Still More RIAA News

We just did an article about the RIAA's mendacity with statistics, and here come some more: first, someone has gone to the trouble to deconstruct their income figures over the past few years, showing that the RIAA's lack of investment in new releases is in itself sufficient to explain any dropping sales, and second, this website concerning the music industry settling a price-fixing lawsuit, which I believe is this one, filed two years ago.

Comments

Quibble

[squiggleslash]

We just did an article about the RIAA's mendacity with statistics, and here come some more: first, someone has gone to the trouble to deconstruct their income figures over the past few years, showing that the RIAA's lack of investment in new releases is in itself sufficient to explain any dropping sales, and second, this website concerning the music industry settling a price-fixing lawsuit, which I believe is this one, filed two years ago.

Ok, first off: The RIAA is not a record producer or publisher. It's an industry group that represents producers and publishers. I assume the comment suggesting that the RIAA hasn't invested in new releases actually means that RIAA members have not invested in new releases, or even that record producers in general have not invested.

I point this out because it gets grating every time it's suggested that the RIAA is some giant monopoly that controls what gets published and whatnot. It isn't. That's about as sane as headlining a report describing a "going postal" type massacre as "NRA goes on shooting rampage in post office".

The RIAA is an industry association. It does not control its members, its members control it.

Re:Quibble

[Guppy06]

"I point this out because it gets grating every time it's suggested that the RIAA is some giant monopoly that controls what gets published and whatnot. It isn't."

It's a price-fixing cartel that has established oligopoly control of the entire market, just like OPEC. I feel it's perfectly justified to call its actions "monopolistic" since they're identical to what a monopolistic entity (like Microsoft) would do.

I've heard of splitting hairs before, but sheesh...

Re:Quibble

[theonetruekeebler]

The RIAA is not a record producer or publisher. It's an industry group that represents producers and publishers. [...] I point this out because it gets grating every time it's suggested that the RIAA is some giant monopoly that controls what gets published and whatnot. It isn't.

It is not a single-entity monopoly; rather, it is a trust. This is where anti-trust gets its name.

(Oversimlification follows Back in the day, trusts (e.g. the bourbon trust, the railroad trust) were organizations of the major companies in an industry. The trust's members would all play by the trust's rules, and the trust's rules often included ways to prevent non-trust companies from surviving. In the case of the railroad trust, for example, they would charge exhorbitant fees to connect local lines to trust-owned main lines; or about once a year they would design and patent new car-connectors, again charging exhorbitant licensing fees to use them. In other words, they would drive their competitors into ruin, then buy them out for a pittance.

Doubtless, the RIAA and its members have worked very carefully to avoid appearing to be a trust in any legal sense, but as the lawsuit referenced in this article claimed, the RIAA has been used as a way to improperly fix prices among its members.

in my perspective

[greechneb]

I'd be much more willing to buy CD's if they were not insanely expensive.

Most new CD's cost around $15-$20... Considering I usually buy a CD mainly for 2 or 3 tracks, thats about $5 or more for a single song.

Or, I could buy the singles, and pay about $5 a song

Gee, that really makes me want to buy CD's. I'll stick with Kazaa Lite, Gnutella, or something.

The only time I buy a CD anymore is when it is a small band that I want to support, and then I usually buy from their website.

Unit cost

[jeepliberty]

Back in the mid 1980s when CDs first came out you had a choice of LP, CD, or Tape. The typical list price for a new release LP or tape was $8.99. The CD list price was $16.99.

Their reason: There was a backlog of over a year to manufacture "back catalog releases". They (record industry) said the price high price of CD was because of the manufacturing process, as well as supply and demand.

Well for CDs there's no backlog now, they use less raw material, and provide less artwork. And yet the CD price remains inflated.

Does the artist get more royalties for CD than a LP or cassette? I think not.

RTFA

[ajs]

The article referenced is quite clear on this point. It is quotoing the RIAA's announcements regarding income industry-wide (though presumably the RIAA's definitaion of "industry-wide" refers only to it's members).

The differnce between saying that the RIAA's income statistics are incorrect and saying that the NRA shot someone is that the NRA was likely not involved in the shooting, and likely did not colude to make the shooting happen the way it did.

