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The Downward Spiral of Music Retailing
chundo writes "Business Week has an article about the financial problems plagueing specialty music retailers. Tower Records, Musicland, and Sam Goody are all "hemorrhaging money", despite efforts to move sales online. Some chains are trying to adapt - Virgin Megastore is testing an in-store service to download songs to portable players, and their Radio Free Virgin unit hopes to break into digital music retailing. Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?"
Instead of charging $9.99 (damn marketing prices), charge a nominal amount and ask for donations. They could organize the donations and take a cut. The gift economy is the future, and they don't realize it!
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
You either download the few songs you like, or you order it from an online store where it doesn't cost so much.
Yes.
There's a Grammar News Weekly report about proofreading problems plagueing Slashdot editors.
the music industry has been digging its own grave now for a while, i wonder how deep they'll get before they fall into it and die the death we all know awaits them.
it's basic evolution really, adapt or die. and it seems someone doesn't want to adapt...
Both, unfortunately.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
It's fairly obvious to me that the falling sales are both proof that the business model is failing (due to a change in the market environment) and that it will also provide ammunition for the RIAA's anti-P2P argument.
The RIAA is, I believe, misunderstanding the situation in that they would lose sales regardless, but the reality of any situation rarely intrudes on the legalities.
Of COURSE the RIAA will use this as evidence against P2P. Hatch wants to blow up your PC. Perhaps he should think about blowing up the RIAA instead.
The first candidate for House or Senate who proposes rolling back copyrights to 14 years has my vote, regardless of party.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
WRONG!
According to the RIAA and MPAA low sales is because of piracy, therefore we must have more laws and no rights.
Why buy entire CDs when we can pay only for the song we like a from a per song legal music download site? The MPAA claims that movie viewing has gone down, but they fail to take into account that you can see movies as well at home on a home theater system without the $5 popcorn or the chewing gum on the floor.
Fight Spammers!
Hmm, where should we start. Blender. Xiph.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
... despite the move to online sales. Tell their CEO dude that when you upgrade Goth cash register monkeys to web form processing slaves and the company is still hemorraging major amounts of dough, then maybe there's an obvious connection here. I don't go there anymore, except on Halloween night...
"The downward spiral of music retailing"
Is it directly proportional to the downward spiral of music quality? How about to the downward spiral of RIAA-member customer "relations?"
As a customer, I'm gone forever. Even if I never listen to another MP3 again, I will NEVER do business with the RIAA or the music industry.
I couldn't sleep at night knowing I'd contributed to an organization like that.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
How dumb are they?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'de like to be the medic on call this night ;)
This my friends is proof that the NAZI, lets sue a few kids for their life savings tactics by the RIAA have left a bad taste in the mouths of consumers. Like my dear Uncle Jed used to say..."That'll learn ya.
..., including $57.1 million of red ink in 2002.
It's obvious why they're going down the drain. Workers are obviously lifting red pens en masse.
Look a monkey!
"Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?" Yes.
The real problem is that nobody in the industry is trying to adapt to all the changes that have come about in the past few years. The RIAA has spent all its effort trying to stop P2P sites rather than finding an alternative to lure consumers back to buying.
And while all this was going on, the retailers were just sitting on their butts not doing anything. What the CD retailers should have done was band together and get on the RIAA's back about coming up with a better product that would bring back consumers to CD purchasing.
The retailers will always have the hardcore music listeners who will continue to buy CDs no matter what. They are the people keeping those businesses around at least for a little while longer. Unfortunately, the average CD buyer has been swayed by P2P sites, being satisfied with the quality of the files they get from them.
So, what the retailers (and RIAA) should be doing is developing new incentives for people to go back to CDs (or another media). Why not add cool features (like they've been experimenting with) such as bonus content, exclusive concert ticket buying rights, etc.? Or, they should really push the DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD formats (preferably picking one as the standard), which offer far superior sound to MP3s.
Perhaps it is too late. Perhaps the procrastination has killed the CD industry. I hope not, personally, because I highly prefer a physical product to MP3s.
... it's the talent DROUGHT that's hurting them. ie: some artists are just download worthy and some are "I'll buy the cd" worthy.
They just sell the same crap you get at Target. Real specialty music stores are doing quite well, at least from what I know from articles like this. When you sell the same crap as everyone else, the only ways you win are through convenience (e.g., location) or price. When you sell good music - a rarity through the Big 5 - that people want, they'll come back to you both because you offer a unique product and because, at least in some cases, they'll want to hear some of your suggestions. A rapport develops that no crappy chain can emulate or replace.
