- Music fans downloaded more than 54 thousand albums and tracks
- The price of a digital album on the internet should not exceed CZK 100
Prague, 27 May 2009 - T-Mobile, who released the new Wohnout's album titled Karton veverek in collaboration with Soundmachine on 1 March 2009, came up with the idea to try out how much Czech fans are willing to pay for music. The album was released in digital form at www.t-music.cz and the final price which the band deserves for its album was determined by the fans.
"By introducing the 'pay-as-much-as-you-think-the-band-deserves' model we mainly wanted to start a debate on the adequate price for music downloading between music publishers, experts and fans," says Michal Němec, Vice President Mobile Portal & Content Services at T-Mobile.
From 1 to 31 March when this offer was available, music fans downloaded 45,399 albums and 9,234 individual tracks. A total of 3,932 people were willing to pay, either for a track or the entire album. The total amount collected by selling the album over the internet was CZK 257,000. This means that each paying fan paid CZK 65 on the average.
Who pays for music on the internet
Most music fans willing to pay to the band for its work were among the customers of T-Mobile - a 44%, on the contrary, clients of O2 were the less willing to pay as only 25% sent a payment Premium SMS. The percentage of paying fans among Vodafone customers was 31%. As for regions, the band received most support from people from Prague, Central Bohemia and South Moravia; in the other regions, less than 10% people were willing to pay. Wohnout was appreciated significantly more often by men (70%) than by women (30%) and people between 27 and 40 years of age, who also spent the highest amounts on the average. Young people aged 18 to 26 were the second most generous group.
"This project helped us confirm the theory that some music fans are willing to pay for music on the internet, however, a digital album should not cost more than CZK 100," says Michal Němec.
Future projects
The project was followed with interest also by other bands. T-Mobile is therefore considering opening t-music as a communication and payment channel for the distribution of other artists' albums as well , either for a fixed price or using the same "pay as much as you think appropriate" model as in the case of the album by Wohnout.