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States Sue Record Companies For Price Fixing
Logic Bomb writes: "Twenty-eight states filed a federal lawsuit today against the five largest record labels alleging price fixing on compact discs. The Federal Trade Commission has dealt with this before, through an out-of-court settlement that was supposed to fix the problem. A Reuters article provided by Yahoo gives good details."
CDs are already the greatest price-gouging scam in the history of the world: what other industry found a way to dramatically reduce their costs (plastic vs. vinyl) and increase prices by 50-100% at the same time. Since then, every year or two they ratchet up the wholesale price by another buck for no particular reason.
I'm glad that the states are suing the record industry for price-fixing, but in fact the industry is getting a pass on a much bigger scam.
Shit, no wonder this was marked as a troll. It was pretty content-free.
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Think of it this way. A bunch of fat, greedy bastards are suing a bunch of other fat, greedy bastards. We've already been screwed out of our cash. We aren't getting it back. But it's nice to see the people who screwed us over getting screwed out of the money they stole from us. Isn't this a sad, sad state of affairs?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Your write: It's not atypical for the *cover art* to be a very significant chunk of this.
... Take one box of crayons and one notepad, and start drawing. Everybody has enough creativity for that, and there's no shortage of examples if you need some.
Er
For goodness sake, disentangle yourself from the standard production machine! If you're using a cover artist to create your cover art, and a recording technician to do your recording, and backing singers/musicians to do your backing, and a mastering outfit to do the mastering, and a producer to produce the whole kaboodle, then it's not really your album at all!
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Also it is damn hard to find a job and even harder to find a job if you have been laid off,
News to me: I keep getting job offers to do AIX or Solaris contract work in Tokyo..
But I won't wear a tie or work for a bank, and I definitely won't fly coach to asia.. But I definitely _would_ be interested in a biz-class seat for a short term, if only for the sushi and the gadgets..
Your Working Boy,
We don't vote to decide on the price of things.
Yeah we do, with our wallets. Or, thanks to filesharing, with our mice.
I currently vote to buy only discounted CDs (and only on rare occasions), rip 'em and trade 'em over my corporate LAN and among a close circle of pals, and to not bother with Napster and its ilk. But that's just me.
While two wrongs (price gouging, copyright infringement) don't make a right, they certainly do grab attention..
Your Working Boy,
This is the result of an FTC action, and those alone take forever. The RIAA practice started in Feb 1995. The FTC settled in May 2000. This has nothing to do with attention brought by Napster.
:-)
Still serves 'em right
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Infuriate left and right
Regardless of how bogus their argument is, this IS part of their argument, that promotion costs money. Promotion isn't just advertising on MTV or magazines or TV, it includes advertising, whether directly or in cosponsored stuff like this.
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Infuriate left and right
Do you really think Wal_Mart and everybody was upset that the RIAA "forced" them to charge more money? How much arm twisting did it really take?
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Infuriate left and right
Folks,
I think you all need to read a good textbook on microeconomics.
The reason why the states are suing the RIAA and the rapid rise in the popularity of Napster is simple: the RIAA and its member companies are engaging in cartel-like price fixing.
I mean, right now go to your local Tower Records, Sam Goody, or Virgin Megastore and look up the average price of a non-discounted album-length audio Compact Disc. Is it averaging US$17 to US$18? Now go look up an online CD retailer like CDNow, Borders and Buy.com; their average price is about US$14.
Both of these prices are bordering on exorbitant, and if you know how cartels work there is now massive incentive to get around this cartel. This is why Napster have become so popular, because people are tired of shelling out such high amounts of money for album-length CD's.
This is why I think the RIAA member companies should not charge more than US$9.00 per album-length CD. By lowering the price of the average CD to this price point the incentive to do piracy drops to very low levels, since more people can afford to buy the CD in the first place.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
What the *HELL* are you talking about? yes, price fixing is "normal" in other countries, but that does not make it right.
Japan's economy crashed BECAUSE of the inefficiencies and counter-productive incentives introduced by the strangling government control, not because of the removal. All the businesses collapsed because of the artificial economic incentives they relied on like crutches which were removed.
And for evidence of Japan's amazing economic success -- well, let's hop in a time machine to 1990, and you will invest $1 in the Nikkei and I will invest $1 in the Dow, and we'll see who does better in the end!
(hint: today you'll have about $1. I'll have about $9.)
The price of audio CD-Rs has pretty much fallen through the floor.
Originally, the price for audio CDRs was much, much higher -- in the $13-$14 range PER DISC.
There is no real reason for this, as the "RIAA Tax" is only 2% of the CD wholesale price, and the cost of producing an audio CDR is no more then the cost of producing a data CDR. Apparently, the CDR manufacturers have "broken rank" with the RIAA's agenda of discouraging home recording through high priced media. A quick web search now turns up blank audio-only CDRs for $1.13 each.
But yes, the record companies do get a cut when you buy an audio CD. For that $1.13 CD, the RIAA receives between two and three cents, whether you use that CDR to copy a Metallica CD, or record your own band in your garage.
This is the real issue in all of the Napster debates. The gouging of the consumer is what is really driving the online sharing of music, I think. It's pretty apparent that most of the industry claims that the higher prices are due to promotion costs are bogus.
I really don't think that the artists would suffer all that much with the RIAA being gone and the major labels having their wings clipped. Here's why:
:)
Napster has shown that the 'help' that major labels and the RIAA provided to the artist, in terms of distribution and promotion, is just not needed anymore on the net. It used to be a really valuable crutch. A new group could depend on a deep pocket while the word got out and a fan-base was laid down. The initial financing for a massive production of albums was handled. Tours were arranged and promoted. All that took heavy connections but it no longer matters.
Now, a small band can set up a streaming video-audio server for peanuts... The cost of a cheap MIDI keyboard. It's just another instrument they play. Then they make a few posts to a USENET group that follows their musical style, and provide a URL to their site. On the site, they host some samples, bios, pics, rants... Give people the opportunity to actually buy a CD off the site, and save money by only burning those that are ordered and paid for, not a batch of 10k that may not sell. MP3.com is a good resource to tap into as well - but you know that.
It may take a bit more capital to get off the ground than when you have a recording contract, but it's definitely much cheaper than it would have been even a few years ago.
Now, the "manufactured" bands that are created by promoters, simply for the purpose of selling products and lining the pockets of the big labels.. Well, they'd likely be a LOT less popular then they are today. They would not spread as quickly based on their own talent (or lack there of) without the label cramming their hopped-up shows down every pre-pubescent throat in America. That's a separate issue, I think. (I saw a bit of NSYNC at Madison Square Garden on HBO last night. What a hot, steaming, runny pile of shit!) They'd still exist, and infact become the cash-cow of "The Industry", since talented artists would now have an opportunity to be heard without being herded.
Many Artists have often complained about the contracts they were forced to sign when they were getting off the ground. They're in the position where the label owns rights to anything they ever do, and essencially have to produce the kind of music that the label dictates. I'm not a musician, but I can certainly undertand how frustrating this sort of arrangement must be - I've been told to code a certain 'way' before, and have left a job as a result. Prince is a good example of an artist fighting a contract with a label. The whole silly name-change thing is supposed to have been a means of straining the contract he was under, so he could do His music and not Their music..
Anyway, the point is that with the current technology, an Artist has more options for creating, promoting and distributing their work. The recording label makes things a little easier - if they like you, but they are no longer the ONLY way of making it big. I think that MP3.com, and especially Napster, has served to show new artists that they have a chance to make it big without selling their soul. Hopefully many of the big artists will be able to side-step their contracts to take advantage of the new tech as well. I suspect many have not been outspoken on the RIAA issue for fear of 'punishment' by their labels, rather than because they oppose Napster.
There is a perception issue here though. Artists who want to spread their music stand to benefit greatly from the 'new tech' way of doing things. Artists who want to get paid for their music will have to be really good - and sell themselves to fans, not a label. The difference is subtle but significant. Giving the individual fan the choice of paying for music will make it harder for those Artists who 'are in it for the money', but easier for those who are in it for the music. We KNOW that the Internet culture is a meritocracy - regardless of what the big businesses think.
I think that there's a strong lesson in the Grateful Dead, who have been encouraging the bootlegging of their performances as a means of promoting their music. That lesson is that we're all going to Hell in a bucket.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Anyway! if the riaa thinks that they actually have a chance to walk out of this mp3 ordeal that THEY have created alive, lowering the wholesale price of cds would be the way to go.
think about it... if all the latest albums were priced to own at $7-$12 for a single cd album, what would stop someone from actually buying the disc, instead of using any of the peer-to-peer file transfer programs to find the albums they want. On top of that thr riaa could walk out of this as the hero *if they play thier cards right* and use napster et al. to thier benifit. Use it the same way they use radio promotions (sometimes before a major or semi-major album is released, the first single is released to radio stations to try to generate a buzz about the album... and what does a buzz lead to? record sales.)
