In a move that completely baffles me, AC/DC’s record label Columbia Records have chosen to make the band’s catalog available to Verizon Wireless’s music download service and explicitly flipped Apple’s iTunes the bird. In a decision even more baffling, it doesn’t look like single-track downloads will be available, and a body will need to purchase whole albums.
Would the label really want to sell that little music?
- Put it on a music service that comparatively few people use (with all due apologies to my employer– don’t hate the mirror if you have an ugly face, guys).
- Require customers to download the VCAST music client.
- Apply DRM that allows the song only to be played on a small number of mobile phones when hundreds of millions of people own other music players and comparatively few music phones have been sold.
- Sell it only as an ALBUM as opposed to singles when customers have clear expectation that songs will be available in single form.
- Make an EXCLUSIVE distribution agreement in general is just lame, lame, lame. I even dislike artists that make exclusive arrangements with iTunes. It’s nonsense to lock content to specific platforms for no real reason. NOBODY wins when that happens. It’s just nuts!
According to the Wall Street Journal (still Cavuto-free for the moment) Verizon Wireless SVP for marketing and digital media, crowed, “You won’t be able to get this through any other mobile carrier and you certainly won’t be able to get it through iTunes.” Sadly for Verizon Wireless, the market segment to which AC/DC is likely to appeal (I would say I am on the very young end of that market at 32 years young) is not the same segment that is buying the VCAST music phones. There is a big disconnect here.
In the face of such rejection of customer expectations, those of us who purchased the cassettes in the 1980s and CDs in the 1990s really couldn’t be blamed for going to free P2P networks.