...they ought to refresh retail.
I feel that retail audio has stagnated with the CD, perhaps even regressed. Commercial CDs offer very little (in terms of audio) over P2P, and discs now are so heavily compressed sometimes a P2P mp3 from a leaked source might have better dynamic range.
Retailers should move toward pushing a new mainstream standard, say SACD.
What amunition?
What can they do?
Their business plans should focus around the fact that P2P will not go away. Kazaa's popularity and encrypted, decentralized P2P's popping up after napster's demise PROVE that you will not win this war. You now have a race against time. I love stories about theories for failure, and the demise of the RIAA or retailers. well, you best get on the ball, people certainly are not going to go back to your store after they have experienced a P2P or the ease of transfering via their choice.
brain-dead business, sitting on laurels.
Why? They want to know why they can't sell music? Here are some lyrics from some song...
Tell me, tell me, baby
How come you don't wanna love me
Don't you know that I can't breathe without you
Tell me, tell me, just how
What am I supposed to do right now
Why can't you love me?
Why-y, tell me, my baby
Do you think that would appeal to me, glasses wearing, Linux using, me? Maybe they should try songs marketed towards the demographic with some discretionary income.
Silly RIAAbit. According to a recent NPR piece, several folk and indie labels are doing just fine, thanks; one label just had its best year ever. Seems they distribute music people actually want to - gasp - Buy...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
When you have a steady decline of CD releases since 1999, obviously the retail stores would be in deep trouble.
Doesn't the RIAA know how to count?
No, that's just bull, the fact is, I and many, many others just don't have the money to spend on music...plain and simple. It's just not a high enough priority.
The US economy has crashed and record sales are down, doh!
Put people back to work and record sales will go up, doh!
Are there many industries doing WELL right now? (well, I suppose porn is, but porn always does well) The overall economy is in a slump. You could virtually reword that article with any product type \ related chain stores and keep it pretty accurate. That being said, I see little way that the music industry will do better unless they bite the bullet and lower CD prices significantly. I'm not trolling or trying to be a freeloader; I just don't see any other plausible way they can compete.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Come on now, why does the RIAA refuse to look at the price of music when it shoots its collective mouth off? Hmm....would I rather buy a quality DVD for $15 or a crap top-40 CD for $14. Seems like an easy choice to me.
When Richard Branson started the music retail arm of his empire (of course, back then his empire was only a youth advice center anyway!) he capitalised on a big gap in the market. In the UK at the time (the early 70's), all record stores were really boring places, no music playing, and the people in the store didn't care about music.. it was just another thing they sold, along with pins and ribbons. Richard Branson figured he'd create somewhere where music was playing, where the staff were all hippies who 'digged' music, and where customers could lounge around on beanbags smoking pot and checking out the latest tunes. What's more, he'd sell the records cheaper than anyplace else. His store (in Oxford Street, and on which he actually paid no rent to start with!!) was flooded with customers for quite some time. He noticed after a while, however, that while sales were brisk, a lot of people were just turning up and smoking pot all day without buying anything. He cleared these people out, and made it so that people would still want to come to the store, but not that they could stay there all day. And so was developed the current model of 'specialty record store' retail. This is a model that hasn't changed since the 70's! Virgin Megastores tries new things like having listening booths, and computerised searches of their CD database.. but it's too little too late, in my opinion. The next model of retail kicked off in the late 90's with the discounted 'pile it high, sell it cheap' WAL*Mart model of selling records. The big problem, however, is that this is not much different to how records were sold in the UK in the 60's! The staff at Wal*Mart don't know music, and they could care less about what you're buying So.. it seems we've come FULL CIRCLE. And let's face it, the whole music industry has lost its vibe anyway. I remember back in the 'good old days' that it was fun to go buy records, and it was a real thrill to get them home and put them on. Nowadays? Sure, there are a lot of good gigs going on, but few people exhibit the same excitement over CDs these days, since you probably heard half of the tracks on MTV/the radio already anyway. I think commercially music has lost its way, and while there's still a LOT of great music out there.. music just isn't as fun anymore. These stores are feeling the pinch. Why go and hang out at a record store when it's not fun anymore?
