Have music CD prices dropped with rampant illegal copying?

BeeBop · « **on:** 18 Sep 2004, 06:43 pm »

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Gordy · « **Reply #1 on:** 18 Sep 2004, 09:24 pm »

Agreed and well said!

My personal rant and not well said: There are many talented artists out there trying to make just such a go of it independent of 'the industry'. With the deregulation of the broadcasting industry, they stand an even lesser chance of ever being heard though. With Clear

Channel buying up hundreds of stations, ticket agencies and the rights to venues, their ten song playlist of their approved artists will rule. Clear

Channel will control who gets heard, on air or live. Not to mention how much more we will pay to see them. The latest assault on artist rights just occured with the announcement by Clear

Channel that they have a 'patent' on the technology for concert taping! A patent? Bands, or their chosen agent, can no longer legally record themselves or distribute their own cd's of concerts.

viggen · « **Reply #2 on:** 19 Sep 2004, 12:11 am »

I completely agree.

I am in no way a music industry expert. But, it seems the old music industry preyed on musical talents by offering them something the artists could not achieve by themselves which are exposure to mainstream markets and mass production of media software.

In worse case scenarios, the producer will offer the artist drugs and alcohol in exchange for their services. The producer keeps the master and makes dough while the artist stays hooked on dope. I know this from a music producer who WAS a personal friend.

The music industry can no longer leverage their business model based purely on these two factors anymore as technology increasing the presence of independent labels.

Gordy · « **Reply #3 on:** 19 Sep 2004, 03:50 am »

You might find this group of electronic rights activists interesting: http://www.eff.org/ But then again, maybe not. My apologies if this is inappropriate here!

Gordy

orthobiz · « **Reply #4 on:** 19 Sep 2004, 03:54 am »

I love owning music.
But, if I even remember to buy John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic, don't torture me by charging 19 bucks for a CD for a 30 year album that costs only a few cents to make!
There's lots of great music out there, some inexpensive, just hard to hear it in this garbage media saturated environment of ours.
And it's bound to get worse with young people weaned on single songs downloaded for pennies.

biz

mccormw · « **Reply #5 on:** 28 Sep 2004, 11:08 am »

I agree with everything you guys have said, but you must remember that the music industry is there for one thing only and that is to make money. Hey stop howling at me you lot, I said this is what the situation is I didn't say I liked it.

I am now officially an "old fart" I am old enough to remember the UK charts before the the Beatles happened and they were about as bad as they are now. A load smullzy rubbish in the main, Pat Boone always seemed to have 2 records in the top ten. The only rays of light were Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and The Shadows, that was about it. I personally did not like Elvis or Bill Hailey, there were very few British artists in our charts and the best US artists did not chart, I mean people like Chuck Berry, Bo Didley, Muddy Walters, Lighnin' Hopkins - I could go on.

Then, one day late in 1962 a mate of mine at school said "There's a great new group on the 5 oclock club tionight" - this was a pretty crappy TV program that generally none of us cool kids would watch. So, we all belted home and of course it was the Beatles first tv performance, they sang "Love Me Do" and we were all hooked and nothing was the same evermore - well at least until 1980 maybe.

The point of all this is, is to say that the record companies lost control. The Beatles declared after a while that they were going to record there songs and not do cover versions of other people all the time, Parlophone were less than pleased with this. The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks etc etc became bigger than the record companies and they were unhappy they wanted the good old days of formulaic music back, they didn't want talent, it is too unpredictable. I heard a record company guy recently talking about David Gray and he made the point that even David Gray could not say when he was going to right his next song, but given the latest boy band/girl band/anaemic soul singer then he could get someone to write a song for them. Its much more predictable and you can bank on a certain profit margin.

Right, got that out of my system.

BTW bought John Barleycorn (on vinyl) when it first came out in 1968-1970 I guess, a cracking album. Also saw Traffic a couple of times and did in fact see them during their Last Exit tour, they were a terrific band.

