Why is it so hard to buy music online?
“Why is it so hard to buy music online?” That’s the question that I just asked myself.
I’ve been listening to one of Regina Spektor’s album (Begin to Hope) on Grooveshark for the last few days and I’ve been really enjoying it. While that’s great and all, the sound quality provided by Grooveshark does leave something to be desired, at least for me.
This left me with the dilemma of either purchasing the album legitimately or procuring it via alternate means, if you catch my drift. Insert a few wink-winks here and elbowing there.
Now, when it comes to the issue of piracy of music, I personally feel that there should be a way for someone to sample what interests them. I personally have been burnt before; buying an album that contained that one hit song that’s been on high-rotation on the radio, expecting the rest of the album to be just as excellent, but only to find that it contains “filler material” that makes me feel as though I’ve wasted a good amount of money.
But I also feel that if an artist does indeed produce material that I both like and intend to enjoy, I ought to pay them for that pleasure at a reasonable price that they have set because they have earned my money.
Such was the case after having listened to the entirety of Begin to Hope a few times over, at a low bitrate on Grooveshark. I wanted to buy the album legitimately, because it was something that I fully enjoyed and because I wanted to own a copy of it permanently.
At this point, it would’ve been a rather trivial affair of either ordering a CD off of Amazon or passing by my local Best Buy and buying a disc off the shelf. However, it’s currently midnight and I’m a fan of instant gratification. So my alternate choice was to purchase a download of the album. Okay, so this sounds like a rather standard affair. I could either drop by the iTunes Music Store and purchase it from there, Amazon also offers digital downloads now, and there are a multitude of other online retailers available for me to select from.
But I was not contend. All these retailers had the album available and were willing to sell it to me, but in a lossy MP3 format. At relatively the same price of the physical CD copy. Now, most people would be fine with this and I’ll agree that MP3 and its many lossy brethren’s are perfectly fine the way they are. However, I find it difficult to accept paying the full price for what’s essentially a fraction of the product. It’s like going into a jewellery store to buy a brand new Rolex and having the dealer stiff you by swapping it with a refurbished equivalent while charging you the price of a new watch. Whether or not I could possibly discern the difference is not the issue.
This was something that I couldn’t live with. I want to buy a download of the album in lossless format. So how hard could it be? I’ve bought music online before and I’ve bought music online in lossless format too, mainly from small independent musicians. And here is Regina Spektor, a rather well known musician at this point and backed by a very large label (Warner Brothers Records). So if a small (in contrast) musician such as Sam Quinn is able to sell albums in lossless format online through a small label, how hard would it be for Regina Spektor and the giant that is Warner Bros. to do the same?
So I went to the official Regina Spektor online store, where I found the particular album for sale, however only in CD and vinyl releases. No downloadable version was available on the site. I thoguht to myself, perhaps Google can find a suitable and legitimate online retailer. After running through a few searches, the only results that I was able to find were essentially pirated copies of the album that were available in FLAC format and were ready to be downloaded for free. As much as I tried, there existed no legitimate outlet for obtaining a digital copy of the album in a lossless format. And that was when I asked myself “Why is it so hard to buy music online?”
I pirate music, make no mistake of that. However, when I am able to, I do try and support my favourite musicians. I don’t go to concerts and I don’t really buy merchandise, so I support them by paying for the music I enjoy, whenever I can. But one reason that I have for pirating music is that it’s simple. The content I want is packaged in the format that I want which is then distributed via a method that is convenient for me. It’s a simple formula.
I understand the argument that it’s really, really difficult to compete with free. But here I am, ready to shell out the money, yet I’m hindered by something so trivial. The simple fact is that there are people who are willing to support their favourite artists. The music industry only needs to remove all the hindrances. The concept is simple: sell people the music they want in whatever format they want it in and price everything reasonably.
So why is it so hard for people in the music industry to understand this concept?
As for me, I just ended up pirating the album in lossless.
