There is a whole lot more to these issues than just ‘illegal downloads’. Not to go on too much about it, but digital music is an infinite resource. It can be copied over and over again, and no one ever looses anything. To me the issue is figuring out what will attract fans (often the music, and interaction with an artist), then giving a reason to buy.

It is great to see new methods being trialled, and advertisements are a popular way to make things viable. I’m a bit sceptical of this, as people will find ways to ignore or get around the ads. In the end, music is a ‘loss-leader’. It’s promotion. There will always be problems until a scarce good is being sold, not an infinite one. eg. I’d rather pay for the artist’s time and effort in making the music (a scarce resource), than pay for a computer file (an infinite resource). It’s really all about how it’s positioned.

Hi gofindjp,

There is a strong belief that these industries aren’t keeping up with the latest technologies and so it is staying up with what consumers want.

Consumers in a general sense want to be able to get music ‘now’ and online and not have to go down to a store and buy a CD. A CD they would then have to load into their computer to listen, when they could just get it straight on their computer.

Nothing stops a consumer to lend that CD to their friends and their friends to give to their friends. I’m sure some do, but a lot don’t. So to sue the people that buy their products, and to sue their friends might be hurting the industry and not helping.

There is a huge debate and hundreds, if not thousands of thoughts and comments about what the music industry is doing at the moment. So if something like Guvera gives the end consumers the ability to download music for free and the big companies still get money it might be a solution that works.

I personally think that the industry can’t depend on one solution for profits, and that they can’t keep the same business model when the world around them keeps on changing (and progressing with technological advancements)… (What about the artist?)

Jason

Not all songs are available iTunes and certain artists, companies aren’t available. This goes to my point that you can’t be dependant on one particular model/ avenue.

Also business who work through iTunes have complained about their pricing policy the apple has enforced in the past.

Good to see you mentioned that “normally” people wont share songs they have downloaded on iTunes.

I see your point on value, but what if you applied that concept to a friend giving you a CD? The value to the friend is low as they wouldn’t get the CD themselves. So do you count that as a loss for the industry, or do you count that as potential value that the friend may enjoy it and place a greater value on the next CD in future?

Guvera still puts a value on each song, as from what I can tell a user will have go through an channel which is heavily marketed to download the song. Which the user is aware of that it will cost that advertiser money. So the user knows that if “I” download song a, from Coke it will cost Coke $1.50 (or whatever the cost is).

I think in time and if the service gets popular, Guvera will find that Coke wont place such a great value on the song (as if a million people download the song in a week, the cost may be to high).

I’m interested to see how Guvera turns out, but until they open the gates and we can use the service I’m holding back a lot of my judgement.

John, I also think that there is also a difference between what the artist gets vs the music label. Not knowing how different it is, I’m sure there would be different points of view if they entered into the argument (in most cases I’ve seen on the internet it is Consumer vs Music Label with no comment from the artists themselves)…

I wrote a quick post about Imogen Heap and how she is using technology today which you may find interesting http://www.jason-v.com/2009/09/02/imogen-heap-on-enterprise-2-0/. There is a link on there to the original post which has been written fairly well and worth the read.

Jason

Jason

Don’t get me wrong, I hope everything goes sweetly for Guvera, what a great thing if it works… for everybody. But there’s just something about those aforementioned hypothetical figures that just don’t add up.

I’d love to see how they work out the business model Guvera uses to sell it to advertisers. I’m sure it’s all good, but it seems to me that there’s something a bit skewiff going on.

Dare I say it, it almost sounds like something out of the days of pyramid parties – like in the early days it hums and everyone makes millions, but it doesn’t take long before it can no longer sustain itself.

How long would Coke want to go on paying anything like $1.50 to hit one consumer once?

Just a thought.

gofindjp

It is hard to say the it is “predestined to be a massive hit”.

One thing which hasn’t been mentioned how Guvera makes money, I’m guessing this may be through some sort of commission or % of each sale. Making interest of the money paid for advertisements before it has been used up?

We also don’t know the quality of the mp3’s, if there is any embedded advertising in them. How a mp3 from Guvera is compared to from a mp3 a user creates from a CD or downloads elsewhere.

How easy or convenient it is to actually download and add to a users media player?

- It still may be easier for a person to download a song through P2P that automatically gets added to their media player vs a user going to the web, browsing to the site, logging in, searching, downloading, moving/copy to media player ?

How will “Google Music” which is rumored to be released next Wednesday compare as a service to Guvera which at earliest looks like it will launch in December?

Sure Guvera’s model is different to everything at the moment, but the end result for the consumer isn’t.

Too bad I don’t have a Guvera account or might actually be able to find out a lot more details in how it is going to work. So that is why we have to wait and see with out making any claims of how it will go.

Hey all,

You may be interested to find the following link:

http://www.guveralimited.com

I don’t think there is any doubt that Guvera will be a massive music revolution on the internet. Presumably many of the biggest brands in the world are already invested. They will be in complete control about how much money they spend to reach their audiences. After all, they can select exactly who they want to target, instead of wasting money on other mass media (such as television and radio), which doesn’t allow advertisers to easily reach a certain demographic.

I have pre-registered already and am excited to see which brands will be targeting me. When it comes down to it, although I could easily download music for free, I would much prefer to support my favourite artists by using this program and letting them receive profits.

Cheers,
Bec

I’ve almost forgot about this site. It seemed like hype was building up a little bit, but then undelivered as nothing has happened. Sounds to me like they have had another set back or to and wont be launching anything this year.