I’m not sure I’d call it ‘stealing’.
“Here’s a contract. Want in? Sign it.”
“Okay.”
Freely agreed upon. If an artist didn’t like the deal they could go independent or sign with Dischord of Sub Pop or some similar label. No one forced them to sign with Warner Bros or Sony.
Certainly, it has to be said that the prices of albums would drop if an artist was legally allowed to distribute their master tapes with more than one Record Label.
Under such circumstances, imagine that a U2 album was available on 3 different labels for example… those 3 labels would compete amongst themselves to position THEIR product as the superior product - either they’d offer extra goodies, or do some extra production values on the CD, or make it cheaper etc.
As it stands, both within and outside the USA, there is epic price collusion taking place. And it’s a fallacy to argue that any given artist has a plurality of distribution… at the moment you can ONLY buy a U2 album, or a Foo Fighters album (as examples) from one source. If artists were allowed to sign with multiple labels, if the artist was good enough, surely one of those labels would promote the artist on quality merits alone - whereas currently, a lot artists whither on the vine into obscurity because they just weren’t FASHIONABLE at the time…
Well, not to point out the obvious, but the RIAA isn’t the government. It’s the government’s job to stand up against private interests like the RIAA and allow the free market to dictate the price. A free market would mean the RIAA can’t come busting into your house, but it would also mean people stop bellyaching about the price of CDs that are being freely bought and sold.
Cheesesteak:
If you want the new Chrysler Intrepid, you must pay the price set by Chrysler. You can’t buy an Intrepid for half the price from Ford.
If you want an HP 4 printer, you have to pay the price set by HP.
If I want a new Meade telescope, I have to pay the price set by Meade.
If I want Raptors tickets, I pay the price set by the Raptors.
Coke sets the price for Coke. McDonald’s set the price for Big Macs. Cross sets the price for their pens. Sony sets the price for Trinitron television sets.
I’m sorry, but that’s just the lamest argument possible. Shania Twain and her record company have a deal to produce her records. They’re allowed to sell them for whatever they want. If you don’t like it, don’t buy them.
I find it stupid and dishonest that people are trying to justify file sharing because CDs are “too expensive.” They’re not taking mp3s off the Internet because they can’t afford the CDs, they’re doing it because it’s free, period, and it’s virtually risk-free theft. CDs are cheap, and if they were half as expensive as they are people would STILL be swiping music off the Internet. I don’t see anyone in the thread starting thread to bitch about the price of any of the following heavily marked up items:
Not that this makes the RIAA blameless, but… what the hell does that have to do with the price of CDs?
RickJay, something to note however… and bear in mind that this post merely pertains to a very narrow aspect of your previous post.
By far the majority of music artists nowadays are kind of like film actors - they’re not at all beholden to a studio or a major label out of some sort of loyalty.
Unlike the Chrysler Corporation and the Chrysler Intrepid, Record Company X does not usually make Artist Y’s album - nowadays by far the more common occurrence is that Artist Y funds and produces the product from beginning to end with zero input from the Record Company X. Only at the end, is a distribution and marketing arrangement entered into. In years gone by, Record Company X would offer a shitload of money up front as an advance, so as to somehow claim some sort of “intellectual ownership” over the product - but artists have wised up nowadays.
Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters is a classic example. His own company called Roswell Records (it’s just a shelf name) sells the rights to Capitol or RCA to distribute Foo Fighters albums. The copyright and product remains entirely Dave Grohl’s property. The albums are 100% funded by Dave Grohl from the ground up. No advances are provided. Indeed, he has 7 year distribution arrangements, and next year, his first two albums are no longer legally sellable by Capitol and Dave fully intends to shop them somewhere else.
This is a slightly different business model to Chrysler, whose vehicles are designed and manufactured from the ground up within the Chrysler corporation as wholly owned Chrysler product.
It would indeed be interesting to see if a foreign car maker named “Brand Name Missing” for example decided to market vehicles throughout North America by cutting a deal with GM, Ford, AND Chrysler concurrently. It would have to be a hell of a good car obviously, but that would be an interesting analogy. Because under those circumstances GM, Ford, and Chrysler would be “distribution and marketing” arms - not manufacturers.
There was a great link on Fark today about how indie label sales are increasing, while RIAA sales are down.
The RIAA has no one to blame but themselves. Hollywood box office receipts keep going up, video game sales have surpassed even those for the past 2 years, and DVDs are selling at far faster a pace than VHS tapes ever did.
I’m sick and tired of them complaining about the decline in record sales. Even if it absolutely was caused by piracy (which it isn’t, not by a long shot), who says any business deserves to make money or make more money than last year? It’s called capitalism, folks.
