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The Future of the CD
Murdock037 writes "Nice read at the New York Times (free reg. req.) on the CD, and how it's getting crowded out of the marketplace by gaming and DVDs-- the basic conclusion is that music executives aren't rewarded for rocking the boat, and they wouldn't know how to do it if they were. (And included is a flabbergasting claim from RIAA head Hillary Rosen that only 3 percent of consumers polled are buying less music because prices are too high-- of course, you can come up with a statistic for anything, as 72.5% of all people know.)"
There's no wonder why people dony feel any compassion towards the RIAA, look how they attack everything they feel which threatens them! I dont have a single ounce of regret for the "loses" the RIAA thinks they have sustained, most of these "loses" are purely projections of what they feel they should have earned. I dont blame CD writers for the decline of music sales, I blame horrible artists and poor music for the reasons I dont buy music (along with the ridiculus price tag... $25 for a cd? Get real...)
As for Sony "losing" $132 Million last year, they didnt lose anything, they just didnt make what they promised the board of directors. They probably only pulled in $1.5 Billion and "lost" their 9% of that to people feeling like they finally have a way to get back at the bastards who runied rock-and-roll with boy-bands and Mariah Carrey (no offense to whomever loves Mariah, but you understand my point).
On some ages and places artists were respected for what they did, giving away art for free. that respect was earning them living. everyone knew in ancient Athens that actors were not paid but respected. everyone was alowed to go to the theater for free (not a zip) because rich people were responsible of artists and poor people because they _respected_ art and the need of poor people for it.
In other countries there were the "bards", that would play music for free to anyone and they were respected, paid and fed by people who had wealth.
So, this immorality of our age that only rich people can buy art should make us outrageous, not making us people feeling shame and guilt of not paying them!
They should feel ashamed of putting artists, good artists into this system for the sake of making themeselves more money.
People, wake up, we don't need to pay more the ones that are already rich.
Now, in 5 years, when everyone's done spending to get their 1000" HDTV plasma set with 15.3 dolby surround to watch DVDs perfectly, then a switch to a new music format may not be a big deal. But timing any forced media switch right now, with DVDs still fresh in most people's minds, is not the way to go.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
And then when you find an interesting CD in the store, there is always the suspicion that is it a CD after all. Last week I was at a store, found an interesting title (well the new best of Led Zeppelin or something). I tried to find any indication of any copy protection method used on the CD and did not find any. But I also could not find any indication that it is NOT copy protected. And the shopgirls were too busy handling other customes, so I wasn't going to stand in queue for five minutes just to ask "I this CD?"
That day the music industry did not get that CD sold just because the potential customer was so suspicious about their product. I hope that in the future the customer can rely on getting a quality product, but it is up to the music industry to stop this madness.
only 3% have stopped buying CDs because prices are too high...
So, what? The other 97% also think prices are too high, but continue to buy CDs? The other 97% think prices are OK, but only patronize the used CD store? The other 97% think CDs are too low? Such a trite, convenient little statistic... what was the N?
100% of people surveyed (12 music industury executives in a quick boardroom poll), thought CDs were the bomb!
bah.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
3 percent of consumers polled are buying less music because prices are too high.
8 percent are not buying less music.
2 percent are buying less music because they would rather just steal it.
87 percent are buying less music because they already bought everything they want, and all the new stuff is garbage.
Seriously, I would guess the numbers to be about 50,5,10, and 35, respectively. Keep in mind that those citing high prices are doing so in a worsening economy (thanks Clinton!).
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Well look, I'm not going to go out and buy A Flock of Seagulls' CD just because I heard it on the GTA commercial and now its stuck in my head, am I? Before mp3's, my only option would be to buy one of those awful compilations off of TV. If I could buy *just that song* for something approaching a reasonable price I might, just to keep A Flock of Seagulls in hair spray for the forseeable future. This is the bit that the RIAA doesn't want to understand, and I think it's interesting that this is exactly the same kind of all-or-nothing bundling of a product that we've seen (and complained about) from PC manufacturers and a certain software company that shall remain nameless.
Not everything out there is a boy band.
Matthew Good makes his videos and singles available as a free non-DRM download from his website. Since free is good, you can take a look at his website.
Canadian artists really need more exposure in the states. Artists who embrace the internet also need our support. I suggest you check Kazaa for Matthew Good Band and check out the Beautiful Midnight album. You won't be disappointed, I promise.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
There are lies, damm lies, and statistics.
