But is it worth TEN DOLLARS extra just for the increase in quality? :eek:
There has already been a long Pit thread that dealt with this issue.
You have a point.
Downloading a song on dial-up takes about 15 minutes (I’m basing this on sites that offer free music legally) so that’s about 4 tracks per hour. A CD might typically have 12 tracks (some have more) so by my estimate it would take at least 3 hours to download. Minimum wage in my state is something like $6.90/hour, times 3 that’s $20.70. And that doesn’t even include the cost of the electric bill, phone bill, or internet access, nor does it cover the calculated risk of being sued (for example, if there was a 1 in a million chance of being sued for a million). Now I’m not trying to advocate high prices for CDs! I hesitate to buy one that costs more than $10 or $12. The point is, I could go out and stock shelves for a little over 2 hours to make the $15 required to buy an overpriced CD and there’s no need to waste 3 hours of my time downloading the tracks.
Even without the record label’s cut, that is more than the $3 for a cassette. How is it that cassettes are so cheap? What are they doing right, and can that also be applied to CDs?
I was on a little Evanescence kick one day, and I decided that I’d stop by Borders on my way to a friend’s house to pick up Fallen, since they weren’t on iTunes.
Normally, if I need a CD, I go to Amoeba on Haight, since they usually have cheap used CDs, and, of course, The Girl With Kaleidoscope Hair who works there.
Anyway, I chose Borders because it was on the way, and more importantly, I had a $10 Gift Card I’d used for my birthday. (Never mind that I thought I had used it toward Lewis Black’s White Album but it didn’t take, and didn’t bother to inform me that it didn’t take. But that’s another rant.)
So, long story short, with a $10 discount, I was still out $10+change for a single CD. Not a compilation, not an import- it wasn’t even an enhanced CD!
So I figure, if it’s not a reasonable choice on iTunes or at Amoeba or similar independent store, well, I won’t feel guilty about using P2P.
Apparently over 1/6th of the world’s population has to survive on less than $10US per day. Think about that.
Just thought I’d throw in a little sobering thought. My point is this… sometimes, just sometimes, the things we think are worth ranting about are in fact luxuries that the poor of this world can’t even imagine having the opportunity to try.
Also, I’m told that the United States has the world’s highest production per capita per day of trash - that is, 4.2 pounds of trash per person per day. There’s a perception amongst a huge portion of the world’s population that the United States is the world’s most squanderous and wasteful nation - and yet her citizens are never short of things to complain about.
Now, in the interest of fairness it has to be said that my fellow Australians and myself are not far behind. On a per capita basis we’re almost as wasteful but not quite - sure, there aren’t as many of us - but the trends are there.
It just goes to confirm something my father used to say (he survived WW2 in Austria as a young boy and came to Australia in the 1950’s) - namely, “No matter how well off you are, you can always find something to whine about if that’s what you want to do.”
“The fact that CD prices have not come down at all (and in fact have gone up) since the medium first came out means that any increased margins that they have received due to the rapidly decreasing cost of actual CD manufacture is gobbled up by someone or something. Whether this is the artist, the label, the store I dunno. But the simple economic fact of the matter is that in the era of downloading music, the value of the content has fallen. So record companies simply must reduce price if they want to sell as much”
The simple economic fact is that CD prices are lower today than they were when first introduced in 1983. Since the price has remained relatively stable at about 14 dollars per CD since they were introduced, yet inflation has driven the ** value ** of that fourteen dollars down to somewhere closer to 7 dollars (in 1983 dollars).
If the price were relative value the same, your (1983) 14 dollar CD would be closer to 27-28 dollars (2003 dollars).
That’s just inflation and the Consumer Price Index at work.
It’s really kind of an anomally in that sense since most other items of similar value HAVE gone up in price in the last 20 years.
… I dunno where you live, but most CDs only hit fourteen bucks when they’re on sale, over here on the east cost. Normal price is $19 or so.
Of course, back in '82 they were $25 a pop.
This doesn’t mean anything, compared to the fact that said music costs little to reproduce… that is, the price of the product is sub-single dollar. The rest of it? Well… good luck finding out.
There is always going to be illegal music sharing. There is nothing they can do to stop it. There always was illegal music sharing: those BTO songs you taped of the radio, the Bon Jovi record you taped from your buddy, the song you downloaded from Napster.
That being said, I think many of the points here are valid.
CDs are too expensive. But I think they are too expensive because less emphasis is being put on the content of the CD. I don’t mind paying $20 for Sgt. Pepper’s since the whole record is good. The industry is single oriented now (but you can’t buy a single) and most albums are one or two singles surrounded by trash. If entire albums were worth buying, I don’t think people would complain as much.
And the lack of a legitimate alternative to P2P doesn’t help. I think there are a lot of people who would pay to download one or two songs if it was easy and fairly priced. We are starting to see some of this now, but there is still no place where you can go get “everybody” like you can in a music store or on Kazaa.
But like I said, it cannot be stopped. But it can be reduced by a great deal by putting emphasis back on content and by making legit downloading a bit easier.
So I guess you could say I blame the lables for forcing one hit, disposable pop down our throats. Is it any wonder that no one wants to pay for a Britney Sprears CD?
BTW, I do not download or share illegal music, but mainly because I am too lazy. I have broadband and I still think it takes way too long to find a good quality download of a song/record. mp3s sound like shit. Plus all the numnuts who mis-label stuff and like to have 1/2 copies of songs on their drive…shit drives me crazy. I’d rather go to Circuit City.
I’m sure Mr. Albini knows more about the record industry than I ever will, but I think his numbers are pulled out of his ass. Musicians only get screwed as much as they let themselves, in my esteemed opinion.
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
Well, because the demand isn’t there at $15. Look at what has happened to Sam Goody. Even the discounters (Target, Best Buy, WalMart, Circuit City) are watching music sales as a percentage of sales go down. There is less competition (Amazon and CD Now are actually fairly small players when stacked against Best Buy and the Independants like Ameoba) Watch record company trends. People don’t buy music like they used to. Perhaps because its easily downloadable (which is what many people think). Perhaps because the record companies have lost touch with what people want. Whatever the reason, the price point isn’t holding for them. And the retailers - particularly the discount retailers (Target, Best Buy, WalMart [if you dare to buy music from WalMart - a lot of people won’t on principle]) don’t have enough margin to work with.
Yeah, maybe. I wasn’t exactly sure what point (if any) he was getting at. If you are right, then his whole diatribe boils down to “Most musicians are dumb!”, and he coulda said it a little clearer.
Having known a GREAT many young and aspiring musicians over the years (and having been one myself) I’d have to say that’s not a bad first-order approximation.
sigh Every time this argument comes up it always features four kind of posters.
Poster A believes that selling more of something at a lower price is always best. Poster A doesn’t understand economics.
Poster B believes that music companies should be charities whose aim is to fill the world with music and teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. CDs should therefore be as cheap as possible. Poster B fails to appreciate that music companies are capitalist entities like any other. Their sole aim is profit and they have no other obligations.
Poster C believes that cost of production should have some sort of moral influence on retail price. Poster C doesn’t understand market forces or economics either.
Poster D will attempt any moral and economical argument she can get away with, as long as she can come up with some justification for taking something she hasn’t paid for.
CD prices are not too expensive as that is a subjective term. Regardless of what you think, they are at more or less the price enough people are prepared to pay for them. So the solution is in the consumers hands. If you don’t like the price, then don’t buy them. In the capitalist economic model only this will cause lower prices.
