Record Label Thrives Selling CDRs

n3hat writes "'The major music companies may fret over falling revenue, but one label saw its business jump 33 percent last year -- thanks in part to the recordable compact discs that the industry says are hurting its sales. The label, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, is using recordable CD's, or CD-R's, to ensure that each release in its extensive catalog is always available'."

Comments

Yeah

[gazbo]

And how exactly is this a measure of how it would affect EMI/Sony etc who don't have a problem with running out of cds? For whom writing a CDR is considered more expensive than pressing 1000 too many?

Cost effective for Folkway

[very]

It is more cost effective to burn those music on CD-R's than pressing them on regular CD's.

Usually you have to press lots of CD's so the cost would be minimal.
I am guessing that the demand for the music that Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is selling pretty low.

Thus CD-R would be economically feasible and more cost effective.

Old titles not available...

[cayenne8]

Yeah, this is one thing that cheeses me off against the record industry. There are TONS of songs I'd love to get digital versions of...everything from old tunes from the 50's to one hit wonders from the 70's-80's...but, cannot find due to being out of print. Heck, I've got stuff on vinyl that I need to someday try to convert to digital...because they will NEVER be released by the music industry on a CD. Why don't they open up their catalogs....especially stuff they just have locked up with no intention of re-issuing?

RIAA/MPAA miss the boat, as always

[ThresholdRPG]

There are two important conclusions to be made from this article:

1) As always, the very technologies that RIAA/MPAA complain about are often the source of their next, great revenue stream (like VHS).

and

2) What is so wrong about people being able to purchase otherwise out of print recordings? The argument is always that it is too expensive for them to fire up the huge CD presses (that are designed to crank CDs out by the thousands) to simply sell a handful of CDs. Why not take 1 master and burn it to 1 CDR and then charge an extra dollar or so?

It is amazing how the RIAA in particular seems to have this "sacred cow" of wanting to horde older music and make it unavailable even to PAYING customers.

Here's how

[oni]

And how exactly is this a measure of how it would affect EMI/Sony etc who don't have a problem with running out of cds? For whom writing a CDR is considered more expensive than pressing 1000 too many?

I would like to purchase the Clash album _Return to Brixton_ and will gladly pay the copyright holder a reasonable fee for it. Unfortunately, it's out of print. The record company is unwilling to sell me this CD *at any price*

Yet if I download it they claim I've stolen something.

If they had half a brain, they'd burn it on a CD-R for me and sell it for around $9.

Re:Here's how

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Same thing with me... only it was a Disney video.

My daughter was at the right age, but Disney had not re-released "The Little Mermaid" on VHS. I wanted to buy a copy (packaging, coupons, not to mention "doing the right thing"), but couldn't. So I got a copy made from a friends laserdisc (remember those?).

By the time they did put it back on the market, my kids were too old for me to consider buying it.

Re:Here's how

[edgezone]

Disney is a completely different ball of wax. They have been stuck in the model of artificial scarcity for god knows how long. Basically, since they control the exact distribution of each of their movies, all they have to do is take it out of print for a while, sit back until the next generation needs copies, release them, grab all the profits that their pockets can hold, and shut down shop on that video for several years.

Of course in the modern age, this may come back to bite them. Back with VHS, it wasn't quite as bad, because you can't really dilute the market with copies of copies of copies. Now, once something is released on DVD, it's only a matter of time before a DivX version finds its way out there...ESPECIALLY for harder to find releases. As broadband kicks up and video compression algorithms get more streamlined/refined, it's only a matter of time before the entire DivX Disney library can be had with just a quick click of [insert your favorite p2p client here]. And of course each of these copies can have the same or near the same quality as the original.

That's the sad part. Most of the people I know who like Disney cartoons would happily buy a collection for themselves or for their kids, IF they were all available. But if you can't get your hands on Robin Hood, or Peter Pan, well, it doesn't leave much choice except to either pirate it or wait until your kid is a freshman in college, and Disney decides it's time to line its pockets again.