I guess that the RIAA has aquired all three.
The irony is that they don't see the writing on the wall. They are like the Wizard who keeps saying "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!". No matter how much they lie, downloading the 2 songs on an album of 10 is more convenient. Once downloaded, they are already compressed for your computer and MP3 devices and you can burn to cd for your car.
EVEN IF THEY WERE GIVING AWAY CDs at the music store, it still requires more effort to go there, wait in line, take it home, bust it down to MP3 so its small enough to stay parked on your computer and MP3 devices, and then just use that CD in your car. Its about convenience.
Its also about choice. Its frustrating to go to buy a CD, especially if you are like me and you are old and you want to buy a CD that came out 15 years ago, and you can't find it. Why would I go to the store to look for a CD that I KNOW isn't there, when I can do a quick search and find a reasonably decent copy in 5 to 30 minutes.
Another problem is all the security they are trying to use. Lets say I legally purchase a downloadable song (it could happen). I have several computers I use daily (office, home office, laptop in the only room the wife lets me smoke in) plus a portable MP3 player. Its a hassle to get PERMISSION for all these devices, to play a song I have legally purchased. Then I replace one of my computers (rinse, repeat) Plus, I front a band of old farts that play old rock, country and blues. They can't play the song on a CD I burn for our "learn music" either. The purpose of the CD is to learn the music, not enjoy it, so we can play at clubs that pay BMI and ASCAP royalties.
Screw it, I would just get a non protected version of the song so I didn't have to hassle with it, even if I had already purchased it. The problem isn't what I will pay, its the hoops I will jump through to use what I own.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
This all sounds very nice, though to be honest I doubt its veracity. To be fair, some of history's most famous and beautiful works of visual art were produced at the behest of a patron. Of course, when the rich were the patrons of the arts, they also called the shots. That bard couldn't sing the song he wrote about how the feudal system sucked (except maybe in private) for fear of losing his meal ticket. Also, for a lot of art, access was restricted. The most beautiful paintings and sculptures resided in the homes of the wealthy and powerful, not in public galleries. To suggest a relevant comparison, imagine if a rich person paid your favorite musician to record a new album - but then kept all copies of the recording for their own personal listening pleasure?
Freedom: "I won't!"
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I totally disagree.
Downloading an entire CD worth of music takes time. While it's quite easy finding the hits, it's a little harder to get the less known songs.
You also have to find quality versions of each song. I'm generally forced to download about three versions of each song in order to find one really good copy. You have to mess with them to make sure they're the same volume and don't have too much space at the end. And if you're lucky enough to get the complete CD in one MP3 file, you have to spend time converting it and slicing it up.
Plus you have to create and print a label for them. Once again, that takes time.
I'd MUCH MUCH MUCH rather spend ten dollars (US) to get a CD. A local Harmony House went out of business in my town about 6 months ago. They were selling CDs for less than 10 bucks on average. I bought about 300 dollars worth!!! In the 7 years before that day, I probably bought a total of 9 CDs.
I could get water from my sink for free (as we have a well). But I still only drink bottle water because it's of better quality. I could drink RC or Fago soda because it's much cheaper. But I pay more for Coke because it taste better.
Cost is NOT the only criteria. My time is VERY valuable and I'd rather pay than waste it. Furthermore, quality is important to me too, and is worth paying for at the right price.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Case in point is the outcry over the survey that indicated that only 3% of consumers thinks the price is too high. First, if a survey is reported and technical details of the survey is not, then the survey is mostly a marketing ploy and must be taken with a grain of salt. We all know this. The interesting thing is that the number, in some sense, is probably not unreasonable. As the article mentions the value of music recorded on a CD is some small number approaching zero. Additionally the article states that some people will buy a CD, make copies, and sell the copies to their friends. I totally believe this. When I was in school, people would do this with computer software. There are clearly many people who still buy CDs, but we can assume that most of these are older people who traditionally have bought music, or younger people who will recoup the investment through piracy. From this we can postulate three groups of people: those that currently buy CDs, those that buy copy music, and those that do without because they cannot afford it. The last group is very small as the vast majority of people will copy or buy music they want. The second group is irreverent because to them the value of music on CD is near zero, and the labels would have to give music away. So, we are only left with people in the first group. Furthermore, we probably are only left with people in the first group that buy at full retail rather than value shop. This is conceivable quite a small percentage.
