AfterDawn: News

HMV hopes to teach more people to download

As it prepares to enter the online music download market, retailer HMV has said it will attempt to educate more consumers on how to download music from the Internet. The company said the program is aimed at women, older people and "music fans in general". The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) estimates that 96% of downloaders are male. Computers will be installed in 200 HMV stores and HMV's own music download service will be launched in September.

"Record stores have generally been a bit of a male preserve," an HMV spokesman said. "When more women are comfortable with downloading they may find it less intimidating to do that on their own computers, rather than go into a record store." Digital area's will be installed in stores that will have staff to explain and show people how to download music. The portable digital music players will also be sold in these areas.



HMV said it will sell millions of songs at prices similar to Apple's highly successful iTunes music store. It is expected that retailers such as HMV would attempt to tap the music downloading resource due to the massive surges worldwide in legal music downloads in the last year. The number of legal downloads tripled to 180 million worldwide in the first half of 2005, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

Source:
BBC News

Written by: James Delahunty @ 10 Aug 2005 20:25

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• 15 comments

• jAmEsTn

  this is just another way to drain the wallets of us underprivlidged poor americans... i'd rather not spend money on things like this but rather compensate for high gas prices n stuff like that.. bills, food, ect. as long as i can get cheap acceptable used cd's from www.amazon.com, used ripper programs to copy ligitimate discs to my HD, and my cheap 65$ mp3 player in my hands than stores like these (which will appear in the states in a matter of time) can bite my @$$! :D... enough said ;)

  10.8.2005 20:43 #1

• RussReef

  Oh... So, come along women and the elderly... Let me teach you how to download music (complicatedly)... and have you pay about the same price (or more) to do so... OR, you can just buy the album here in the store right from my hands.
  
  I mean... PLEASE! What's the incentive really?
  
  "When more women are comfortable with downloading they may find it less intimidating to do that on their own computers, rather than go into a record store."
  
  This is the same way I feel about pornography... (hehehe... jjk!) I dunno... Maybe they have a valid point. Still, I find this whole idea of targeting marketing to women and the elderly somehow rather objectionable.

  11.8.2005 02:03 #2

• rbeck99

  I think every music store should have a download kiosk that people can use to download and create their own customized CD. You pay them $1.00 for a blank CD-R, put it in their download machine, download your music at $0.99 per track, click "burn" and a couple minutes latere, you have a customized CD.
  

  11.8.2005 05:42 #3

• necronite

  @ rbeck99
  
  I think that's a good idea.
  
  As far as online buying, the price has to come down. The threshold must be crossed with the price to attract the buyers. For illegal downloading, you have fear of getting caught and for legal downloading you have the huge price per track.
  
  Uhhh it's tough decision which to go for. If retailers made the price like $.10 per track, then I might be sold. With online selling there is no overhead, no money to be spent on packaging etc. The margin is enourmas

  11.8.2005 11:55 #4

• btfjf

  If you teach anybody how to download from the net, wouldn't they just become one of us greedy freeloaders? If you knew how to do it, why buy at HMV (or anywhere for that matter?)

  11.8.2005 12:45 #5

• borhan9

  There is more to this than teachin people how to download. The question that pops up in my head is after u teach them how to download. When they come and ask how to put it on CD DVD etc... that opens up another can of worms. Ifeel that yes its the direction to go, but goin into the shop and purchasing a hard copy although a bit more expensive just saves the time and hassle.

  11.8.2005 13:22 #6

• VJbob

  I'm interested in downloading Jpop songs from HMV or Japan Itunes. Can I do that with a credit card and no ability to read japanese?

  11.8.2005 14:00 #7

• Brice123

  Yea, the price is way too high still, the price would have to come down in order to have me sold. Think about what you are getting for 99 cents a song, its nothing. With a cd, you get a hard copy, a case and a cover that tells you the name of the songs, it doesn't sound like much, but its more than a "virtual song" which could be wiped off your hard drive at anytime. I would be sold on 10 cents, but not 99 cents a song....99 cents a song, thats crack prices, people be sucking d*ck for songs!

  11.8.2005 23:10 #8

• Brice123

  Yea, the price is way too high still, the price would have to come down in order to have me sold. Think about what you are getting for 99 cents a song, its nothing. With a cd, you get a hard copy, a case and a cover that tells you the name of the songs, it doesn't sound like much, but its more than a "virtual song" which could be wiped off your hard drive at anytime. I would be sold on 10 cents, but not 99 cents a song....99 cents a song, thats crack prices, people be sucking d*ck for songs!

  11.8.2005 23:10 #9

• Brice123

  Yea, the price is way too high still, the price would have to come down in order to have me sold. Think about what you are getting for 99 cents a song, its nothing. With a cd, you get a hard copy, a case and a cover that tells you the name of the songs, it doesn't sound like much, but its more than a "virtual song" which could be wiped off your hard drive at anytime. I would be sold on 10 cents, but not 99 cents a song....99 cents a song, thats crack prices, people be sucking d*ck for songs!

  11.8.2005 23:12 #10

• Brice123

  Yea, the price is way too high still, the price would have to come down in order to have me sold. Think about what you are getting for 99 cents a song, its nothing. With a cd, you get a hard copy, a case and a cover that tells you the name of the songs, it doesn't sound like much, but its more than a "virtual song" which could be wiped off your hard drive at anytime. I would be sold on 10 cents, but not 99 cents a song....99 cents a song, thats crack prices, people be sucking d*ck for songs!

  11.8.2005 23:12 #11

• steve7059

  Why does everyone seem to think 99 cents per track is an extravagant price? I remember back when I was younger, before CDs (if anyone on this forum is old enough to remember that!) we used to buy 45 rpm singles for just under a dollar. Of course you got 2 songs, one on each side, but the "other" one wasn't one you usually wanted anyway. A dollar a track doesn't seem that high to me....just one man's opinion.

  12.8.2005 08:53 #12

• runner121

  I dont think a dollar is so bad if you havent paid it before.

  12.8.2005 11:18 #13

• Neviar

  what's better to you? [$1 = 1 song] or
  [$0 = 1,000,000 songs]? I prefer the latter and will spend my hard earned cash on something worth it.

  12.8.2005 18:47 #14

• steve7059

  Neviar, if you can get a million songs for free LEGALLY, I'm with you! Unfortunately, in this world at least, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

  16.8.2005 06:10 #15