Ugh!
Consumers like music, but they like free music even better! They like free MP3s better than $20 CDs even though (most) MP3s sound worse than CD audio. The RIAA is outraged that consumers would rather use Napster than drive down to Tower Records. I think consumers would welcome a competitive alternative between $0 music and $20 music. If the records companies were not fixing prices, there be $5 CDs (that didn't suck :-)
cpeterso
I used to buy cds at the Air Force base by my house.. The BX there charges cost/near cost for their stuff. All the cds were $10.49, which I imagine is either their cost or really close. Much better than $15-19 that most places are charging.
Blank CDs are what, 30 or 40 cents if you buy them on a spindle?
What kind of logic is that?
Man, a Lamborghini Diablo SV Couple costs $250,000. Wow, that's expensive. There can't be more than a couple hundred dollars of materials on one of those things... bring out the lawyers!
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Yeah, that funny since most "independent" record labels charge the same about for CDs (the only exception I can think of is Dischord...)
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
No for the same reason productivity increases seen with computers never seem to pan out. Since recording time has gotten cheaper, everyone uses more recording time.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Agreed. However, I find people who say "Something costs too much so I'm going to steal it" to be on somewhat shaky ethical grounds.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
You're absolutely correct. This happened a few years ago with Blockbuster.
The movie studios were giving Blockbuster huge price breaks, since they bought so many copies of each movie. Slowly and surely, the smaller, independent movie stores went out of business, unable to compete with the goliath that is Blockbuster.
Then one day Blockbuster mgmt told the movie studio that they thought that the price on a given film was too high. (it was some 2 star B flick, which the studios were asking $60/copy. standard price at that time for a popular title was ~$90/copy.) The studio disagreed, and kept the price the same. Blockbuster decided to just not carry the film. WHAM! Instant major dent in the studio's revenues, since they were then stuck with 60,000 extra copies of a movie nobody was really dying to watch anyhow.
Now Blockbuster is on the rack themselves and fighting bankruptcy. It's funny how quickly the tide can turn sometimes.
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E_NOSIG
US Senator Hatch warned the RIAA this was comming if they didn't fix the problems they where having. If this is what the RIAA needs to get with the times, so be it.
Though, I think that the whole situation of everyone suing everyone in the US is a joke. Govt. or not. *Sigh*.. maybe no other choice than to play by the rules of the sandbox.
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This sounds like a nice thing.. except ask yourself this question: are you going to see one red cent of these collected 'damages' awarded? You, after all, are the 'victim' of these increased prices.
hrm... ~$4/cd * ~800 CDs.. I have the money spent already!
(HA!)
-'fester
This is parallel to the FTC's action, which was settled by an agreement not to engage further in these price fixing methods. The state lawsuit goes beyond that and seeks monetary damages.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
One of my best friends is the manager of a local AMC Theater. The theater gets zero revenue from the price of the tickets. The theaters get 100% of their revenue from concession sales. That's the major reason for the high price in concessions, b/c the theaters raise them to make higher profit margins from their only source of revenue. AFAIK and as far as he knows (AFAHK I guess) all theaters in the country operate this way. Just thought you'd like to know.
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There is no try at jedinite.com
I'd also argue that the $1 a CD wouldn't be reasonable. But if CDs were $8 each, wouldn't you be more likely to spend approx. $30 a month then? More likely to find four CDs a month that you want to have
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There is no try at jedinite.com
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
Shit, I guess I'll have to run out and get a patent/trademark/trade secret/flotilla of lawyers and goons named 'Rocco' now :)
..don't panic
"Bookstores have been doing this for quite a while; often the markup is around 45% or so on hardcovers, so when you see the new bestseller for 50% off, chances are they're not making, but losing, money on it... "
Unless the books are what's known as "reviewer copies." These are surplus books that were originally intended to get distributed to media/book critics. Such books, when available, can be bought wholesale for 25 cents on the dollar. So, if they're sold at 50% off full retail, they could in fact be making a 100% profit.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
they created copyright... and continue to issue them.
do you really believe that all copyright should be abolished? That's pretty shortsighted. Do you want to nationalize industry while you're at it?
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The typical assignment of the copyright to the publisher, not the artist, is a problem. But the government is not causing it, or perpetuating it.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
> do you really believe that all copyright should be abolished?
Yes!
[...]
I dont want to end private property!
... um... what, exactly do you think copyright is? And how would you define "fair use?" "Fair" as in "free for me?" Or what?
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
That's the part that frightens me.
Y'know how your phone bill has lots of "charges" from the FCC? When the FCC charges the phone companies a few gazillion for Al Gore's latest "wire up the poor" tax^H^H^Hinitiative, the phone companies pass it on to us, washing their hands of it with the line "well, we have to charge you, the consumer, in order to recoup the lost revenue from the FCC's decision".
Just imagine RIAA's response to losing the class action suit. "What? We owe the gummint $500M? Damn, we'd better slap an 'FTC-mandated $2.49 MAP-restitution fee' onto every CD we sell!"
Yeah, I know, I'm just being paranoid and talking off the top of my head.
But if I were a slug^H^H^H^HRIAA executive, and lost the case, it's what I'd do. (And yeah, apologies to all the slugs I just insulted.)
>being part of the issue? For instance, a Redhat
>Linux CD costs $50 from Redhat. That's a helluva
>a lot more markup than ever occurs with a single
>mass produced music CD...
Your comparison does not hold.
When you buy that $50 Redhat CD (or the $70 version, or the $120 version, etc), you're NOT paying for the Linux operating system. You are paying for the SUPPORT contract that comes with that level of the Redhat distro.
If you don't want the support, got to:
http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html
... and go at it.
Ditto for SuSE, Mandrake, xBSD, etc.
As for the windoze and office packages being outrageously overpriced for the festering piles of crap that they are, I agree entirely. That's why I use either Appleworks (came free with the computer) on my Mac, or StarOffice (came free with the distro) on my SuSE box.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
Not that I side with the record companies here, but that's really no different than saying that Blizzard is getting a 2500% markup for Diablo II because four blank CDs cost $2 and they're charging $50 for the game.
There are lots of other costs. Now, admitedly, the fact that they charge about half for a cassette is what really makes one wonder. And I suspect the production cost of Diablo II was a little higher than the latest piece of teenybopper pop-dreck.
The cake is a pie
I read Love's speech and I don't find it at all convincing, sure whoever wrote it made some interesting points, but I'm skeptical about rock stars talking about backend code and VC's. Love also bitches about digital music, not just MP3s, yet only a couple of Hole releases are available on vinyl.
Hole is a mainstream alterna-girl band, backed by a big record company and is marketed as being "rebellious." Its their job to keep stirring the pot. To keep teenagers paying $18 a cd to listen music that does its best to diss the "man", while very obviously and ironically lining the the pockets of big business.
I'm sure anyone in the music industry has critical opinions about the way things are running, but its one thing to express your opinion and another to have an insincere, carefully worded speech perfectly suited for internet distribution to keep the kiddies convinced that though Love's been in many mainstream movies and a media gatabout, she's still queen of the subculture.
Well, I have to agree with most of the posts around here about how ironic this is etc. etc. It makes me smile.
But, let's think what might happen in the long run. We all agree that paying for CDs is like bending over and getting it with no vasaline. And somehow, at the same time, the actual artists are mostly getting screwed. So if this suit goes through (final verdict expected around 2007?) then do you think the artists will get screwed even more? Or, hopefully, will then realize the RIAA isn't that vital, and finally get around to cutting out the fat middle man and producing more themselves? This could be yet another big push, after easy CD burners and Napster, etc., for the artists to go independent. Where do you'all see this possibly going?
Jason
Napster (Shawn Fanning anway) says buy more CD's, not fewer, to prove that Napster doesn't cut into record sales, and also to show support for the artists. Boycott the RIAA if you want, but somehow support the artists.
Alcohol is not addictive, my friend.
My name is Jon C too..interesting.
Do you think if some garage band did a remake of some old song it would be wildly popular? You know how many people have done covers of _every_ song on Garage Days? People want to hear bands they _know_ sing old songs they _know_ form someone else. No one would have ever heard that version of "Last Kiss" if it wasn't Eddie Vedder singing it.
No, I'm sorry, it's really not.
Do some research, "fool." Alcoholics Anonymous was started to help people suffering from alcoholism. Alcoholism is not addiction to alcohol.
Fucking twit, read once in a while before you fucking yell at people. I'm in a bad mood, and you're fucking wrong.