The article brings up several other good points. Consumers want to procure music online. It is not known if consumers will pay for music online, but the labels have done very little to effectively deal with this demand. The article states that the labels have dropped the ball on this, retailers are trying to figure out how to meet demand, but without label support it is difficult. In general, one would expect manufacturers that ignore entire areas of demand to fail.
There are other good points. Consumers are also disenchanted with hidden copy protection schemes that cause CDs to fail on standard consumer equipment. Labels are doing nothing to enhance the product to make it more appealing and increase the value to consumers. When they do increase the value of the product to consumers, they jack up the price far beyond what an average consumer can pay, and then complain that no one is buying the new technology.
Probably the only big issue the article missed was that most download services, even if they had the music, are too complicated, the download formats too confusing. Furthermore, they tend to target people who currently get music for free rather than cosumers who pay for music.
Again, the article clearly lays the decline of CD sales on the labels front door, The article is balanced in the sense that it acknowledges that music executives have limited ability to make sweeping changes to business plan and product models. For instance, it would make a lot of sense to ship music on DVDs with additional content, but how can one justify the capital expenditure in a declining market?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"As long as people have a portable cassette deck, a cassette deck at home, and one in the car, tapes will keep selling. The extra quality benefit of the CD will not (unfortunately) be enough to lure people to immediately rush out and buy new equipment."
The difference between a cassette player and a CD is not only a (significant) improvement in sound quality, but also a leap in convenience: track skipping vs winding tape, a forgiving medium when it comes to handling vs scratched, wrinkled and broken tape, a maintenance-free laser vs tape heads that need cleaning and degaussing. The same leap in performance and ease of use is what convinced the public to switch from video tape to DVD despite lack of a means to even record your own.
From tape and VHS to CD and DVD was a huge leap in performance and ease of use. Now that we have CD and DVD, what improvement can we expect in future media? 100-channel sound? It'll be hard to improve on convenience and ease of use, the only thing I can think of is reducing the size. A new format that offers easy and affordable recording capability might be interesting. But the last 5% of possible improvement in sound and picture quality will be lost upon most people. People see the difference between VHS and DVD, and hear the difference between a good tape recording and a CD. But there's no way people will want higher picture resolution or better sound, especially considering the dinky equipment they play it on.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If you look at the majority of songs on P2P networks, and even the way they're organized - it's clear to see it's much easier to download individual songs rather than whole albums. Trying to download an entire an album, while it can be done, is rather difficult. Varying bitrates/encoder quality can ruin the continuity of the album. If the album has no silence between tracks, reassembling the album from MP3s usually results in audio dropouts between tracks.
If anything, P2P is an excellent promotional tool for the sales of albums, or at least you would think it would be. On the other hand, it can be used to reveal turkey albums that are mostly filler, while allowing you to get the hit songs that you just wanted. In a way, what the recording industry is discovering is that their cream of the crop songs that they pick for promotional use are what are most sought-after on P2P networks. It's a lot like having a sporting event that people just want to watch for the commercials. Except in this case, the sporting event is what the recording industry is trying to get you to buy.
The recording industry has no one to blame but their own short-sightedness for their lack of sales. If they had realized that their most valuable product is actually their distillation of songs from various artists, they'd allow you to build your own compilation CDs from a comprehensive catalog of artists for a per-track fee, rather than trying to milk an outdated distribution method for all it's worth.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
What follows is a short history of my economic experience of music and a simple business model for the labels to recapture my wallet:
.40 a song. Bill me based on bandwidth - that's 5-10 cents per MB (assuming an average of 4min songs). The only real limit to my spending at this price is the availability of good music - better go find some talented new artists fast!
Back in the old days, when I had my first CD player, I went out and replicated my sizable record collection at $12-$13 a pop (note that I lived in Berkeley, which is blessed with two awesome non-chain retailers - Rasputins and Ameoba) - this took all of my struggling-student-with-no-loans spare cash. Over the course of a year, I bought 80+ CDs. It sucked hard, but I hated records and tapes (no nastalgia for me). Back then, the rumor was that the price of CDs was inflated to cover the cost of retooling manufacturing and would come down below record prices because they were cheaper to make.
