They’re not.
But that’s just it – people are becoming less and less willing to pay that much for them. But instead of lowering prices, the RIAA is trying to blame file-sharing for the problem, and is advocating increasingly draconian laws to deal with it.
Well, hell.
Wouldn’t you in their position?
<shampoo voice>
Tell truth now!
</shampoo voice>
Yeah well if people are less and less willing, why was 2002 a record year for sales in the industry? (IIRC) 
If people actually stop buying albums, perhaps something will change. Certainly more then if people only keep bitching about it.
Additionally, being less willing to pay $15-$20 should mean that you go without, not that you steal it, and then enable others to go on stealing it.
Yes, the RIAA has their collective heads up their collective asses so far that they can see the collective backs of their collective teeth. But so does every Robin Hood who thinks (s)he is robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.
I’m still waiting for the obligatory “Because I can try out music on the internet, I buy more, therefore everyone does” argument. There’s one in every file sharing thread.
I’m not sure if that’s right. According to the RIAA website , "According to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, CD shipments dropped almost 9 percent in 2002, while unit shipments of all music formats decreased 11 percent. "
Of course, they blame the problem on piracy, not on the public beginning to refuse to buy over-priced CDs.
Spelling like this, especially when the errors occur in spelling the key concepts with which you are dealing, does not inspire much confidence in your economic analysis.
Whoops, I stand corrected, thanks.
Of course, I could say the inverse about you.
You sure could.
Given the depressed economy worldwide, reduced sales might have little to do with either piracy or overpricing, or at least have a third, equally viable, cause.
Good point.
i recall a time when i would buy CDs. since then i’ve seen that the people who run this organization known as the RIAA are stuck in the past, unwilling to adapt to changes in demand. they go so far as to sue college students and demand universities commit their resources to protecting their product. they get laws passed for the same purpose. i mean, i never had a problem with buying CDs… they’ve always been expensive. but i’m afraid the RIAA has fucked themselves this time. i will never purchase a CD from a major label again. thousands of dollars of profit lost with just me. the more they fight mp3s the more their profits will decrease. mp3s are already mainstream, people aren’t worried about it being illegal… if they push this any further i think they will find people who download songs without buying CDs for the sole purpose of spiting them.
It does raise some questions, because seriously, if you can hear it you can record it. There is absolutely no way to secure audio, so I’m very curious to see how their business model will eventually evolve, 200 years from now of course.
I believe that whole warmer sound thing is more myth then reality, or a case of people hearing what they want to hear.
Nevertheless, what you didn’t point out was that in order to hear this supposed warmer sound, you need a stereo system that costs upwards of $9-15,000 which is just a wee bit ridiculous to my ears.
The only way that one would get the absolute best sound would be if you were in the studio with the act at the time of the actual recording.
But even that is a very, very, very, very rare thing these days, as the majority of artists resort to the old “cut and paste” method of recording, and most songs on an album don’t consist of one take, but rather bits and pieces of innumerable takes spliced together. It is a lot easier these days with digital recording.
I don’t know much about the validity or bias of this article, but I thought it was a pretty good read. It discusses how the movie industry increased profits last year even though movie piracy has been increasing. It compares the film industry to the record industry. Check it out:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/01/file_trading_manifesto/index.html
You’ve obviously never been in a studio while an act was recording. 
Yeah, since frequently essential things like ‘drums’ are laid down weeks before the actual melody and other such things.
Not if it’s Gregorian chant.
What pisses me off is how the RIAA pretends like they’re suddenly so concerned that a bunch of high school and college kids are stealing from the artists. The record companies have been stealing from the artists for years.