No, my argument is that outrageous CD prices and the whole notion of copyright, as it currently exists, is an artificial and non-intuitive construct. The natural idea is that ideas should be free, since by copying them I have taken nothing from you. You still have the idea in a complete and undiminished form. What is worth paying for are the *services* and *items* that add value to the idea. It is not logical that the author of an idea should get anything other than what people feel that idea is worth. If they think your music should be free, then you are entitled to nothing. If that causes you to stop making music, fine. There will be plenty of others who will fill your shoes. Either that, or fewer and fewer people will produce music. But if people really want to hear music, they will probably start paying artists they like in order to ensure they keep making music. Artists probably won't be able to make bazillions of $$, but the vast majority of artists don't make tons of money right now anyway (music is a big-business, profitable venture *only* because record labels have artificially made it that way - people made just as much music before the RIAA showed up as they do now, and I would argue that the quality and musicianship of artists back then was an order of magnitude better than N'synch). In fact, the only thing likely to change is that big greedy record labels will go away and artists will continue to make music as they have since Man first wacked two bones together to tap out a rythym, and another person liked it enough to sit quietly and listen.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
It's only a service when they are actually performing the service. A recording is just an imperfect facsimile of the performance.
"There's a difference between what someone says they think it's worth and what it's actually worth."
No, there isn't. Something is worth ONLY what someone else is willing to pay for it. There is no such thing as inherent value apart from the consumer. It soesn't matter at all what it cost you to produce it, since if no one is willing to pay what you are asking, it isn't worth anything, and in fact reepresents a net loss.
"you have a whole bunch of other people who think the music is worth what they charge for it and are willing to pay that."
And those are the people who will keep music alive. As long as people perceive something to have worth, they will pay for it according to they value they perceive. So what if the kiddies keep downloading for free? The music they like will likely start to disappear if the don't pay something for it. If that happens, they won't have any more music, or they will start paying enough to support the artists. Again, they probably won't pay enough to make anyone rich, and that's a good thing. Also, instead of being able to make a couple of albums and live off the royalties, the artists might just have to settle down and start making a lot of music, since the amount of money they will be able to make on any one song will likely be limited. Again, this is a good thing. The original idea behind copyrigjt was to give the author a limited period of time in which to make money, thereby encouraging them to come up with more ideas. Look back to the artists in the past. They would churn out huge quantities of music. The concept of a one hit wonder didn't exist.
"Your entire argument boils down to saying that the fact that because stealing music is so easy relative to paying for it that a significant people choose to steal it means prices are inflated"
Once again, no. My argument is that prices are inflated way over what the music is actually worth. That is why the industry is facing this lawsuit. Recorded music is probably worth something, and we will probably find out what it is actually worth when it becomes possible to obtain music and pay the artist what you believe it is worth in an efficient, easy manner.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
I suggest you try selling a home and see just how little control you have over the price :)
Sure I can set the price of my house at any arbitrary value I choose. However, if no one buys it, I have no choice but to lower the price or take it off the market. The price is dictated by what the buyer is willing to pay. If they don't want to pay my price, they can buy from someone who is selling at a cheaper price. The only way I can dictate the price is to collude with my fellow home sellers and fix the prices of all homes being sold at some arbitrary value, thereby giving the consumer no other option but to pay the price I've set. This happens to be highly illegal.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
I agree that Napster isn't looking out for anybody but Napster, I don't agree that it isn't helping. Having napster be free and readily available adds competition to the music market. Competition is good, it keeps the big companies from getting to arrogant. Anyways, perhaps artists will have to live off of live music returns and merchandise sales. Linux has been doing that for years now....
-- Moondog
My question is, why were they doing this? Why would juggernauts like Sony and Warner Brothers do a damn thing to help out small stores at the expense of huge business partners like Wal-Mart? What was in it for them?
This is my question exactly. Everyone is screaming about this, but what exactly did the RIAA have to gain from this, except helping the smaller stores? The big chains were still buying CDs from them, and buying them at the same price as the mom and pop stores, so it definitely wasn't money they were looking for. Could it be they were trying to keep the small stores open because they offer more of a variety than the big chains?
The huge chains won't buy anything that isn't a huge hit (quick is what everyone is always complainign about, that they can't find anything except the big bands), but the smaller stores stock a wide variety of CDs. The record companies didn't gain anything from MAP policy, but the small stores did. SO why is everyone screaming about it, when the RIAA was trying to get some of the small musicians out there? I don't want to have to go to WalMart for all my CDs, because most anything I would buy wouldn't be available at WalMart.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Unless the monopolist arranges matters so that people have great difficulty in finding or knowing about such alternatives, or by using their own resources to prevent any alternatives from being implemented.
Of course, if you TRULY got the government out of the way, then there would be no such thing as "intellectual property", so no company would be able to hold onto a government-sponsored monopoly on such information.
Argh - get a cluestick why don't you! Sure, if a company wants to sell products at a loss - it's their right - up until the point where they're hurting the society, then it's the right of the SOCIETY to use an agent (the government) to slap the greedy bastards back into primordial ooze.
The so-called RIGHT of a small group of people (the owners of a company, for instance) to make money does NOT trump the right of a society to take care of themselves!
Heh - your response almost provides a blatant example of why society SHOULD slap down greedy bastards.
Try and make your examples fit the argument. If I had the only access to water in town, and 20,000 other people are going to die if they don't get access to that water, but I don't want to sell them the water unless they hand over all their property, is it in the best interests of the town to pay up? Hell no - they're going to shoot me, then take the water anyway! I'd be an idiot to think I could make the outcome any different.
Similarly, only an idiot would think that a company has some kind of fundamental right to "property". The society defines what "property" is - NOT any company.
But they CAN take care of themselves - by destroying the company which is blocking them from the resources they want. The company only exists, and is profitable, at the whim of the society - and any organization that forgets that is just ASKING to be destroyed.
I don't even know why you're so defensive of companies - they don't even exist as real people, just legal entities! If you want to talk individual vs. societal rights, then talk about that - don't pretend that a "legal entity" has any kind of rights equivalent to a real human being.
You seem to have a permanent case of individuals-are-more-important-than-society, and a strong unwillingness to even think about any other viewpoint.
Let's bring this down to primal force. There is no such thing in nature as a "right". Nature lets you keep what you have the power to defend. If someone or something more powerful than you comes along and wants your stuff, they'll take it from you. That's the only kind of "right" that nature gives you.
In a SOCIETY, you've got a bunch of people cooperating with each other who have decided that they'll help each other keep their own stuff. If someone tries to take their stuff away from one member of society, then the other members of the society will help that person keep their stuff.
You only get the "right of personal property" because the society has agreed to help you keep your stuff. If the society DIDN'T agree to help you keep your stuff, then nature says the first person who came along who was stronger than you could take it away from, and your "right" would be worth diddly-squat.
Bullshit. Who has the power determines who gets what. You or your company only gets to keep what has gained because the SOCIETY as a whole has decided that it's good to allow people or companies to keep what they have gained. You don't have any "right" except what the society chooses to grant you. The only reason behind this is because the society-as-a-whole is stronger than you, and can kick your butt.
The government is SUPPOSED to be an agent of the society as a whole, and has those "rights" which the society grants it. If the society decides that it doesn't want the government to have those rights, then the government won't have them.
Of course, this breaks down if the government ceases to be an agent of the WHOLE society, and instead becomes an agent of a small group of people IN the society.
Well DUH - if you provide a service to the society, then the society will reward you for that service. There's no such thing as a "right" to run a business or make a profit though. If you do something that severely hurts the society, then its going to use its collective might (possibly operating through its agent the government) to kick your ass. And all your whining about "rights" will be treated like the fertilizer that it is.
MP3.com should have stuck to distributing music from indie artists rather than screwing around with that stupid my.mp3.com crap. Now they're going to have to take it up the ass from the RIAA, just like everyone else.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yes you can record an album for 25K easily when you talk about supplies and an engineer. But when you talk about something like the black album which was produced by Bob Rock, who makes about 100K per album (at least), your prices skyrocket.
To all the other people who replied, I absolutely agree that prices are too high. My only point was that the argument that "CD's cost $.30 to make" is bs. It's like arguing to use Linux because Bill Gates speeds. There are many reasons to boycott the RIAA, use the right ones.
Diablo][ ~=$50usd.
SpiceGirls 1st. Album(New) ~=16 Cost to produce/record Album ~=$500,000 (I have the stats I will find it later)
Amount to promote ~= $17,000,000
Amount received concertsales/albumsales ca. 1996-1999 ~= 130,000,000.
Where's your 35000% now? I don't know how much it cost to make Diablo][, but they have a MUCH higher markup than an album does, as they do not have as much real world expenses. Lawyers are more expensive than programmers.
CD's have been around for almost 20 years. When they first came out, they cost about $20. Compounded inflation since 1985 has been about 50%, so if CD prices held steady with inflation, they would cost about $30 today. And of course, the first CD's sounded horrible. They were not digitally remastered, they had no bonus tracks or new material, and they suffered from bit rot. Despite the unprecedented increase in quality, the huge number of value-added features CD's come with today over when they first debuted, their price has fallen, in real money, by 50%.