It makes perfect sense for the chain music stores to lose all their business. Who needs to go to Tower Records for the latest top 40 when you can get it from Target/Wal Mart/online. What I'd be interested in seeing is how the small independent music stores are holding up. You can find a lot of obscure music on Amazon, but lots of people are loyal to their local indie shops.
More then likely it will give them more ammo against the P2P crowd. The RIAA and the companies it represents are trying hold onto a buisness practice that doesn't work with the changing market. The real estate market is going through a similar problem. Instead of fixing the way THEY do things, they expect everyone to buckle and do things the way they've been doing them for so long. The RIAA knows they aren't going to get too much money out of the people they're suing, it's mainly a scare tatic. We sue a few people and guess what, people might not want to do it just because they don't want the hassle. So even if sales keep dropping they'll never admit it's them. And when/if sales do return to normal, they'll just simply praise their own efforts. Either way, the people on the technology side lose.
I've been buying my CDs used from Amazon and Ebay. Haven't had any real problems and I haven't paid more than $9 for a CD in years. When I'm done I resell it (or burn it ;)). Not into p2p really, too afraid of Orrin Hatch and his jackbooted thugs knocking on my door.
Anyway, seems to me the music biz is coming to the end of a 50 year long bubble. For example, does anyone *really* want the latest Madonna CD for $19?
when I hear that, regardless of how the article defines it, I don't think of large chains that you find in malls. Rather, I think of small, hole in the wall places, that have a good selection of used music, and you never know what you might find there.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
As the music industry loses sales, they want to provide music which is less "threatening" [meaning, takes less risks]. But since that ends up being pre-fab pablum such as britany spears, people hold on to their cash--which perpetuates the cylce. Obviously, what will have to happen (from the *AA point of view) is: 1)P2p will have to be eliminated. There is no such thing as a free lunch--particularly when finances are running in the red. They will have to stop the hemmoraging of revenue due to people getting free "samples" and then not feeding into the revenue stream 2)a "independent" movment will need to come along that the industry can captialise on. Something along the lines of the hippy and punk movements in the past. This would generate "buzz" and, therefor, sales--and would go a long ways towards concealing the cultural/esthetic bankruptcy of the modern entertainment industry. Without one or both of those things happening, I fear we will have an ongoing barrage of tepid britany-clones and [tv-wise] full house knock-offs ..without end.
Goes to show what happens when efficient marketing (radio play, etc.) successfully segments the target population. We'll market 50 Cent to these guys over here, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears to this segment, roll out another Stones tour for the old folks.... And after all this segmentation succeeds, there's no one who can achieve the mass relevance of the Beatles, or even the mass popularity of Michael Jackson. Of course massive talent would help.
You know, the good thing about non-workin' business models is that they don't work. No matter how much they bullshit around. If their business model doesn't work they're doomed.
Maybe it just isn't viable to sell music.
Perhaps musicians will need to adjust the way they make their money.
I believe when the RIAAs actions perculate down to the general public there will be a serious backlash, ask any member of the general public what intellectual property is, now go ahead and sue them or their friends, then ask again. No amount of spin will counter the reaction, the day is near.
Rat bastard politicians sold us up the river.....again.
Is it just me, or is sales for EVERYBODY seem to be a little bit slumped? From what I learned in a basic economics class, is that the economy can go up and down. You would think that since we've got the worst economy in 20 or so years, maybe people are holding off on buying CDs to do things like, oh I don't know.. PAY THE BILLS?
Perhaps sales for them will start going back up when jobs quit getting exported overseas, when people start buying things as locally as possible, and corporations stop paying people dick for wages. I think if this were to happen, people here would have more money, and they could buy more CDs.
Piracy doesn't have anything to do with it. If there were some interesting music available, I would happily go to a music retailer and make a purchase. A few years ago I used to buy about one CD a month. But the last CD I bought was several months ago (Scarlet Walk - Tori Amos). Give me something I want to buy and I'll buy it!
There is no good new music out there. Period. It's all a rip-off of something else, which sucked.
CD's are over priced. I wanted to buy a older CD (Metalica's, Ride the Lighting) and it was $14. Come on, that album came out 20 years ago, why so much?
Amazon.com and other like online sellers are killing these companies. Why? I can sit at home and order new, used and hard to find CD's, DVD, books and more. Why drag my ass out to Tower Records (Which always plays the worse music on the store's stereo system) and pay too much for music and DVD's.
