don't need labels is fine when you're signed to Universal - who sealed deals with Amazon, Farmville, Best Buy and HBO to promote your new album.
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