And the price of music has always fallen. At the turn of the century, it cost most than a week's salary to buy a double sided acetate record, which was extremely low fidelity, was fragile, and was 6 minutes in length. At the dawn of the hi-fi era, it took more than a day's salary to buy the new LP's, which were still not good as today's CD's. Now with the CD, we pay a tiny fraction of hourly hourly wages, for something which has much more music, last longer, and sounds better, and people still complain.
Interesting idea. I've taken a quick glance through much of my music and believe that a large majority of it have artists that either don't have many music videos, or none.
What would an 808 State music video look like?
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Don't forget about legal costs.
Seriously, these corporations are legal machines. Microsoft's legal team has more money than most small countries. And because of this, they get away with too much.
One thing you forget, is that the royalties artists collect in CD sales are percentages of cents,... and many times artists themselves are supposed to pay for recordings out of their own pocket.
Am I the ONLY person who sees this as a reason why music piracy is NOT a bad thing? And am I the ONLY person who is disgusted that these companies have not learned their lesson?
They did it before, and we settled out of court. Thanks a fucking lot Uncle Sam. I mean, I'm not surprised in the least bit that the music industry has weazled out of the agreement. To be honest, we need to revitalize the age-old practice of corporate death sentences (government mandated dissolution of corporations).
Has anyone else seen the Phillip Morris commercials? They're very gutsy! They seem to agree with the government's actions against the cigarette industry. But at the end they say "We thought you should know". Phillip Morris and friends have destroyed lives, the SAME way that the music industry is destroying culture.
The music industry takes our culture, packages it, copyrights it, and makes it a product.
We're seeing more and more anti-trust suits being pushed through. Mostly resulting from the sucesses of the Microsoft prosecution. THIS ISN'T A BAD THING. Government exists to protect the people, and I honestly believe they are doing just that.
True, and left alone the monopoly does everything in it's power to squash those alternatives. Some competitor or inventor might survive, but hardly on merits alone.
In a "free" economy, nothing stops people and corporations from acting in their own self interest. A good thing, you might say, but a society of people, each acting in his or her best interest, can go catastrophically wrong.
It is the classical "prisoners dilemma" on a greater scale. I'll give you a typical example:
Too much use of antibiotics leads to a faster evolvement of resistant strains of bacteria. It is clearly in everyones interest that the stronger kinds of antibiotics are reserved as a last resort, or the day will come when we have large outbreaks of incurable pneumonia, for example. However, if I'm ill it is in *my* best interest to get back on my feet as quickly as possible, and a stronger antibiotic will do that for me. The sum of rational people becomes an irrational society.
The role of a government is to avoid such situations while interfering as little as possible
The best thing a govenment can do in a free economy is to serve as a guarantee that everyone must play by the rules. (including the government itself, of course) There are anti-trust laws, since monopolies live by those rational-individual-irrational-society mechanisms. They have been around for decades. That makes price-fixing a calculated risk and trust busting a fair action.
Regarding the goverments own monopolies we can have a discusion about them too, but this rant is getting too long already.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
The CNN article on this mentions that the RIAA made a settlement with the FCC in May, and teh effect was that MAP could not be used for the next 7 years. (MAP is the price fixing schema that the RIAA came up with). What is interesting is that since May, cd prices have INCREASED, which is part of the impetus for the states lawsuit.
I dont buy CD's anymore frm stores or major labels. I make GOOD money, but I cant afford 18 bucks a cd. I dont use napster. I buy music online from mp3.com, where artists are offering their works for sale. I cannot condone or conscience putting another penny into the RIAA's pocket. And what make me feel bad about that is that I happen to really like some artists that are signed to major labels.. but I have decided thats THEIR problem, not mine.
And everyone talks about $$ figures of cd's sold in the US. I would be interested to see a comparison of unit #'s of cd's sold. It seems that with all the price jacking it would be fewer # of units sold.
Okay, I'm rambling now.. I'm outta here.
(yes, I do read replies)
Check out Magic Firesheep!
But RedHat is also available as a free download. Which one I get is my choice. If the record labels offered a choice, either pay $18 for the CD, or download the mp3 for free, then there would be no problem.
The only reason Redhat is available as a free download is because the authors of the software have given you the right to expect it for free via the GPL. If Linus had not GPLed Linux and most GNU tools were not Free (as in Beer and Speech) then you have no right to expect a free download.
Your argument basically boils down to I get stuff for free over here, so why don't I get everything for free?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The whole issue about the cost of the CD coming into play is straight out due to the markup. It costs the record companies very little money to stamp out CDs in such mass quantities as it does, thus it should lower the CD price if more are sold. The amount of artwork and other matierials sent with the CD are also very minimal, making the straightout price to produce very low.
RedHat and others, on the other hand, package all sorts of things in their boxes (such as large manuals which have to be printed and bound, and then sometimes stuffed penguin toys which have to be manufactured). On top of this, there is an agreement of support that people are paying for. So, the $50 purchase of the RedHat CD (the actual CD of which costs about the same as a music CD) contains much more than just the CD.
The question that is posed here is whether or not that markup that record companies throw onto their CD's are justified. Admitted, they have to pay all sorts of people to do their promotion and other things, but does it really cost as much as they say it does? Apparently, the states think that the RIAA has been inflating the prices much higher than reasonable to jack up their profits, and has been using antitrust (through price fixing) and bully tactics (through their promotional money), though the bully tactics aren't illegal as far as I know.
Personally, I back you up on this one. If you are going to cry afoul when the GPL is violated, then you should have just as much of a problem when the copyright of music is violated through the use of napster (even though the problem is the big bad and evil record corporations).
Many people have mistaken the use of napster as something for which they have a "right." They give you arguments such as "art is in the free domain" and stuff like that, or "the big bad record companies are exploiting the common user of their music, let us take control of the means of distriubution... listeners of world unite!!!"
The problem with this is that most people spouting this information and philosophy don't understand it and can't argue it if their life depended on it. On one hand they'll be arguing the beauty of unadulterated capitalism then support the free distribution of music to all civilians, not even realizing their arguments. Anyway, I should probably get off of this rant....
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Maybe the record industry should learn from radio - play the music for free, make your money on advertising. Charge a minimal fee for the CDs (like $3-5), and cover them with superlame ads, which can be ripped off after purchase. They could still offer the pricey $15 CDs without any ads on them, for those who don't want to risk mucking up their precious CD inserts (or whatever they're called - the thingies with the lyrics and band pictures and all that in the inside of the jewel case) by tearing off the ads. Just a thought.
"And there was much rejoicing".
--
I don't follow the pack, but I'll follow a really cute girl.
Think of the possibilities here -
I own (roughly) 750 CDs. At the average cost of $18 that's a total investment of $13,500. If the states find that each CD should have only cost (generously) $1.50, does that mean I can sue the RIAA member companies for $12,375?
Don't even get me started on the pain and suffering inflicted when I had to hand over 80% of my salary (read: allowance) per week during my early teens for a single CD/Cassette/Album.
The Midnight Watch - All the news that's fit to ridicule:
How long has CDs been much cheaper to produce than cassettes? And how long have they costed around 3 times as much as cassettes?
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
But sometimes they do. That's one of the basics of law in the USA. If you don't like some aspect of the law, break it. You MUST be prepared to pay the price, however. Then you get your day in court, and hopefully get the law overturned, by the judicial process. These are often done by 'test cases' that are selected because they highlight some aspect of the law that is wrong, and that there is a decent chance of getting real change as a result.
At the same time, don't make yourself into a test case if you aren't solid. Your loss makes it more difficult for the next case.
How this relates to RIAA/Napster is a different issue. The two wrongs are not precisely aligned against each other.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
So who is getting the goodies?
Answer : the lawyers.
Let's say the state wins the case. Are we going to see lower taxes? No. Are we going to get a refund? No. Are we going to see lowered CD prices? Maybe.
In fact, if the state wins, the record industry now has a valid reason to raise prices : because the state sued!
When the state hire private lawyers to sue the industry (aka the tobacco case), the lawyers get most of the cash. The consumers see nothing.
So cheer while you can. But don't expect things to change much. After all, it's the consumers who willingly pay high prices for those CDs.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Question: What does this extra cost of video clips and music videos and advertisements and such non-such get us?
Answer: A raise in the price.
Problem: CD's cost too much
Solution: Could it be to stop the money wasting uselessness of a music video...
of course we know that this would never happen...think about it, most bands today (I am including everything from rap to boy bands to jail bait to alot of the rock trash on the airwaves today) would not sell if it wasn't for looks, because basically, their music is horrible. the reason I don't buy much music recorded recently is there is only one or two good tracks on the album, and that one track, is over played on the radio and I get really really tired of it, to the point that I stop listenening to that radio station for a while in order to not hear that song.
