How much should music cost?

After my talk at the SEMCON last week, I was approached by several attendees to discuss several stuff. One of the topics included the state of online music store in the Philippines. The main question I was trying to answer was — How much should music cost?

Well, we already know Apple set the universal trend of $0.99PHP 58INR 84EUR 0.94CNY 7 per song but other players like AmazonMP3 are challenging that. Still, the notion that you’ll have to shell out Php45USD 0.77INR 65EUR 0.73CNY 6 a pop for your mp3 seemed insane in the Philippine internet landscape.

For over a decade, the majority of Filipinos got their favorite songs for free. In the late 90’s, it was thru mIRC, then Kazaa, LimeWire, Bittorents, etc. Yes, it becomes obvious that this generation is not used to paying for their songs. Does that mean, music/record labels should wait for the next generation? Guess not.

So, here’s the question — How much should music cost? Five, ten pesos? Twenty? Forty, fifty?

We already have millions of people downloading ringtones for Php15USD 0.26INR 22EUR 0.24CNY 2 to Php25USD 0.43INR 36EUR 0.41CNY 3 a pop and that figure doesn’t seem to stop them from downloading for more. Just ask the telcos and their content partners how much they’re all raking in from ringtone downloads.

[tags]mp3, music, songs, ringtones, download[/tags]

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

13 Comments

Jeffrey says:

17 years ago

10 to 25 pesos a song seems viable in the Philippine internet economy.
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issai says:

17 years ago

i think pinoys would prefer music free.
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elmer valenzuela says:

17 years ago

4.50 na lang. ten pesos lang kasi pera ko..5.50 pang nescafe 3 in 1..
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jomark says:

17 years ago

5 peso per song is the most practical. We are talking about mass economics here.
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XpressMusic says:

17 years ago

20-25php/song would be great for music chart toppers then 10php/song for non-popular songs.But I don’t believe that this will stop piracy in the whole country.

*-DRM should be included and implemented incase the project will be launched.
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quezacolt says:

17 years ago

3.50 – 5 sana, masyadong mahal kc pag $0.99 paburn ka nalang hehehe
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Alwell says:

17 years ago

I read from yahoo news the other day that former RadioHead vocalist allow fans to download his new album at a price to be determined by the them. It is said fans can even download it without putting a price at his official album website.

It seems that this new model is effective so far for the artist. Amazingly naka $1.2million sold na daw yung album in mp3 format.
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BrianB says:

17 years ago

First they should make it very convenient to download. Ten pesos is okay. If you can afford an MP3 player or an MP3 phone, you can afford ten pesos per song. A thousand songs is ten thousand pesos. Not bad.
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spidamang says:

17 years ago

Sure they downloaded for free over the years. But of the gigs of songs the downloaded, how many of those songs do they actually like and listen to?

A 10-20 peso range with special bulk prices for albums should do it. IMHO. For providing a legal, high quality copy of a song complete with the proper ID3 tags, in a platform that should be easy for one to search a particular song/album he likes, paying for that service alone is already worth the price of a song.
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dwek says:

17 years ago

price of song should depend on it’s popularity… Mas mahal siguro kung sikat at maganda yung song…
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GUrbi says:

17 years ago

AT GURBI, MUSIC IS ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
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My Name Is Daaviiiid... says:

17 years ago

i think pinoys would prefer music free.

People generally would prefer freebies. But it wouldn’t be really fair to those who worked hard to offer such without being “justly” compensated somehow.
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louie says:

17 years ago

I think 10 pesos per song would be great! For 5 pesos per song then it should really be a crime to download
music =)

or how about 100 pesos prepaid card for 25 songs?

not bad for the consumers but how about the profit margin of the artist? record producer and the website
operator?

Pero considering the present market price of albums i think 15 pesos per song is the right amount. Pero 10 pesos might be ideal price to shift the market habit.. but for 5 pesos per song then people might just download songs for the sake of it being cheap =)

what do you guys think?
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