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Best Buy Backs CD Copy Impairment
borkus writes: "Chief Operating Officer Allen Lenzmeier of Best Buy, Co, owner of Best Buy Stores and Musicland said that his company would support industry efforts at copyright protection, though he didn't specify any particular technology. Although Best Buy stores sell MP3 players, CD-Burners and tape decks, they aquired Musicland in 2001. According to the article, the 10% decrease in music sales in 2001 was caused mostly by Internet file swapping. As a major retailer of both electronics AND music, Best Buy could have a huge impact on the future format of music player hardware as well as software."
And if people can't use CDR's for writing CD's then they are going to notice a far greater drop in profits than those caused by file-swapping systems.
Okay.. I'm going to say something snarly here. Have they actually given serious thought to the possibility that the reason sales are down is because the fanatical followers of bubblegum pop have started to grow up?
Probably not.
This is a supply/demand issue. It's quite possible that the listening audience demand has dropped because the supply is drek.
BestBuy was just eliminating a competitor when they bought Musicland. They were already one of the largest sellers of cd's in 2001. The real issue behind this is that BestBuy owns a record label (can't remember the name, Red Line Records?) and as such they are indirectly member of the RIAA.
Geez... Instead of assuming that the loses are because of us evil consumers, they should look at the feeble economy. People who are scared they might not have jobs (or actually don't have jobs) usually don't run right out and get the latest treasures from N'Sync and Britney. Survival is more of a concern.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
I'll get my stuff off the net from people who don't assume that I'm a criminal.
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Just like Circuit City had a huge impact on the way we watch DVDs.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
This reminds me of a hilarious study I read about in college... Several pigeons were put into identical boxes that would spit out a food pellet once every minute. Within a few minutes one pigeon was hopping up and down constantly, the second was continually spinning, and another wouldn't stop bobbing his head... It turns out that they were assuming that whatever action they were doing when the food first was dispensed was causing the food to be released, so they would continue to do it indefinitely to keep the food coming! If A is happening, then it MUST be a result of B....
so... yeah... um.. it must be the file trading!
No surpise, really, considering that Best Buy and the RIAA are both on the retail side of things. What I find interesting is that both sectors care little for the artist or the listener... boiling down their influence on music to making it shiny and flashy.
Sooner or later, musicians and audiophiles will have enough technology to bypass all this ridulousness. Let's just hope it doesn't end up being illegal for me to buy listening rights to a song directly from whoever wrote and recorded it!
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Excuse me? 10% drop in music sales over the past year? Lets be a little level headed here and realise that the economy hasn't been that stellar for the past bit and I can see a 10% drop in the purchasing of Compact Discs that cost $15-$25 a piece.
Lets also put this into context. How many people are on GNUtella or Kazza? Well, on GNUtella it is hard to tell due to how the system works, but I wouldn't be suprised if it was in the 50,000 - 100,000 range. KaZaA is probably at a similar level. How many people out there listen to CDs they buy legitimately? I am sure there are more people with legit CDs than those who have burned MP3s or OGG Vorbis files on to CD-ROMS.
Utter bullshit.
Was caused by internet piracy then because people were discovering all sorts of new music they had never heard and were rushing out to purchase CD's of the good stuff...
Right?
Right?
oh no no no, that was brilliant marketing on the part of RIAA and besides it would've been... uh...28% growth, yeah, 30% even if it hadn't been for those EVIL CHEATING INTERNET PIRACY SCUM who are STEALING money away from these poor starving artsts they represent!
Courtney Love: I want the money you owe me!
RIAA: Shut up! Oh Mr. Clintttooonnnnn... would you mind signing this bill into law that says musicians are really contractors to us and don't really deserve any money for their creations except for an hourly wage, but extend copyright law so we can sell the same disc at 1500% mark-up for 100 years? Thaaanksss... Oh, here's some money for your wife's campaign...
Does these copy protect CDs specify on the package what hardware they play on or what hardware they DO NOT work on? Product description laws? What about fair use laws? Does these products infringe these laws? I dont know about laws in the US, but in Europe, WE HAVE GOOD LAWS for protecting consumers.