In the 70's (I am 17, I didn't live then) alot of bands who played really really good music wouldn't be popular today. Thin about it, the WHO, Yes, Loggins and Messina, Simon and Garfunkel, America, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and the list goes on and on...by today's standards for pop music, these people and groups didn't have the looks to survive even though their music is really good. Now on the other hand..n'sync, the BBBoys, britany spears...evidently they are what popular people are supposed to look like, and will sell based on looks not on musical ability.
Which I guess brings me to my long awaited point. If we could possibly get mainsream america to understand what music has musical value and what doesn't, prices would go down, video clips videos and ads would become less effective...but then that would be impossible because corporate america has most youths not thinking for themselves, they have a horde of zombies at their command.
maybe the wisdom of /. could come up with a more feasable solution to the problem of perfect people
however, this is an anti-trust violation. price fixing always happens, however if you engage in price fixing while having monopoly power, it is no longer legal. On a related note, anti-trust law also has a small provision that if you abuse your monopoly power by doing something like price fixing, you loose your copyright. Thus the Record Label's Copywrited work (they own not the artist) will enter the public domain. You can have a monopoly, you are just held to a much higher standard of fair play than a competetive market (where if you price fix, your competitor will undercut you). In this case the 5 named companies engaged in collusion to fix prices while a monopoly. Bad bad record companies must not have been listening when Orrin Hatch threatened to spank them.
---
the fact that they charge about half for a cassette is what really makes one wonder.
What I have come to realize is that what companies charge for a product has little to do with how much it costs to produce and a whole lot more with how much consumers are willing to pay for it. Obviously they need to make a profit, but how much of a profit they make depends on how much it can be sold for. Cassettes could be just as- or more expensive to produce than CDs, but consumers are willing to pay a lot more for a CD than a cassette --better sound quality, newer technology, what-have-you--
The same thing goes for games. Diablo II costs $50 (or whatever) because the average gamer is willing to pay $50 for it.
If you think (Game | CD) prices are too high, get everyone to stop buying (Games | CDs) until they are cheaper. (Not that this is really possible, but if somehow someone did, prices would drop)
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
the government has to take action to protect them.
... WHY?! Why do stupid people get baby sitters that the rest of us have to play along with? It's not fair to those of us who can make a decision about whether or not to buy a damn CD. If someone is soooooooo dumb that they will buy a $100 Britney Spears CD.. then SO BE IT!
Arrrgggghh
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Left alone people find alternatives to monopoly services and goods. Thats the way the economy works.. either some new competiter comes in and forces the price down (if they can) or someone invents something better or just different to replace the monopolized good. eventually businesses would get the idea that treating your customers well and keeping them happy is a better investment than trying to fight the market price of the good/service. The only reason we have so many problems with monopolies these days is because of poor government regulations in the first place... the government its self is the worst of them all: they have a legal monopoly on violence (which is given to them in the constitution), BUT! we also have a USPS which is been trying to die for decades but ADVERTISING and government regulations keep it alive, lotteries! the poor mans tax IS ADVERTISED!, the military IS ADVERTISED! census IS ADVERTISED.. its just rediculous.. the government is out trust busting when it should be privatizing all these outdated services. What we need is a free economy not a government with free reign OVER the economy.
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
I believe the community has a right to react, not the government. If it was brought to a public vote... sure.. but the government should just leave business alone. I dont want to discourage business, making a profit is what drives new "toys" and great new "things".. I dont want to be "protected"... except maybe from bombs and tanks... If you dont like the price of CD's you can buy something else, it's called "voting with dollars". If you really want a CD and will pay $20 for it.. then I guess the price isnt too high right?
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
why does metalica only let "their label" sell the music? you think artists like this deal? its the copyrights that the music industry forces the artists to sign over thats the problem!! it the government CAUSING this.. they are not the solution... they already made the problem.. its part of the never ending government ploy to create problems so they can later "fix" them with MORE regulation...
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Argh - get a cluestick why don't you!
Why? you need to borrow it?
Sure, if a company wants to sell products at a loss - it's their right - up until the point where they're hurting the society, then it's the right of the SOCIETY to use an agent (the government) to slap the greedy bastards back into primordial ooze.
If what ever it is that's being sold belongs to the company... then I dont care if millions die because they can't afford it... what the hell.. just because you have a bottle of water and I'm dying of thirst does NOT put you under ANY obligation to give me a drink. And in the case of companies.. we can live without what they are selling.
The so-called RIGHT of a small group of people (the owners of a company, for instance) to make money does NOT trump the right of a society to take care of themselves!
If a society can't take care of it's self because a company charges high prices... that society should probably die off... give me a break!
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Of course, he's got umpteen best-selling books already filling his bank account. How many musicians can depend on that kind of safety net?
.5 million dollars. the record companies ARE scared of this. They claim the costs of production and marketing are high... bullshit..
If I woke up tomorrow with all the musical talent anyone could ever want.. I WOULD NEVER sign over ownership of ANYTHING and I would never make a CD with a record label. My music would be advertised on the net and available in several high quality digital formats. If it cought on I might make some videos to stream over the net and sell some advertising myself...
I'm just saying that the investment record companies make in artists (then charge them for it) doesnt need to be as big or even come from the record companies any more.. we dont NEED record companies to hear music... you could make some ultra high quality recordings and buy some slashdot advertising and have your music heard without it costing
Dislodging the stagnant record industry behemoths by govt. action would do wonders to restore competition to this arena and would get true innovation back into music distribution.
what could the government possibly do that wouldnt just make things worse? Do we really want the gov going around setting prices for consumer goods? what's next? setting the prices on stock? rationing of goods? REQUIRING consumers to buy something? can't we do it without the government?
Doesn't all this dependance on "Big Brother" make anyone besides me sick?
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
I don't want to sell them the water unless they hand over all their property
If your going to make demands like that.. sure you may need to fend some people off... But if it is YOUR water, and that's the price your asking.. so be it.
by destroying the company which is blocking them from the resources they want.
That's THE problem with our society.. people believe they are entitled to what other people have.. rediculous! You have NO RIGHT to anything my company has or myself for that mater!
don't pretend that a "legal entity" has any kind of rights equivalent to a real human being.
Companies are created and owned by people.. the government is a "legal entity" and it has ALL the rights it wants.
What's the point of running a business if society has the "right" to destroy what you build and TAKE your property? Why bother?
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Circuit City does this too. They take the $4 hit on each of the CD's they sell because they think that while your picking up a CD you may also decide to get a refridgerator or TV or something while your at it.
The last line of the Yahoo article says it all:
"Industry executives say CD prices have risen since the May settlement."
I'm skeptical that their cost per CD has risen accordingly...
Okay, so a lot of the bands you mentioned DO need a lot of the post-production work, but I take exception to the use of Blink 182 and Smashmouth who both put on good live shows (NOT sung to DAT) and are solid artists. Britney Spears, BS Boys, NSync those guys just suck without their studio gear.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
I take second place to no one in my animosity to the record companies and their Gestapo, the RIAA, but I'm wondering if this is another example of the plague of "let's get the unpopular" lawsuits sweeping the nation. First tobacco, then guns, now ... record companies? The federal and state governments have become such whores for revenue that they need little incentive anymore to go after any industry that looks like it might cough up some dough and that is sufficiently unpopular (or can be made so with the right degree of demonization). If that's the case here, and I'm not saying it is until I see more facts on what's alleged, then I say leave them alone, else no industry will be safe from the jackals. Of course, if they've really done something wrong, a slow roast on a spit will be just fine with me ...
No. All the more reason to support your state government and boycott all record labels. I've already sent an e-mail to my State's Attorney General telling them that I would support them in joining this suit, but I will never support Napster.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Although your point is valid, the same could be said of any commoditized good. When an industry conspires to raise the price of such commodity well beyond a reasonable rate, the community and government do have a right to react. Whether or not this reaction is a boycott of these goods is really not for one individual to decide. People don't need music, but we do want music. Need is a little subjective, eh?
don't believe the hype
Interesting. RIAA is being charged with pricefixing using MAP.
If the plaintifs win this one, I would imagine that this could be a springboard for a similar case against the MPAA and it's region-coding pricefixing scheme.
The only difference is that region-coding is (at the moment) not dividing up countries, and in particular, doesn't rip of the US quite so spectacularly as, for example, the UK.
A decent DVD usually costs a bit under £20, often with a number of features missing from other regions.
Quite apart from the fact that encrypting a product and only allowing you to use it under 'controlled conditions' or a 'secure box' is quite unethical. If I buy something, I can do whatever the hell I like with it.
OpenDVD has a fair amount on this subject.
