Magnatune, passing out warm-fuzzies

John Buckman posted on his Magnatune blog that they are changing up their membership model. Wow.

Here are some highlights from the post:

  1. no commitment: one month at a time, whereas previously the minimum was 3 months
  2. pay what you want: you fill in the amount you want to pay (no drop down box), though there is a $5/month stream membership minimum, and $10/month download membership minimum.
  3. paypal recurring payments: use paypal recurring payments instead of a credit card, so you are completely in command of your membership, and can cancel it from Paypal if you like.
  4. non-recurring and recurring both available: you choose whether you want your membership to auto-renew, or if you want to renew it by hand yourself
  5. DRM free, Creative Commons licensed, and perfect audio quality: so you are free to enjoy our music as you wish
  6. shareable music with your friends: you can share music you’ve obtained from your membership with your friends, though we ask you to be mindful of our business model and recommend you share no more than one album per friend per month
  7. Everything: complete access to all our music. Downloads, 4h podcasts, streaming, iTunes & Amarok & Rhythmbox & Songbird support, and more.
  8. Musicians get paid: with everything you do, 50% of your membership fee goes to the musicians you listen to. Magnatune remains fair to the musician.

He goes on:

This is no "fire sale", this is a post-scarcity business model that we have been adopting, and let me say that it's been working really well for us. I'm continuing to see a lot of people join as Magnatune members, and can proudly say that each day, we make twice as much money from our memberships than from our download sales. Memberships have quite literally turned our business around, so that we're growing strongly again.

We’re simply continuing to face the “Internet Reality”: a world where everyone has more music than they know what to do with (from Bittorrent to Last.fm and beyond). The way to compete in this new world is not try to create artificial scarcity, but offer something better than what is available for free, in all ways that we can think of.

That is killer. I think this puts the whole music industry in perspective. I am definitely going to support them in this, and I can’t wait to spend hours listening to new music! I wonder what their average membership costs?

I only heard of Magnatune relatively recently, because the guy who created Braid linked to it. Did you decide on a subscription to Magnatune? Do you still subscribe? Do you still follow their business development?

I didn’t join up, simply because I have more music than I know what to do with. However, I think I am starting another cycle of music exploration, so I may actually join.

I will post about it soon, but I found another music source that I am happy about, and recently bought music from them. The group is Lullatone, and their sell their music through Bandcamp. I bought music from their Bandcamp store.

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