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Perhaps a polite notice that what they're doing is very, very wrong would be appropriate. The EFF has already asked its member to mail a thank you note to Gateway. Best Buy has an address to send "general comments" to. I believe I'll be sending them a piece of my mind on this issue quite soon.
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Wow, your smart. Mediaplay is owned my musicland, and guess what, Best buy owns them too, along with Sam Goody and Suncoast. So go ahead and take your buisness to mediaplay.
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Everything worth getting is already available in MP3 format..And nothing thats currently being put out by the recording industry is worth listening to. It would be a far easier endeavor for the industry to understand and deal with the past two sentences than it would be to write endless piles of additional legislation and licensing agreements.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Don't just boycott the bastards.... take 2 minutes and go to their website and give them a note telling them you're no longer a customer.... AND WHY.
It'll make much more of an impact.
I'm a techie. When I want music I find the mp3 and add it to my collection. I own hundreds of CDs... from a few years ago. I haven't bought a CD in ages. There is no technical need to do so. My father is a computer newbie. When he wants music even he finds the mp3 version. Same goes for my sisters. The only person in my family that still buys CDs is my brother. He likes music stores and like having "real" CDs.
.iso?
There is no doubt in my mind that mp3's are destroying potential CD sales.
There is also no doubt in my mind that the RIAA is fighting the mp3 threat in the wrong way. They are hurting people that buy CDs! They are tartgeting their own customers! Rather than fighting the format, or better yet, positioning themselves to control the format they actually think that CD sales will improve with more restrictive CDs.
Its hilarious.
The VPs and Money-mongers are so wildly out of touch with their customers that they are willing to cripple their own product to control the situation.
How about monthly mp3 download subscriptions? I'd pay $10 a month to get a mp3 version of new releases as they happen.
How about cheaper CDs. $9 with more content. Better yet, include the mp3's on the CD itself. Or treat the CD as a license to download the mp3 version... no ripping/searching required.
How about a website where I can create my own CD complitation and have it mailed to me... or download the
How about some friggin creativity...
The RIAA and the music industry is sitting on a vast pile of money-potential and THEY DON'T EVEN SEE IT. They are so stuck "in the box" that they can't imagine that there is any other way of capitalizing on their investments.
I hope that someone in the "industry" wakes up and smells the cash. I'm willing to fork over a ton of $$ to get music, I simply don't want $15 CDs anymore. They're bulky, prone to scratches and a poor "investment" for my entertainment dollar. Give me access to clean, high-bitrate mp3's (no crippleware, special players, ads, and other BS) and I'll for over serious cash.
Here's the thing. We'd all like to be able to buy music on-line. The RIAA probably even wants to sell us music on-line (There are at least hypothetical situations in which the RIAA would embrace online sales of music. Their current hypotheticals may be technologically, legally, and/or economically unsound, but they exist). But how is that ever going to help Best-Buy? Their entire business, as far as music sales go, is based on getting physical copies of CDs from a manufacturer to you.
Online downloads, legal and pirated alike, ruin that business model, so Best Buy naturally feels that it's in their best interests to oppose anything that lets you acquire music on a non-physical medium.
It seems unlikely that there's room for a middleman like Best Buy in online distribution of music. If you were able to purchase and download music direcly from an artist's or label's website, why would you want to pay Best Buy extra money on top of that? Best Buy probably feels they have a lot more to lose than the record companies do.
The RIAA, BestBuy and others continue to make two, essential false assumptions about the music industry.
- The decline in sales has nothing to do with the content being produced by the music industry.
Sorry, try again. Many, many people who download songs end up buying the albums, however there is a severe lack of anything new or remotely innovative in popular music, right now. Record companies are STILL placing all their bets on Teen Pop, Metal, Rap and a stunning number of bands who have decided to get Eddie Vedder impersonators as their vocalists. Sure, there are a few exceptions, but really, the catagories I mentioned are the sum total of 99.9% of the music industry right now.
