Lala.com beta: Used CDs for $1 a Piece

Harry McCracken and I have spent the last week or so playing around with the beta of a service called Lala that aims to take used CD stores online with some amazing prices. When it launches later this summer, you'll be able to sign up, list your collection of CDs, and browse for new music you'd like to try. Click "Want" when you find something you like, and if anyone on the network has the CD and wants to give it up they'll send it to you. For $1 per CD. Actually, Lala is more of a used CD trading site: People will keep sending you discs on your list as long as you send enough of your own old discs to other members.

The Lala team has built a neat Ajax interface to drive the site. The artist and album search box has a speedy auto-complete function that makes it easy to list your CDs, and the album art they display features some slick roll-overs to let you play preview tracks. Find another member with a collection you like, and you can easily drop them a line asking for music recommendations, creating a neat community aspect for the service.

If you're like me, one of your first thoughts is that alarm bells must be ringing over at the RIAA right about now, but there are a few reasons to think Lala is on solid ground here. Since Lala works just like a used CD store, it's supported by the first sale docterine in section 109 of the 1976 Copyright Act, which states that if you legally purchase a copy of a recording, you're entitled "without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of [it]." The service should also drive some new music sales, since Lala is working shopping links to new tunes in either download or CD format, just in case no members are ready to give up a disc you want. Apart from that, Lala has promised to send 20% of its trading revenues back to musicians, which (if that really works out to $.20 per disc) could end up being more than most artists make from selling a new copy of their CDs.

Anyway, so far I've had a lot of fun with the beta, and I've even found the selection of CDs avaialble to be pretty good. (Feist's "Let it Die" is the first disc that's headed out to me, so it's not like all you'll find is an infinite stock of No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom".) If you'd like to check it out, Lala has setup a slate of beta invites for PC World readers. Drop by and let me know what you think.

Comments

The viability of swap sites like La La seems extremely challenging - if not sure to fail. Historically all swap sites have failed and now swapping CDs for the cost of $1.49 seems unattractive when you can buy a pre-owned CD for $4-$8 offline or online and sell it back to Uzed.com, Amazon, or eBay and have it cost less overall than La La. This way one doesn't have to wait (you'll never quickly see new titles) for your requested title to be available or wait and see if the guy actually sent it.

You can possibly send out your own CDs under this program and get credits, but you may not ever get to use them (like Peerflix) all - so one would have essentially have gave away their music. Take your discs and sell them to a record store, buyback site or online marketplace, receive the money and get what you want when you want it and then do it all over again. There would seem be less headache and risk for either the casual or avid music fan.

sdavinci

March 07, 2006

6:01 PM PT

I agree with sdavinci's post. I would also like to add that sites like this can leave people with collections of unwanted and low quality music. I wouldn't want to cannibalize my collection to listen to a few albums that are obscure and not very marketable in trade. Visit your local used CD retailer and see how many good titles are there. Sure sometimes you get a hit and find a good one, most of the time however you end up with garbage.

james

March 08, 2006

8:33 AM PT

One man's trash is another man's treasure. You will only get the music you want because you listed it, and if you want to ship your old CDs that's great. At least someone else will get some value out of your old disc rather than have it take up shelf space in your home.

Chuck

March 08, 2006

11:23 AM PT

I just started using Lala and it is a phenominal, unique service. This is a great way to build your music collection with music you want, at an incredibly low price. I'm hooked.

Jason

March 31, 2006

3:15 PM PT

LaLa rocks like a mofo! used CDs are NOT always 4-8, they're often a LOT more, and there's shipping involved too. Who can argue with a buck? I'm not cannibalizing my collection, but there are things I'm happy to let go.

Drumstick

April 03, 2006

9:54 PM PT

It appears that the first two posts on here were from music store owners who have a lot to say but of little value. Lala works. Right now I have 80 disks on there that I don't particularly want and 15 requests for ones i do. Most of the ones I want are more than a little hard to find because I am over 60 and still stuck in the 50's 60's generation. Okay so Glenn Yarbrough ain't cool to most of you but he is to me. Let me see some of you retails get (or keep for that matter) one of his you get your hands on. As pointed out there are shipping charges with places like eBay and sometimes exhorbitant ones. If it costs less than a dollar to ship a CD why does it cost me five bucks or more to have it done. Darn expensive time to package them, eh? To say nothing of the initial price which I amy have been bidding against the seller's buddies to buy. Hello James! You get only what you request. I guess if you request items that are"obscure and not very marketable" you kinda made your own bed to sleep in. I could continue but suffice to say that Lala is working for me and thousands more like me. Or as Bill the founder says in another post elsewhere they are building a WalMart collection every few hours. Oh by the by you price quotes, guys, are wrong also but check it out for yourselves.

George

April 13, 2006

10:23 PM PT

There's already a service called SwapCD, which charged 49 cents for each swap and helps you print a wrapper when you need to mail it. Total cost of exchanging a CD, even with the latest round of postage increases, is less than $1.50. Pretty good variety of CDs, too.

albion

May 22, 2007

12:34 PM PT

Ive been a member of LALA for over a year now, took part in the Beta and have 300 trades.

I posted this thread in the bugs section and sent an email to support (this was probably the 3rd time ive emailed them about this with no response):

Link: http://www.lala.com/frontend/action/forums?subject=1H313624

Quote:
"I would like to cancel my account, but first I need to trade even.
Since LALA doesnt tell me what my actual trade balance is, I went ahead and counted myself,
I have sent out 152 discs while only receiving 136. This means that I am owed 16 discs.
The problem is that according to LALA I am only in a 5 disc defecit, which means that in order to get my 16 discs I would be charged penalty fees for discs that I am owed. To make things worse, because I have a 9 disc incoming limit that would mean that it would technically be impossible for me to ever get the discs.
Why is LALA holding my discs hostage? I have been a loyal customer that has traded over 180 times.
Has anyone else had this problem and how was it solved?
Can LALA simply reset my trade balance so that I have 16 sends and 0 receives, so that I can get the discs owed to me and I can leave?

Thanks."

After nearly a week, not only did support not email me or even respond to the thread but today I log on and find out my account is suspended with anywhere from 5-15 (depends on how you count) discs owed to me.
Absolutely no explanation is given

I'm puzzled that any company would treat any customer like this, let alone one who has given them business for over a year.

Shame on you LALA!

byebyebye

June 14, 2007

5:40 AM PT