You mean someone's actually doing something about the fact that I have to pay $16 for a CD? How about doing something about the fact that the artist gets jack from my purchase. It's all about the middlemen getting fat. Why haven't the artists done something about this before? Both for themselves and their fans? Shows how we really rate in their opinions. Or spineless they are.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
Nevertheless, if it did actually come to court, in front of a jury of ordinary folks who're also the consumers ripped off by the miserable cartel the RIAA is, there is a possibility that the RIAA could be hammered half way to hell and back. Maybe not as much as the tobacco industries, but it would be the same kind of judgement, which boils down to "You lied to us and ripped us off, now it's payback time."
But, as you say, the RIAA have probably spread around a fair amount of cash to ensure that things do not get to that point.
-fff-
Screw Blizzard what about ICEE ( a shaved ice slurpee like sugar concoction). What does sugar, food dye, and ice cost?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Can the consumers ( we ) organize a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA? If so, then I'm willing to fill out all the arbitrary forms the lawyers send out to you in the mail, and the RIAA can be fighting on three fronts instead of just 2.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I thought the FCC settlement was supposed to bring prices down. Why haven't the record companies complied with that legal action? Ironically, (if I recall correcly) the original price hikes were supposed to "help" consumers by preventing mega-stores like BestBuy from driving small record stores out of business - yeah right. It's obviously greedy and disingenuous actions like this by the major record labels that give creedence to Napster fans.
credo quia absurdum
Several people cry out that they use Napster as some sort of protest against the record companies for overcharging. That's bullshit, you're using it because it gives you for free something you would otherwise have had to pay for.
Some people cry out "boycott RIAA!" This is pointless. It's not going to convince them to let up on Napster, and even if you succeed in driving down sales of CDs, they'd probaly just raise prices to compensate.
Now the states are going to tear a big chunk out of their money. It feels good, doesn't it? When I first read it, I thought "Yeah! Take that you greedy bastards!"
But it won't help. Well, maybe the states will use the money for something good, but don't expect the record companies to improve. As it was, they would charge the stores $10 and demand that the stores charge $16 or so. Now, they'll just charge the stores $12. The stores will be forced to charge $16 or more in order to keep afloat, and the record companies will use that extra $2 to recoup their losses from the states' suit.
At least, that's the way I see it...
Industry executives say CD prices have risen since the May settlement.
Perhaps that could say: CD Prices have risen as sales have decreased.
or how 'bout: CD Prices haves risen as sales have increased
or maybe: CD prices have risen due to the fact that we have to pay for the massive promotion costs of that last boy/girl group we signed 'cuz that music won't sell itself, even though if your buying this CD you wouldn't be caught dead listening, let alone buying, the CD of that boy/girl group but we're gonna make you pay for it anyway...
or maybe: CD prices have risen as we felt we needed a raise, after all you can never be making too much
"When a star appeared it was a sign to raise CD prices, when the rains came it was a sign to raise CD prices, when at midnight was born a two headed cow it was a sign to raise CD prices, when at noon was born a perfectly normal cow with no complications what-so-ever it was a sign to raise CD prices" (apologies to Mr. Adams)
-GreenHell (I'm not bitter, really)
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
Do these analogies hold water?
Books vs CDs
How much does it take to print/distribute/market a book? Let's assume that there are similarities in the way they need to be distributed, published, etc. There are even the categories; classic, pop, alternative, etc. There is also the argument of crap artists etc.
Is it more expensive to actually print a book than a CD? I don't know, but I do know that a book can be bought for $7 where a CD costs $15.
VHS Movies vs CDs
There are a similar set of circumstances...
VHS can cost $15 vs a CD's $15. Does this sound right?
DVD Movies vs CDs
Even more similarities, I think, than VHS, since this is digital!
Offline DVDs cost $30. Online I can get DVDs for $20. Pioneer is repricing older DVDs for $10. CDs cost $15 *everywhere*, more or less. Older CDs don't cost less, and online distribution doesn't seem to be saving us that much money.
I'm not making much arguments here, just throwing out a few thoughts.
With a nick like mine, I guess moderators have a hard time judging me fairly.
GPL Deconstructed
Who gets the money if the States win?
The States have done the same thing with the Tobacco Industry and Microsoft, yet as a Windows using smoker, I have yet to hear where I'll be able to pick up my check when the dust settles.
Do we care if the States or the Record companies have the money? Sure, on some childish, spiteful level we want to see the Record companies punished, and yes, it could lower future CD prices, but what the States are suing for is OUR money. The States use the money for whatever pet programs that they want. In a way, this is like an indirect form of TAXATION.
Find this at http://www.riaa.org/MD-US-7.cfm
It's a small bit different (haven't run it through diff yet), but it's interesting that nowhere on the page does it mention anything about the Justice Dept. It sounded to me like something cooked up by the RIAA's spin-lawyers. Notice they didn't mention the "contract math" listed in Coutney Love's manifesto, that promotion costs, tour costs, etc. are recoupable from the band's royalties (which are relatively small). Not that I can vouch for the truth of that manifesto, haveing not done much research on the issue yet.
A professional album costs upwards of $100,000 to record.
You've been taken in by the studio hype.
A $100K production package is entirely unnecessary. Quality writers, vocalists and musicians have been creating top quality music at near zero cost for millenia, and they haven't suddenly lost that ability now that 1000-track, billion-dollar digital studios are available. This applies even in totally electronic genres --- the keyboard/MIDI scene is so incredibly buoyant and rapidly churning that the kind of equipment that would have set you back dozens of thousands of pounds just 5 years ago is available at near-student prices now, and that's not just your instruments but the whole production outfit.
Your argument is basically back to front. The industry has created an expensive production and hype machine and uses this as an excuse for keeping prices high, as if using that environment were some sort of precondition for creating music. It isn't. If you buy into that standard MO then all you're doing is feeding the already-overfed beast.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Spitzer said at a press conference the states were still calculating the exact amount of the damages, but said they amounted to ``hundreds of millions of dollars'' or ``several dollars per CD.''
so... i have around 400 cds. by my calculations, the riaa owes me $1200. empeg, here i come!
but joking aside... what will happen to the cash that the courts make the riaa cough up? as a major purchaser of cds, i'd sure like to be refunded for some of the cost of my music.
--
Why do you talk about the cost of a blank cd as being part of the issue? For instance, a Redhat Linux CD costs $50 from Redhat. That's a helluva a lot more markup than ever occurs with a single mass produced music CD...
Music single: 6.00
Full Length CD: $12-$17
Video game: $30-40
"Free operating system": $50-120
Windows upgrade: $90
Windwos fullversion $200
Office Suite: $500
Yet they all ship on the exact same media. CD's...
Not once in the entire antitrust trial, did the DOJ hold up a blank CD and wonder why Microsoft charged so much more than that... They wondered about microsofts pricing yes, but they never considered the actual media as being a large enough of an expense...
Same as for music. Software has developers, QA, graphic designers, lawyers, executives, etc... Music has musicians, producers, executives, lawyers...
Makes no sense to my why people openly advocate stealing music yet cry fould when someone violates their GPL by not releasing source... Get on one side of the fence or the other, please...
DiabloII, as well as many other networkable games of today, provide people who bought (or pirated) the game with the ability to play the game online. Those servers do not cost the end-user anything, but they do cost a lot of money to maintain.
You can argue that the users have already paid for those servers, even if they don't use them, since they've paid the steep mark-up for the game. You'd be right, that's where the money comes from. But, this is the same sort of reasoning that the RIAA and MPAA use all the time. Money not made is not money that's lost. Money that's spent on the game alone is the same amount as that spent on a game you intend to network. The person who networks DiabloII is getting more bang for their buck. Simple.
Now, where's the extra bang for the buck with a CD? As another poster on this thread suggested, a CD is no more expensive to produce then a book, yet a book tends to sell more cheaply (unless you're in college, in which case you're the victim of extorsion, but that's another topic entirely).
There isn't anything really special about a CD. No, not anything more special than a DVD - both are the 'cool thing' in our culture. We provide the suppliers with a ready market. They set the maximum price that most people are willing to, begrudgingly, pay.
If prices dropped, record sales would undoubtedly rise; but not in proportion. Even if they sold the CDs at a buck a piece, I would not buy the same dollar-amount as I do now. There are not 30 albums per month that I would want to acquire.
Now for the cost of production - and here we get to see the actual price-fixing at work: Say an album costs the aforementioned $100k to record, another $100k to distribute and yet another $100k to promote (though most promotion is in radio play - paid for by advertisers, and in performance tours which are paid for at the gate). So, we have $300,000 in investment. Let's add $200k for the artists and another WHOPPING $500k for all others involved.
Now, we've got a cool Million to work with (funny how that worked out). Say an album sells a million copies... That's a dollar per copy. We pay what?? $20 a piece?