If people don't buy CDs, the record company mentality goes, it must be because of something wrong with the customer. They are unwilling to admit that they have alltogether tightened the reigns on the industry to the point where it is being choked. Radio playlists across the country are exactly the same, paid for by corprate moolah (indirectly, of course) and some DJs are not even permitted to play ANY songs of their own choosinig.
MTV has descended to the point where you get one, single video show per day and that's it. (if you are lucky)
TRL is a pressure cooker for sales. Videos are premiered on the show and since that is for many the only exposure to videos they have, they simply vote for the video they have been spoonfed. The result is a never-changing block of videos that are fed to the masses in a trickle so the minimum amount of variety can be used to gain the maximum amount of exposure for an "artist". This extremly tightly focused enviornment is used to force an artist on as many impressionable people as once, and give them few other musical options.
Now, for the second false assumption:
- That BestBuy, and any company that supports such measures will ever receive my business again.
I've spent thousands upon thousands at particular stores or products by particualr companies over many years. However, their business practices mean that my disposible income will cease to flow into their cash registers.
And I'm not alone.
The music industry has shown their utter contempt for me and I see no reason to give them a dime of my money any longer. I would like to support the artists I like, but even buying a CD now means risking buying crippled media. It doesn't matter WHY I would want to use a non-copy prevented CD, I'm sure it would surprise them that I would be doing nothing remotely illegal, just keeping one CD in the car and a couple of MP3s in my playlist.
But they don't care, and therefore, neither do I.
There are countless others like me now, and there are more all the time. I really hope the record industry likes what they've done.
You reap what you sow, and believe me, the record company better count it's blessings that a 10% drop in sales is all they have to deal with right now.
It's going to get much worse, and their strong-arm tactics are the only reason why.
As an avid music fan who lives effectively between the US and Europe, let me put my two cents in.
I think there are numerous factors going into this. Does illegal copying affect sales? Sure! I have friends who think that it's perfectly ok to go hunt after music online because they can't find in a store here in Finland. Or better yet, one person will have the original and the rest will copy it. I rant and rave about IP laws, and get stared at.
On the other hand, I've noticed that a LOT of people upon reaching their 20's just couldn't care less about downloading the music. Most of the people I see downloading now are those teen pop trash fans. So that is probably hurting sales to some degree.
However, I'm the kind of person who is perfectly willing to buy good music. I'll buy good releases, but I won't rush to get them the instant they come out. The problem for me is being aware of what's good out there. There's too much hype about the latest teen sensations and no enough real coverage of good music.
Conscientiously, I've decided to not necessarily rush out and buy big-label records. I'll often get them used. I will buy small-label records at retail, as they're less likely to abuse artists.
Lastly, hey, the future ain't looking as bright as in the middle of the dot-com bubble. I incurred plenty of debt then and so did a lot of other people. With the joys of interest and shaky jobs, I reckon that quite a few others are working hard to pay of debts quickly and save some money for the anticipated 'rainy day'.
Suggestion for recording industry? Put something worthwhile in the CDs for the kiddies who download all the time so they might buy that bubble-gum pop crap, and find some quality artists that you don't abuse and let them get some press coverage.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
This is offensive in so many ways, it seems like a shame to let facts enter into the equation, but...
1. Much of the copying the RIAA complains about is completely legal under the Home Recording Act. As such, it isn't piracy at all.
2. It is amazing that the record industry seems to think it has a right to be immune to the economy. 2001 was a year of massive layoffs and dot.com implosion. IT workers, people who ordinarily have the kind of discretionary income to support large CD collections were especially hard-hit.
3. Napster, the largest and most visible source for swapped files spent much of 2001 under an injunction that severely hobbled it. If anything, 2001 should have brought less so-called piracy than 2000.
4. C'mon now. Weren't boy bands and teeny-girls starting to grow a little stale in 2001? To generate sales, you gotta deliver product worth buying.
But, the biggest kicker of all:
2. The RIAA very politely posts sales figures for the last ten years on its web site. Some interesting nuggets:
Total CD volume in 2000 (a year with Napster in full force, by the way) were the highest level in history and nearly 3 times the level of 1991.
However, from 1991-2000, sales of cassettes dropped off about 80%,
Sales of vinyl LPs continued their slide into oblivion, at about 45% of the 1991 levels.
