The Philadelphia Experiment: Downloads Done Right?
By Wes Phillips September 24, 2006 — The Philadelphia Orchestra, one of America's prestigious "Big Five" orchestras, has established its own digital online music store to directly market its soundboard recordings of current Philadelphia Orchestra performances.

Other major American orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic, have also made performances available for download, but Philadelphia appears to be the first to do so without a distributor. Selling direct allows the PO to sell its MP3 downloads for less—$4.99, about one-third the price of a typical CD. Philadelphia's downloads have another distinction as well: They are also available as FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files, which are lossless-compressed and do not utilize digital rights management (DRM), which would prevent customers from copying the files to CD.

FLAC downloads cost more—for example, an MP3 download of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is currently offered for free on the website, whereas the FLAC version goes for $5.99—but at least the Philadelphia Orchestra offers audiophiles a choice of superior sound for those willing to pay for it.

For more technical information about the Philadelphia Orchestra Online Music Store, refer to its FAQ page.

We applaud the Philadelphia Orchestra for its decision to offer higher-resolution formats for those of us who cherish good sound, but we suspect that the orchestra's ability to do so without raising objections from the major record labels and their mega-retailers is just one more signal that classical music has become a marginal endeavor that doesn't even appear on the radar screens of big business.

Contrast the deafening silence greeting the Philadelphia experiment with the brouhaha surrounding Apple's September 11 announcement that it would begin offering digital downloads of full-length films through its iTunes Music Store—sorry, it's called the iTunes Store now that it's selling more than just music.

What's the big deal? Well, DVD sales are a $17 billion business in the US, and one company, Wal-Mart, currently owns about 40% of that figure. The Bentonville-based retail chain is not happy about anything that threatens to upset that particular, ahem, applecart. Insiders report that Wal-Mart is about to launch its own movie download site and is in competition with Apple to sign on Hollywood studios to partner with. Business Week said Wal-Mart "disputed" reports that it was "dissuading studios from conducting business with other providers," but confirmed that it was exploring its own download business model. Other major retailers said to be doing the same are Amazon and Comcast.

It's not just Apple's competitors who are making waves, either. Studios are said to be upset about iTunes' terms of service, which authorize five digital devices to play back iTunes purchases. Since the iTunes DRM wrapper is robust and secure, draw your own conclusions about this particular point of contention.

It is perhaps undeniable that the only reason the Philadelphia Orchestra can break new ground with its Music Store is that no one else thinks classical music is a profitable undertaking. Perhaps that's a blessing in disguise, since that leaves it free to grow at its own pace and find its natural audience without interference from the bean counters who cannot distinguish between a commodity and a cultural legacy.