The RIAA is directly reporting these statistics. They are the RIAA's collective industry statistics. Also, the RIAA members have been shown to actively colude to make these statistics what they are through price-fixing and other tactics.

On the point of calling the RIAA a monopoly, I think it's perfectly fair. Just as a corporation can act as a single entity even though it is made up of many individuals, so too does the RIAA act as a single entity for the purposes of controling retail sales of music and lobbying (i.e. buying politicians) for music-industry causes like passing the DMCA. BMI did not lobby to pass the DMCA independantly, the RIAA did. This is a tactic for gaining control over the market and over the technologies that affect the market by the RIAA.

Monopoly tactics? Yep.

Re:RTFA

[banzai51]

On the point of calling the RIAA a monopoly, I think it's perfectly fair.

Fair? Yes. Accurate? No. The RIAA is a cartel.

Re:many perspectives

[MacAndrew]

Amen.

I'm glad also not to hear you (quite) say, "Well, I'd stop stealing if they'd just lower prices." Stealing will always be free (esp. when P2P cuts out the street corner middle man in the trenchcoat), and they can never compete with free. Just say "no" to extortion. :)

CD prices have fallen surprisingly little in 20 years -- about a third in inflation-adjusted dollars. I don't remember prices like this with vinyl, and when CD's came along there was a hefty premium for them. Yes, they provided higher quality, but I bet their production costs are now far lower.

I think the RIAA members need to do some serious introspection about their business model. That doesn't mean ignoring infringement, but realizing that the boat is sinking because of a lot of larger holes in the hull. Direct sales are a great concept; other methods to lower costs must exist. Note however that we do live in a society that somehow manages to buy $130 Nikes that cost $30 wholesale. (Astonishingly, Nike only makes a few dollars profit on each pair.) The record industry is far from the only industry with big markups, so don't rush to any conclusions.

The RIAA members should not abuse market statistics or fix prices to promote their cause. Resentful consumers should not steal to promote theirs. Now, all join hands and sing....

The funny thing is I'm sure 99% of the public has no idea what all this talk is about. The one-quarter who do don't even talk to the three-eighths of the 10% of the last ninth who uh... Well, I'd like to see some statistics on that, I'm 110% certain.

This just in...

[Eusebo]

According to RIAA President Hillary Rosen, "107% of the music consumers surveyed believe our statistics."

Re:insight ?

[glesga_kiss]

kazaa and the like are simply about searching for music you know of and downloading it. The community feel is completly removed.

WinMX and AudioGalaxy both had chat rooms to discuss anything, including new music. WinMX also has a instant messaging system, and I've come across many great artists through talking to people on it. But, I prefer AllMusic for looking up new music, their "related artists" feature is pretty good.

I don't know why everyone prefers Kazza, or places it at the forefront of any p2p discussion. WinMX is much more configurable and you get great results if you know how to use it. It's like comparing Notepad with vi, sure notpad may be easier to figure out, but it's pretty limited.

Kazza is also full of spyware. I'm constantly pointing this out to friends that run it and are completely unaware of this.

Re:many perspectives

[goon america]

Stealing will always be free (esp. when P2P cuts out the street corner middle man in the trenchcoat), and they can never compete with free.

Stealing is not free!!

That's a misconception. It doesn't cost any *money* to steal, but stealing still has cost. Most notable is time cost -- it takes time to locate and download a song you want. And even then once you're done you can't be sure you didn't get a lot of data errors in the track or different songs in the album were recorded with different loudness, etc.

Theoretically, if the recording industry priced CDs below ((peoples' value of own time * length of time it takes to find the cd) + value of quality) then the could compete with piracy on a price level. Obviously everyone's value of their time is different so they'll never be able to get everyone. For me, if CDs cost $5-$10 I would never mess around with Kazaa, and I think a lot of other people wouldn't either. $20? No, thanks.

Re:many perspectives

[Anonym0us Cow Herd]

It doesn't cost any *money* to steal, but stealing still has cost. Most notable is time cost -- it takes time to locate and download a song you want. And even then once you're done you can't be sure you didn't get a lot of data errors in the track or different songs in the album were recorded with different loudness, etc.

Agreed. This clearly shows that our large scale piracy systems still need improvement.