Sales of CDs increased every single year except for 1997, covering all of the years in which Napster was unencumbered by injunctions. Sales rebounded to record high levels in 1998, by the way, hitting new records in 1999 and 2000.
One more thing: 2001 mid-year volume, in a recession, was 397.9 units. That may be 22.7 units lower than the same period in 2000, but it is 1.1 units higher than in 1999. In fact, those recession-year statistics represent the SECOND HIGHEST volume from 1991 to the present.
I'll bet a lot of businesses would have been thrilled to book their second-best year in history during 2001.
Don't shop there. Better yet, buy your copy protected CD's there, and when they sound like crap in your computer, dvd-rom based dvd player, or anything else that will choke on it, take it back and demand your money back. By being the RIAA's face to the customers, they get to directly feel what happens from moving in lockstep with them.
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It most certainly was not. You see, when hard times hit, people first give up food, then housing, new clothing, and finally, as a last resort, entertainment. Wait, do I have that backward?
If I can't do as much with a CD, and if they're using it to thwart copying, they're reducing 'unauthorized copying' of their music. This means they can't possibly b losing as much money due to piracy, right? So make these CD's cheaper! Give me INCENTIVE to buy these instead of giving me incentive to BOYCOTT.
"Derp de derp."
Hope this helps!
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
When i saw this article, I immediately wrote a note to BB letting them know that they had just lost my business (along with anybody else I could convince) until they decided to stop treating their customers like criminals. Here's the reply I got:
"Thank you for contacting Best Buy about copy protected CDs. I'm Val with
Customer Care.
We apologize for any disappointment caused by copy protection. Copy
protection is a decision made by the label to protect them and their artists
from copyright violation. We encourage you to contact the label directly if
you would like to offer opinions about this practice.
Thank you for sharing your comments with Best Buy. Please don't hesitate to
contact us with any questions or concerns.
Best wishes from Best Buy,
Val and the Customer Care Team
TRACKING NUMBER: A00000970333-00003433404
"
BLAH BLAH BLAH. Decision 'by the labels' huh? It's very different if the labels are trying to push it vs. the labels pushing it AND you helping them. Sorry BB, you've sunk even lower....
>They know that, left unregulated, music piracy is going to hurt the industry,
Almost correct. You start from the assumption that piracy is unregulated today, but that isn't true. Copyright law regulates it now. You do recall that Napster has been shut down, don't you? Whether current laws are enough or are too much is the subject for reasonable debate.
OTOH, the RIAAs breathless rants (incorporated quite happily into the "findings" of the Hollings bill, BTW) are being used to support blunderbuss solutions that go far beyond protecting the rights of music publishers and into the realm of trampling the rights of consumers.
Back when there were just a handful of channels, it was easy to trace the history of television through the major trends. People had nothing else to watch, so it was easy for something to dominate. Then, with cable and eventually satellite, people had dozens, even hundreds of choices. Suddenly, the major channels could no longer define television culture with major trend starting programs.
The major television stations are still running just fine, but they no longer control the world of television.
Similarly, the filesharing culture now allows people to easily find obscure music. With more things to choose from, less people listen to the biggest thing.
The music industry isn't waiting around for the next big thing. It never has. It used to *make* the next big thing. Right now, it's trying very hard to make another big thing, and failing miserably.
mlylecarlin
I agree 100%. I'm boycotting a lot of companies on this priciple. The problem isn't the boycott itself (very few companies really sell anything that I NEED, other than say the grocery store). The problem is keeping track of who I'm not buying from and why. A really cool website would be one that tracked companies that have come down on one side or another, so people could keep a handle on who the assholes are, and who the consumer-friendly companies are.
Extend the concept a bit, and you could allow users to create a profile where they track who they specifically are boycotting. Then every so often, the website could email that companys' marketing department and say:
"Dear Best Buy:
Your policy of supporting the RIAA has resulted in xxxx consumers boycotting your store. blah blah blah"
and then attach any personal "messages" from the consumers in the boycott...
Man, what a cool way to make a difference. I wish I had the time.