Even if an album sells (ONLY) 100,000 copies (pitiful), that's still $10 a pop to break even - remember the bills are paid now. Where's that extra money going? Britney Spears next boob-job? New 'Stangs for NSYNC? Bail for Snoop Doggy Dog?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Well, not for those making money on it, but still.. In a greater, moral sense, Napster has served it's purpose.
It was in the wrong, and we all know it - but by allowing individuals to rip off the Record Companies, it has prompted the bears to charge. They're now out of the cave, and everyone knows they're a bunch of greedy hypocrites.
Two wrongs do not make a right, but apparently, doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons will sometimes bring to light another wrong, which has been swept under the rug in the hope that no one notices. It's about damn time.
But, I just hope that this is not a sign of things to come. The FTC/DOJ/Fed seem encouraged by their 'victory' over Micro$oft. Are they now starting to chase down other monopolists? In the case of the RIAA, it may not be a bad thing. But I hope that it doesn't turn into another witch-hunt. We've seen over-zealous government agents cause a lot of harm in the name of doing good.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
CD's haven't been around for 15 years
Not to take away from your main point, but [scrabbles around in desk drawer, pulls out a disc, checks the date] the Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" CD was released in 1985 -- fifteen years ago. And that wasn't the first CD by a long shot, although it is one that convinced a lot of people (including me) that it was time to get a CD player. (It was one of the first 'DDD' discs, digital recording, digital mixing, digital playback, vs some of the 'AAD' discs made from analog masters. It also had more music on it than the vinyl LP version.)
-- Alastair
I have seen this quote in nearly every article I've read about this situation, "The labels say they started the MAP policy in an effort to help smaller music retailers compete with chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Circuit City Stores Inc. They say smaller retailers do not have the option of offsetting losses from cut-price CD sales with sales of other products." It makes you say to yourself, "Awww..those nice big record companies were just trying to help out little record stores, that's sweet."
My question is, why were they doing this? Why would juggernauts like Sony and Warner Brothers do a damn thing to help out small stores at the expense of huge business partners like Wal-Mart? What was in it for them?
Question 2: What kind of damages would they have to pay and to whom? The only case like this that I remember is when Nintendo was found to be price fixing (way back in the day). In the Nintendo case, they sent coupons to everyone that had bought games that were good towards the purchase of new games. What sucks about that system was that the company that was price fixing (Nintendo here) ends up making more money by mailing out coupons good for less than the profit margin of the product. Also, while you're at the store with a coupon, you are quite likely to pick up another game/CD at full price. Someone with some info, please chime in.
-B
This just cannot be justified
Since when should you have to justify the price you want for something. You price it.. people either say "X is worth $Y" and buy it, or people say "X is not worth $Y" and don't buy it.
Next thing you will be complaining that some companies have too high of profit margins.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I'm not a real big record company apologist, but:
At that time, large department stores and consumer electronics retailers began selling CD's below cost as a "loss leader," in an effort to get people into the stores to buy big-ticket items, labels said.
The labels say they started the MAP policy in an effort to help smaller music retailers compete with chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Circuit City Stores Inc. They say smaller retailers do not have the option of offsetting losses from cut-price CD sales with sales of other products.
Granted, those guys have a way of lying through their teeth, but that sure makes sense to me. If I were running a small music store which only sells CDs, I can't afford to lose money on CDs. A Best Buy can pick up the slack by selling impulse items like CD cases and, ehrm, refrigerators.
The labels say they received no financial gain from the MAP policy. "The wholesale price we charged retailers was the same whether or not they participated in MAP," one label executive said.
But the states claim in their complaint that if a retailer advertized a price below the agreed-upon minimum, the retailer risked "the loss of all promotional funds available from that (label) for a period of 60 to 90 days...(and) would jeopardize promotional funds for an entire chain."
Why exactly is this price-fixing? The instrument industry does the same thing -- they sell instruments at a wholesale $X. They don't allow you to advertise below a certain MSRP in-print, but you can sell it for any price you want, hence the haggling which is an unalienable part of the experience of buying an instrument.
Doesn't the blame lie on the retailers?
darius
The three words that scare the crap out of the RIAA?: Northern Mariana Islands. That's right, we're not just talking about the full sovereign force of twenty-four states plus Puerto Rico. This action has been joined in full by the Northern Mariana Islands. Don't you see? The Northern fucking Mariana Islands!
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
.. from the book "Our Dumb Century", which is essentially a set of newspaper parodies from the year 1900 to 2000 (starting with the assassination of President McKinley and ending with the ascension of the Christian Right to heaven.) The headlines marking the beginning of World War I looked something like this:
WAR DECLARED BY ALL
States Sue RIAA Sues Napster Sues Metallica Sues Courtney Love Sues Orthodox Jews Sue Barney the Dinosaur Sues Dr. Dre Sues Puff the Magic Dragon
TIME-WARNER ALMOST SUES ITSELF
Companies Struggle to Remember Allies
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
It could also be considerred "price fixing".
It is about time that legal action be brought against the RIAA. They have been using monopoly-powered mafia-like tactics to hold onto their control of the industry. Simple fact of the matter is, that these record companies control just about every aspect of the music business, and competition is nil. Look at Britney, N*Sync, Backstree Boys, etc. A free market would have never allowed these performers to sell, let alone be sensations.
I would really like to see the MPAA sued for "bundling" their DVD players with their DVD's. That is, in order to play a DVD, you MUST use one of the players that are officially sanctioned by the MPAA. It always struck me a bit like the old railroad (J.P. Morgan?) thing where you had to use THEIR railcars if you wanted to use THEIR tracks. The forced youi to buy multiple product, because they controlled the monopoly. Exactly the same thing that MS has been pulled into court for.
So if its good enough to pull MS in on, why cant they go after teh MPAA?
Next, the MPAA needs to
tagline
... hi bingo
I'm glad they're going after the companies, and I hope that when the states win the class action suit against the companies that will follow can get each of us a couple of bucks for each CD we bought. We've all known that 17 bucks was way too much for something whose production costs so little, and things like Napster are mostly the result of the absurd cost of CDs.
Q:Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A:All my autopsies have been performed on dead peop
Since the RIAA takes its cut, and the major labels take their cut, and the distributors take a cut, the cost of raw materials takes a cut, and finally the artists get .003 cents for the sale, then you can see where the money goes. Note that the cut the RIAA takes does not go to the artists, they get to keep 99% of the collected artists royalties for overhead. Cut out the RIAA, and force the labels to use straight forward accounting practices for royalty distribution. Then the artists will see the money they deserve. A system like that would allow many more artists to make a living doing what they love, rather than have all the money get lost on the way to them.
CD prices are even more outrageous here in Europe, with even less money going to the artists. I'd expect the EU to follow up with a similar investigation now that the US has shown the way.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
That would be all good and great, if the price of a CD was reflective of the record company's effort for that particular artist, but I bet it's not.
Way more promo effort (i.e. money) has gone into Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys than say, Pitchshifter or Fear Factory. But their disc prices are just about the same, even when each was first released.
Now, that kinda tells me that the money I spent on my latest Pitchshifter disc didn't all necessarily go to efforts solely directed at selling Pitchshifter and their disc to the public. Am I helping fund the latest boy band's promotion?
If my $18 (after compensation, manufacturing, etc.) were going totally into efforts (or reimbursement of efforts) to promote the band I just bought, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem.
But I don't think that it is. It's going into promotion of a small handful of record-company-constructed "musicians", who, as a result of this promo machine, will make back exponentially more for the record company than they put into it. Honestly, the strategy makes sense to suits who don't care about the art. But what about a band who, if promoted properly and paid fairly, would make a decent profit that, though not on a Christina Aguilera-scale, would be decent enough to satisfy and support that band? Well, the RIAA companies don't really care, for the most part. Sure, the smaller RIAA labels do, but they're usually not rolling in cash, either. They're just owned by the big RIAA companies so that when the small labels find the 'right' band, the parent RIAA company can be ready to exploit.
And that's why I hate the RIAA.
-JimTheta
---
My stupid web site
The problem with this suit is that it doesn't really help consumers. Why? Well, basically all MAP pricing has done is to keep Walmart, and Circuit City and the ilk from closing down smaller stores. These types of retailers sell the CD's under cost. It's a marketing tool to get people into the store to but high buck items.
The record companies sell CD's to Walmart for the Same price they sell to Mucisland or some other smaller chain.
While MAP pricing stinks I think it's really the small part of the puzzle of price fixing. Really, it's icing on the cake. And keeping companies liek Walmart in check isn't that bad of a thing.
The real point is a effort to keep the industry wholesale prices inflated. In order for this case to work out there has to be proof that the music companies have acted together to that ends.
Actually in a case life that, "out-of-court-settlement"="RIAA threatened to pull all their lobbying money, states saw that the general public really didn't care they were paying $18/CD, so one of the state lawyers went over to the RIAA members, said 'Bad RIAA' and slapped them on the wrist, and all was forgotton".