Bill Mac

Gordy · « **Reply #6 on:** 28 Sep 2004, 07:41 pm »

CD's, you need a very heavy stylus to keep 'em from mistracking

Carlman · « **Reply #7 on:** 28 Sep 2004, 08:10 pm »

Why can't artists stop using the stupid music business monopoly? I know it sound like it'd be hard but, if artists simply 'said no' to the musical drug dealers, and people depended on the internet and ripped cd's for their music, the music business would go away.

But then, that assumes the artist themselves are in it for the art only, and not looking to earn millions of dollars.

nathanm · « **Reply #8 on:** 28 Sep 2004, 08:56 pm »

Quote from: John Cougar Meloncat

When consumers learned to illegally copy CD content, prices dropped.

They did?

Carlman · « **Reply #9 on:** 29 Sep 2004, 06:40 pm »

Yea, they went from 18.99 to 18.98... where were you?

mccormw · « **Reply #10 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 03:16 pm »

Look guys everybody has to eat and not only that to produce music and put it onto the net costs dosh, lots of dosh. You cannot expect musicians to get this all together for nothing. You have to remember that the average bass guitarist can't get it together getting out of bed in the morning, you only need a bass guitarist so you can communicate with the drummer!

Seriously though, musicians have to make a living and so do the engineers, what we need is a better, more democratic business model. But we are talking about the same industry that convinced nearly everyone that CDs sound better than LPs, so what chance have we got?

In the words of Mr Kantner from the Airplane we need "Free Minds, Free Bodies, Free Dope and Free Music" - who would argue?

PhilNYC · « **Reply #11 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 03:50 pm »

Universal Music dropped their prices last September:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2003-09-03-cdprices_x.htm

Specifically, they went from $16.98 or $18.98 to $12.98.

Don't know if other labels followed suit...

mccormw · « **Reply #12 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 04:15 pm »

Not in the UK they didn't.

Red Dragon Audio · « **Reply #13 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 04:30 pm »

Why do computer components get cheaper?

How come the MacDonald's cheeseburger costs less today than 50 years ago even with inflation?

How come CDR's are free now when they were $5each just a few short years ago?

How come the same album costs $8 on cassette but $18 on CD?

Carlman · « **Reply #14 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 04:41 pm »

Quote from: heavystarch

Why do computer components get cheaper?

How come the MacDonald's cheeseburger costs less today than 50 years ago even with inflation?

How come CDR's are free now when they were $5each just a few short years ago?

How come I can get the same album only costs $8 on cassette but $18 on CD?

Because you get what you pay for...

- Today things are engineered to be as cheap to manufacture as possible to sell to the largest number of people.
- You don't get the same burger today you got in 1954.
- CDR's are being sold by the billions vs. the thousands now.
- Music companies are greedy pigs... so are many entertainers and athletes.

PhilNYC · « **Reply #15 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 08:37 pm »

Quote from: mccormw

Not in the UK they didn't.

Yeah, it was only in North America. And even when they lowered the price, apparently not all the retailers passed on the savings to the customers...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2003-12-07-music-cover_x.htm

nathanm · « **Reply #16 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 09:15 pm »

A record executive attempts to find a solution:

Levi · « **Reply #17 on:** 30 Sep 2004, 10:05 pm »

Quote from: heavystarch

Why do computer components get cheaper?

How come the MacDonald's cheeseburger costs less today than 50 years ago even with inflation?

How come CDR's are free now when they were $5each just a few short years ago?

How come the same album costs $8 on cassette but $18 on CD?

Initially, they have extremely high mark up prices. Competition, low sales volume, FIFO and other factors keeps prices lower.

bundee1 · « **Reply #18 on:** 1 Oct 2004, 03:51 am »

I think Universal raised their prices back up because nobody wanted to participate in the discounts.

Gordy · « **Reply #19 on:** 1 Oct 2004, 10:52 am »

Quote from: bundee1

I think Universal raised their prices back up because nobody wanted to participate in the discounts.

Wow, my cynical mind sure didn't need to know that