Giving up moderator privelages on this one to respond. (I'd moderate my own post here either Flamebait or Offtopic for what its worth).
..."?
I hate to say this because a lot of people on this site have such strong feelings about CD music, but the fact is that the overall economy was up 2% last year. Strictly speaking, by all traditional economic measures the economy did not experience a recession (2 consecutive quarters of negative growth), Sure, some segments of the economy were hit by the bursting of the internet bubble, but the fact is that a 10% decline in CD music sales cannot easily be explained by whatever was happening in the overall economy.
Maybe it was actually, in fact, due to piracy.
Would you mind telling that to the millions of people that are still laid off. How about the even more that have had to tighten thier belts? I don't know about you, but a bad economy is a scary thing, and is a threat to our continued (comfortable) existance. People tend to pinch pennies real quick when their livelihood is threatened. The economy didn't affect me much because I am already poor, and I only make 8 bucks an hour anyway. But I watched a lot of daddies get laid off from their factory job, with no other alternatives. Do you think those daddies bought little Susie that latest Britney Spears CD? Not likely. Now multiply that 19.00 loss of sale times a few million. Lets forget its an artificial loss. If CD prices were lower they wouldn't be losing as much money, would they? I can tell you there are way more people affected by the economic downturn than there are pirates. If not, then there is a good percentage of the US population that lives against the law. Maybe the law of the people should be revised, then?
Let me see then, then are there so many citizens that are pirates? There are a few other companies that tried to blame thier losses on things other than the economic downturn. But, on the other hand, there are also companies that blames thier mysterious loss of money on the economy when it wasn't so. Who knows. I don't give a rip. I'm not dependant enough on the RIAA to much care. However, I do care when they get legislation passed that erodes my rights as a born citizen of the United States of America, the greatest "free" nation in the world. Are these bought policitians so unpatriotic that they would go against the very philosophy that every true patriot of this nation holds dear?
What I rather care more about is the government truly showing the strong arm of the people, and preventing this stupid bullshit from happening. Way back in simpler times, rich men ruled. If they got too out of hand, or inflicted too much cruelty on his countrymen, he either went nuts or someone killed him. Then life resumed as normal, and the people never knew how much better off they were for it. Today these rich men are replaced by big business, but like the Hydra of myth, it can't be so easily defeated with a shot to the head. Its unfortunate that times have changed so much that it would even be necessary to regulate businesses through legislation, but I fear this is the logical and necessary action in order to protect the liberty and well-being of the People. Yes, remember, "We the People, in order to form a more perfect union
Sorry, forgot to turn the rant tag on for this one, but it really frustrates me that my own countrymen cannot grasp the fact that the government and big business are in bed together, but there is something that can be done about it. Get the crooked politicians out of Washington, get more involved in your local governments, and remember to vote with your own wallet when it comes to consumer products and services. Tax the hell out of companies for doing naughty things. Increase the tax a certain percentage everytime they get caught doing something naughty. Shut down companies that don't pay thier taxes. That way, even if they are successful at pushing a product, they still have to give a chunk of that money back to the people. Bad businesses would tend to just flop over and die sooner or later, or deal with having less cash flow. Either way, it'd make 'em more honest.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
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~#3~
"MTV (TRL) / VH1(Top20) contribute to the downward spiral the industry is in..."
The last time I checked, Viacom didn't own any record labels. For being such an integral part of the devolution of music, they aren't that attached to it.
~#2~
"... the music industry only offers pre-selected artists... making a mockery of the whole system..."
The record labels can use their marketing muscle to promote the hell out of an artist, but if music listeners (consumers) deem the music to be bad, no amount of marketing can keep said artist in the limelight for too long. Artists may artificially be placed at the top, but without sales & popularity, they don't stick around.
~#1~
"...the music out there today sucks... no wonder music sales aren't stellar anymore..."
Easy to say when you think myopically. Yet, Slashdotters like to mod this kind of trite comment up. Why? I have yet to figure this out. This sort of comment is simply a stab at the mainstream, spoken from someone high upon a perch of musical elitism.
Typical American cheering for the underdog... until the underdog gets too popular. (insert eye-roll here)