This is such a silly argument. If I go to a jeweller’s and steal diamonds, said jeweller’s no longer has diamonds. If I go download a song, the person I downloaded it from still has the song, the record company still has the song, I haven’t deprived anyone of their property. Your analogy doesn’t hold up.
“But,” you are thinking, “this silly twit [me] doesn’t realise that he is depriving the record company of their hard earned money by downloading the song instead of paying for it.”
Yeah, and you’re right. But not always. On my computer I have Kriss Kross doing their 1992 hit Jump. Now, I guarantee, I would never buy this song in any format that it is currently sold in. Never.
Before I downloaded it, I carefully considered the alternatives:
I could not download this song, meaning the record company would have nothing they didn’t have before, the person I downloaded it from would neither have gained or lost anything and I would not have the song.
I could download this song, meaning the record company would have nothing they didn’t have before, the person I downloaded it from would neither have gained or lost anything but I would have the song.
I chose 2. I win, no-one lost. It is the very essence of a victimless crime.
This has been a moral argument, mind you, not a legal one.
Majors make far more money than Indies. They more than compensate for their increased costs.
This would be great, and it would finally introduce real market forces into the record industry. However, I can’t see how it could happen without throwing the concept of contracts out the window.
Re: Dave Grohl, why doesn’t he shop his music around and allow a number of distributors to distribute it non-exclusively, and thus introducing this kind of competition? Or is he likely to do this when his first albums come off contract? If so, the results could be really quite interesting.
Of course. But there are also examples of tricks the record companies have pulled on artists in the past – one such example being that of the “pressing plant overrun,” in which a record pressing plant would officially print a certain number of copies of a record, and then make a secret deal with the company to print more, which would then be sold as well, screwing the artist out of royalties. I don’t have firsthand experience, so who knows how common this type of thing was. I’m guessing the record companies are no more or less honest than any other large corporations.
Yes, as a matter of fact I would. I teach dance and aerobics classes and make my own mixes for classes. I would be more than happy to pay a per song, or monthly fee for the priviledge of d/l’ing the songs I wanted to put on a CD.
I don’t have a beef with the price of CDs. IF I could buy CD’s with good ALL good songs. What I have a problem with is paying 20 bucks for one or two good songs on the CD, and then 15 crappy ones, and also having the CD music file types be almost impossible to transfer to a collection of one’s own.
Canvas, I’m not sure about this, but are you actually now saying that the price of CDs is not good because the songs aren’t good enough?
I’m sorry, but where does this whining end? If a lot of the CDs you buy have one good song and 15 crappy ones, you might want to revisit what CDs you’re buying. I have a lot of CDs withy many good songs. You can’t blame the pricing structure if you have bad taste is music and keep buying mostly crappy CDs.
Anti-pirates assumes the fallacy that a record one less pirated means one more CD is bought. But they don’t realize that many so-called onlike pirates are also the biggest record purchasers, and many use the traders as consenting advertisements.
onlike->online
Not really Rickjay. And for the record I do buy CDs on which most or all are songs I like. But as my aforementioned semi-unique needs address. I have a problem where I need certain songs for certain dances or routines, and need them all on one CD.
I don’t want to pay 20 for each CD containing one song I need, to end up with a CD full of 15 songs. For instance, I need 15 songs for a routine, I buy 15 different CDs containining said different songs at 20 bucks (20bucks X 15 songs?) see where I’m going?
A good example, one routine has TLC’s “Push it”. Now, I went ahead and bought the darn thing (at a pawn shop for 5 bucks thank goodness), because I needed that one song for a collection of similar music for a routine.
Now, other than that song, I am not into TLC’s usual mode of music.
To complete the whole 15-20 song CD for a dance routine, I have would have to repeat that 15 or 20 times, fortunately, I can download from a napster type site. And I would NOT have a problem paying a fair market price for one song.
Also, frequently songs I download already ARE on CDs for which I paid for an entire CD, but many music companies make their music files difficult to transfer to mp3 and then to another music CD (and yes, I HAVE all the usual CD ripping eqpt and software).
Actually, I don’t see where I said “a LOT of the CD’s I buy” have 1 good song and 15 crappy ones. I thought what I said was that that is why I do NOT buy a lot of CDs.
But then, I’m pretty picky about what music I like. I may like one or two songs a band does, and not like a lot of the rest of their music.
Again, my point was NOT “waaaah wah, I don’t want to pay 20 bucks for a CD” (because I have, and do, when I like them), but one of “Sure! I’ll pay for a service that allows me to pick and choose what songs I want”.
