eMusic Strikes Deal With Sony Music, Raises Monthly Price to $12

Music download service eMusic announced on Monday that it had struck a licensing deal with Sony Music. Sony will be including some of its older catalog releases in eMusic’s library of more than 5.5 million tracks later this year.

eMusic is a subscription service that gives users a allotted number of tracks for a monthly fee. As part of the recent Sony deal, the company has raised its price from $10 a month to $12, and lowered the allotment of tracks from 30 per month to 24. Some quick math shows that the price per track jumped from 30 cents to 50 cents.

eMusic is cheaper than iTunes, but it doesn’t give as much money to the artists, which has made licensing deals with labels much more difficult. The bottom line is people buying music in bulk for a cheaper price, which means more sales, argues eMusic. Furthermore, the songs don’t contain digital rights management (DRM), giving subscribers the ability to transfer music between devices.

The new pricing might attract more labels, and help provide users with more songs. The first deal with a major label has granted The Clash, Bruce Springsteen and Outkast to eMusic’s catalog, but the extra $2 a month could deter new subscribers. I think it’s too steep; each track needs it’s own price, updated dynamically depending on popularity, and a digital download shouldn’t cost anywhere near the physical version.

Are you willing to pay more for the inclusion of major label artists in digital music markets like eMusic?

[LATimes]