Which is exactly what will happen this time. Napster is all over the news, so a bunch of state senators and State Attorney General's got together to get a little face time on the local news, while taking a "brave stand" on a "hotbead issue" in the face of "corporate greed". And in 2 months, when consumers are still breaking their ankles running to Best Buy to get the latest Metallica album (on sale for $15.99!!!), the suit will be settled "out-of-court", and status quo will once again be restored.
You're wrong (but not totally). Under the law 17 USC 10, section 1003, the manufacturer of "digital audio recording medium" must pay a royalty, defined in section 1004 as "3 percent of the transfer price", the manufacturer's wholesale price. Section 1001 defines "digital audio recording medium" as "any material object in a form commonly distributed for use by individuals, that is primarily marketed or most commonly used by consumers for the purpose of making digital audio copied recordings by use of a digital audio recording device". It specifically exempts media that is primarily used as computer media, and a computer and/or CD burner fail to meet the definition of a "digital audio recording device" (unless they're specially marketed as such).
Last I looked recordable CDs still didn't have to pay royalties, and 3% of 40 cents doesn't have an impact even if that's changed...
Here is the wired article
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
Why do the CDs of old stuff still cost the same as the ones keeping the marketing staff busy?
Your argument has holes in it.
Oh yeah: "Doom I,II,III, Descent I,II, Diablo I" All $4.95 in the clearance bin. That's 90% off the original sale price for software a few years old. Where's the 90% off an all 80 music?
10 Repeat after me: They're gouging us. Goto 10
I have serious doubts about the artistic effort being among the most significant chunks of the cost of a CD. Typically artists get only a very tiny fraction of what each CD sells for. I'd love to see some real numbers on this. The industry made $15 billion in profit last year. Doesn't sound like they're having a tough time of it to me. There's no way in hell I'm going to take their word for it. I want the full investigation done. They aren't telling us everything, you'd be a fool to believe they are.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Absolutely correct. Why should the record companies have to watch their spending? After all, large parties, extremely pricey advertising and the costs of keeping non-signed bands off the charts are of vital importance.
If the record companies actually had to worry about receiving income, they might start having to satisfy the customer. Satisfying the customer would be a bad thing... Right?
Seriously though, by not having to worry about what bands they pick up is a bad thing. You get artists that are nothing more than advertising tools that the media companies create themselves. Putting a little responsibility into the equation would probably help stop record companies from deciding what they want to sell and instead focus on where the customer base wants to take the market.
Keep in mind that the worst thing that the record companies did to themselves recently was not supporting Hip Hop, that opened the door for a lot of independant publishers and started the move to liberate the music industry.
Lando
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Nice choice of years. Now try this one, taken from RIAA's own U.S. market data report: between 1990 and 1999 the average cost of a CD rose by 13%. And yet, sales volume continues to grow by 10% annually. Isn't it a shame that piracy is destroying the CD market?
At that time, large department stores and consumer electronics retailers began
selling CD's below cost as a ``loss leader,'' in an effort to get people into the
stores to buy big-ticket items, labels said.
Someone's got to have a really inefficient distribution system if they can't make money off a $18 CD.
--
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
...sued Microsoft? What is it with these 28 states? Did all the Attorneys General go to the same law school or something? I don't get it, why would only 28 states sue? Do record and softare companies only operate in these 28 states? If anyone has any enlightenment to spread, I'd much appreciate it...
The government is supposed to protect citizens from force and fraud. Price-fixing is not good capitalism, it is a type of both force and fraud. Price-fixing distorts the market, preventing people from being able to freely negotiate price. Therefore it is a legitimate function of government to prevent price fixing -- along with other acts of collusion and conspiracy -- from happening.
---- ----
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Besides, RedHat isn't charging just for the media. They are charging for the customer support you get when you buy the boxed product, as well as a set of printed manuals.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
Ok, I for one am fully in favor of this lawsuit, but please don't make the mistake of saying that $.30 is all it takes to make a CD. A professional album costs upwards of $100,000 to record. Plus advertisements, plus distribution, plus the amount of money the industry "eats" for all the bands that don't sell. Don't forget for every Spice girls there are 100 bands that get printed, promoted and distributed and never sell crap. CD's should be cheaper, that is for sure, but your argument just doesn't cut it here.
The companies shined attention on themselves by going after Napster, and I rather imagine they aren't enjoying the results now.
Don't expect this to be the last lawsuit either - you know that once people smell an easy target, those things multiply.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
An essay describing the history of CD manufacturing and price-gouging can be found at:
http://www.negativland.com/minidis.html
Lots of other information on the record industry, copyright, and intellectual property issues is available on their site.
This comment is quoted verbatim from an RIAA website. The original page can be found here.
;)
Frankly, this is a big load of shit, and doesn't deserve a +2 insightful
Anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
A careful consideration of the facts in the case, as well as the legal precedents set forth beforehand can lead to only one reasonable reaction to this decision by the states:
BWAAAAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!
You fucking greedy bastards! We knew it all the time! You have absolutely no moral authority to tell Napster users what to do when you're criminals in your own right! Take a long walk off a short cliff, you RIAA scum!
Wow, that was totally juvenile. But I feel SO much better.
- Rev.One might also argue that the advertising and distribution might not be necessary but for the big name labels and their promotion of crap like the Spice Girls. How many ads have you seen on TV for Johnny Welfare Garage Band? Not to many. You might have seen them in your local pub though - and the RIAA didn't have diddly to do with that.
I can't quote you what a recording session at a studio costs, but I would hazard a guess you can get reasonable work done for less than 100 kilobucks - maybe 25? That's not a justification for record prices as I see them. Especially given most artists only see a few dollars at most - and all those promotions, ads, and radio play are taken off THEIR cut - because that money was an advance from the label. Hole had a pretty good rant about that (linked of some /. article last time we all debated this).
The industry is a crock of shit and screws over a lot of people that care about their music. Don't think otherwise. They're scared shitless the internet is going to take away their "distribution model" aka "gravy train", and all the power to them.
Ever ask yourself why you can't walk into Sam's with a Rio, download a song for $0.50, and walk out?
..don't panic
As far as this case goes I am glad to see it happen. I think that the whole Napster ordeal should have been a clue to the RIAA that they need to lower their prices but it wasn't. Though the record companies might not see it this way, this case is going to help them. If the prices are lower people might not feel the need to pirate. And if you sell more product, even at a lower cost, you can still make more money.
Besides this issue has been huge, Napster versus RIAA is huge. The government has already been made involved by the RIAA and thier actions against Napster, if they don't do something that could stop the madness, then they will have to put up with Napster cases until the end of time. Just be thankful that they are doing something that helps us instead of something that hurts us... like shutting down anything with the name MP3 in it.
Oh joy, yet another US-centric article griping about imagined flaws in the American legal system.
Did it ever occur to you that Slashdot is based in the US and is obviously going to be a little slanted in that direction? This is news that is happening in our "backyard", its important to us.
When I see an article about things going on in France or England or anywhere else in the world, I look at it as an opportunity to learn a little about the problems facing the people and the country. I don't make an annoying post about how much coverage that country has been getting lately.
Furthermore did it ever occur to you that all legal systems are flawed and that only through critical discussion can those flaws be found. Its much more productive to discuss the problem then to whine about it.
Price fixing is normal in other countries, and, believe it or not, none of them have been taken over by massiv evil corporationsy et.
Well now that's settled we'd might as well start homogenizing the world. What's good for one country must be good for everyone.
Come on! There are a lot of things in this world that are completely normal in one country, but are completely alien to others. Some of us call it culture, and some of us even respect other people's culture.
Whether or not Price Fixing is normal in Japan is irrelevant. In the US its illegal, and as long as its illegal we as citizens and consumers have a right to ask that the law be upheld. We aren't always listened too, but it certainly is nice when we are.
For example, many sectors of Japan's economy are controlled by huge monopolies (yes, including the record companies), and people the world over look up to Japan's amazing economic success.
Some people look up to Microsoft too. Some people thought what Adolf Hitler did with Germany in the Pre-World War II days was something to look up to. He even got Time's "Man of the Year". You know what though? The end doesn't justify the means.
It's only when the government tried to deregulate the economy that it crashed.
Isn't oversimplification grand. I suppose that the Boston Tea Party was the only cause of the American Revolution. That the invasion of Poland was the only reason World War II got under way.
Price fixing is not the end of the world.
No it isn't, but it is illegal.
Sure, it might mean higher prices for consumers,
Which is precisely why it is illegal.
but it doesn't mean that there's some huge illuminati-like conspiracy out there trying to "get" consumers.
Damn, did I walk into a Katz article by mistake..
So you have to pay more for a crappy CD. Who cares? Price fixing happens -- get over it!
Another brilliant statement.
Cop: "I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, but murder happens, you'll just have to find another husband and get over it."
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."