-Well, in these cases, unlike most musical acts, Chrysler, HP and Coke all have large and powerful competitors.
Think the Intrpid is overpriced? Go buy a Caprice. Think that HP is overpriced? Go buy an Epson.
Think $16.99 for the new Evanesence album is too much? Go buy a… oh, wait.
When there is no nearly-equivalent competition for a product, that situation is called a monopoly. When competitors collude, privately, to set prices higher than normal competion would allow for, that is illegal.
That’s ridiculous. Think that Evanesence LP is overpriced then simply don’t buy it. Or buy from another store with cheaper prices. Or buy another band that has a higher quality-price ratio.
Really, I can’t believe how much powder we burn over the cost of what is a luxury item. It’s not like you’re complaining about the cost of rice or bread, here. It’s not something you have to have but something you want to have. And that makes so-called ‘moral’ arguments meaningless.
Do I think the business model for music distribution will eventually change? Yes, market forces will do that. But for the moment it means you’re criminals and therefore subject to arrest and prosecution.
And for those people thinking it’s the ‘RIAA’ that are evil why aren’t you complaining about say, the American Hotel and Lodging Association (where I was once employeed) that spent their days coming up with justifications for rising hotel costs and paying housekeeping minimum wage? Or the Corrugated Cardboard Association who attempt to bring up the price of cardboard packaging and therefore inflate the price of everything?
Or worse yet…you’re humble scribe is a member of the Direct Marketers Association. DMA attempts to make sure we can send you junk mail (and we’re working on spam) while keeping the prices fantastically low. Why no moral outrage there?
RickJay, there is a distinct difference in the way people buy CDs vs. the other products you mentioned. Most people, I think, choose titles that they want, then go find them, they do not say “I’d like to buy a CD today” and then bargain shop for the lowest cost ones.
Either way, you cannot deny that consumers are seemingly offended by the price of CDs while they are not offended by the prices of DVDs and Video Games. I think people feel they are getting significantly less on a CD, lower production values, less content, no special features, just 60min of sound over and over. DVDs have a 2hr long movie, plus special features thrown in, VGs have hours of interactive content that was programmed line by line. DVDs and VGs need to be on DVD technology because there is so much content, it won’t fit on CD. Music has no problem fitting on CD, and .mp3 users fit hours of music on CD, there’s just not as much there.
People are willing to pay because the only alternatives are stealing it, going without, or buying non-music entertainment. With stealing it becoming easier and easier, it’s no surprise that it is more common, and with DVDs and VG offering more perceived value, they are doing good business as well.
Cheese, if that was literally true, then I would never see people browsing in music stores. They’d just go in, find the CD they wanted, and head straight to the counter. But people DO shop around.
I don’t doubt that consumers are offended by the price of CDs. I also do not doubt that baseball fans bitch about ticket prices despite the fact that major league baseball ticket prices have held more or less steady for thirty years, or that people around here (southern Ontario) bitch about gasoline prices even though gasoline’s been pretty much the same relative price since Joe clark was Prime Minister. I know for a fact that people bitch about the price of postal rates, even though Canada (and the USA) has postal rates that are absurdly cheap as compared to most countries. People bitch about the price of EVERYTHING. That doesn’t mean they’re right.
Furthermore, your statement that people are not offended by the price of video games is in total opposition to reality. In fact, people have been biching about the price of video games since they were invented, and the battle lines are drawn around exactly the same issue; massive piracy of software. I cannot even begin to count the number of people who have tried the “I pirate video games because they’re too expensive” line on me. The price of XBox/PS2/Gamecube games is accepted, as opposed to the price of computer games, largely because they cannot be easily copied.
And give DVDs a few years to mature as a consumer good and you’ll hear the same thing.
I have my doubts, Cheesesteak (and I love the handle). I think people are accepting of DVD prices because there’s no real option. Let DVD burners become as widespread as CD R/W and you’ll see the MPAA screaming for vengeance as well.
People bitch about CD prices because there is a free alternative, not because prices are too high. If suddenly Warner Bros started selling CDs at $10 a piece we’d shortly be hearing complaints that they shouldn’t cost more than $5 each.
Bam!
Canvas, you should change the music for your routine.
Perhaps some songs from the same album?
Salt n Pepa, wasn’t it? Or is this a different Push It?
That’s not really possible. The department store I work for buys CDs for approximately $A18.50 and sells them at $A19-$A21 (depending on what the competition is selling them for that week).
The price can’t go any lower. And the store can only buy the CD from one place. So, unless the Record Companies drop their prices, there aren’t going to be any stores charging less, unless these stores don’t want to make a profit.