Five years later, the prices didn't go down and my 200+ CD collection was stolen from my ghetto appartment. I was literally in tears. That was more than $2500 and I was still pretty poor due to the early 90s resession. The upside was that stolen CDs were valuable because there was a budding used CD market in the Bay Area. Once Rasputins & Ameoba started selling used CDs in quantity, I stopped buying new CDs altogether. This is early 90's and I already dropped out of the label's direct market. Here I was, a 20-something kid that was so in love with music that I would spend the better part of my expendable cash on CDs and I dropped right off their books because I could buy "Nevermind" for $9 if I waited a month after it came out.
Funny thing is that I started making serious money. I still wouldn't buy new CDs. I was used to paying $6-9 and there was no way I could go back. I probably missed out on a lot of music, because I was limited to what college kids would buy and return.
Then came burners - I spent many hours burning all of my friends CD collections. Shortly thereafter came MP3s. I was already pirating software on the FTP scene (another economic lesson to be learned for the SW companies, but I'm not gonna stray there), so suddenly, I'm not even buying used CDs anymore.
So where does this leave us? Well, I'm in my mid 30s, make 6figs, and I like a huge variety of musical genres. I could spend $250 a month on music and not bat an eye, but I don't. The labels have alienated me. I virulently despise them, but I am a music addicted consumer. If they offered me something that had value to me, I would embrace the bastards with loving arms.
So, what can they do for me that would convince me to give them my money again? Simple:
1. Save me time - downloading stuff on Kazaa is work: sifting through the crappy files, figuring out which songs I am missing from a given CD, and organizing the 40+gigs of it all - this stuff takes time and my time is worth money to me. Figure out ways to save me time and I will pay a price for it.
2. Selection - I am limited to what the masses are trading. I like obscure shit and am willing to experiment, but not at $15-17 (notice how this trended higher?) a pop - no fricking way!
3. Ease my concious - I admit it, I feel bad for screwing the artists by downloading mp3s. The problem is, they are already getting so screwed by the labels. It's kinda like buying Nikes - hard to say whether it helping the poor little Indonesian kid or not. Besides, the less that people give the labels, they less they have to offer the artists who should really all jump ship anyway. I buy Timberland clothes 'cause they make a big deal about how their sweatshops are less satanic than others. Treat the artists well so I don't feel bad about promoting your exploitation of them. Tax the superstars a bit to feed the starving artists - music should be a middle class profession.
So, how can the labels meet these needs? Again, simple:
Give me FTP access to a full catalog (all labels in one place)of high quality, verified, DRM-free and properly tagged MP3s. How much would I be willing to pay for this? Figure 2-4 bucks for 10 songs. That's $.20 -
This would keep me off Kazaa - I promise. I might give some of this to my friends for free, but that is usually stuff that they wouldn't have bought anyway.
For physical media, I would pay 5-7 bucks for a CD if it came with a bandwidth rebate, and an access code to a spiffy band website with news, lyrics, tablature, special monthly download songs and a $10/year subscription to have access to every live show.
And labels, before you complain that your promotion budgets wouldn't be covered at these rates, you should know that I don't listen to ClearChannel, I don't watch MTV, I don't hang out in record stores and that wallpapering of downtown areas with posters just pisses me off.
So, in conclusion, my case is a clear illustration that the RIAA statistic is correct - I don't spend less on CDs - I couldn't buy less than none. Win me back - it's not that hard and it's not too late. I am the consumer and you are supposed to be serving me - make me a happy, full, fed and fat sheep and I'll open up my wallet for you, but treat me like your enemy, and I will be a wolf poaching your chickens with impunity - the choice is yours.
MP3 could have (and should have), revolutionized the way the record industry did business.
Music stores should have had burning kiosks with 80+GB drives running by now, with software that allowed you to pick and choose what went on your CD.
Think about it: you'd have both near-infinite variety and infinite resellability. No 2 customer-selected CDs would be the same, and I bet you many customers would end up buying some songs 2, 3, 4, or more times to put on various mix albums.
It would be dirt cheap to burn CDs. You wouldn't have to pay for shelf space for each CD. Packaging would be cheaper, as you'd only have to pay for blank jewel cases and paper to print on.
Had the RIAA jumped on the mp3 bandwagon and truly utilized the format for the good of consumers, I'd probably still be paying for music. Had the RIAA immediately embraced online sales of high-quality mp3s, I'd gladly have subscribed to the service.
Instead, they shun the idea of these kiosks, chastize anyone who chooses to keep their music in mp3 format, and proclaims every customer a theif. By all rights, this industry should be dead by now.
No business should be able to survive the criminalization of its customer base.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."