The music biz business model is not working in todays market, so they'll blame pirates. Make a good product and sell it at a fair price.
Linux O Muerte!
I haven't stepped foot into a big-chain music store ever since a local Tower Records shop closed their doors. The biggest reason why is that I can get fairly good prices from online retailers (Amazon or Django's) and they tend to have more titles and number of each title in stock than the local Tower ever did.
The only reason why I ever went into a Tower Records store was to check out their import and techno selection, which can be decent at times... but most of the stuff was insanely priced. It seemed that import singles there were cheaper than buying them from Amazon's UK site. Even regular titles at Tower were insanely priced compared to online sites or a local/regional all-purpose store. Why would I spend $15-18 on a CD that I could get two for around $25 at Amazon or Django's and not have to pay shipping?
Anway... enough of my rambling.
"Goth cash register monkey" is my new nick... thanks.
Has anyone provided a credible causal connection between the use of Kazaa et al. and declining CD sales? Many more factors have been cited, such as DVDs and games competeing for disposable income, a 20%(?) reduction in new material and new artist releases, and the inevitability of people buying less once they've replaced their analogue collections, etc. etc.
And yet still we see supposedly credible journalists and news sources regurgitating what is essentially the RIAA party-line.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
When Richard Branson started the music retail arm of his empire (of course, back then his empire was only a youth advice center anyway!) he capitalised on a big gap in the market.
In the UK at the time (the early 70's), all record stores were really boring places, no music playing, and the people in the store didn't care about music.. it was just another thing they sold, along with pins and ribbons.
Richard Branson figured he'd create somewhere where music was playing, where the staff were all hippies who 'digged' music, and where customers could lounge around on beanbags smoking pot and checking out the latest tunes. What's more, he'd sell the records cheaper than anyplace else.
His store (in Oxford Street, and on which he actually paid no rent to start with!!) was flooded with customers for quite some time. He noticed after a while, however, that while sales were brisk, a lot of people were just turning up and smoking pot all day without buying anything. He cleared these people out, and made it so that people would still want to come to the store, but not that they could stay there all day.
And so was developed the current model of 'specialty record store' retail. This is a model that hasn't changed since the 70's! Virgin Megastores tries new things like having listening booths, and computerised searches of their CD database.. but it's too little too late, in my opinion.
The next model of retail kicked off in the late 90's with the discounted 'pile it high, sell it cheap' WAL*Mart model of selling records.
The big problem, however, is that this is not much different to how records were sold in the UK in the 60's! The staff at Wal*Mart don't know music, and they could care less about what you're buying So.. it seems we've come FULL CIRCLE.
And let's face it, the whole music industry has lost its vibe anyway. I remember back in the 'good old days' that it was fun to go buy records, and it was a real thrill to get them home and put them on. Nowadays? Sure, there are a lot of good gigs going on, but few people exhibit the same excitement over CDs these days, since you probably heard half of the tracks on MTV/the radio already anyway.
I think commercially music has lost its way, and while there's still a LOT of great music out there.. music just isn't as fun anymore. These stores are feeling the pinch. Why go and hang out at a record store when it's not fun anymore?
No, what am I thinking. it can't be unemployment leading to lower sales.
--Pat
It's the specialty retailers who are feeling the pinch. Their plight in actuality has little to do with P2P apps, but does have to do with illegal activity by the RIAA.
Specifically, they're suffering because the RIAA started obeying the law.
Allow me to elaborate.
With the rise of big box retailers (Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc.), the RIAA began to fear about ten years ago that the big-boxes would start selling only hit music at huge discounts (possibly at or about wholesale cost) as a means of generating foot traffic. This would threaten stores that basically just sell music, but have a larger selection, especially of catalog records (which are far more profitable for the RIAA, since there's no promotion needed).
So the RIAA instituted a practice whereby they would agree to pay for advertising by retailers in newspapers and store circulars and such, but only on the condition that the prices advertised were above RIAA-set minimums. This is quite obviously price-fixing and is illegal. About three years ago, the RIAA agreed to settle the price fixing charges and refrain from the practice.
Now you have Best Buy and Wal-Mart who sell only the CDs that are currently hot, but sell them for pennies above cost. Essentially, when you buy a CD from one of these big-boxes, you're paying the wholesale cost of the CD, the shipping, and your share of the store's utility bills and the salary of the checkout girl. The store costs are fixed, regardless of how many transactions the store handles, so by spreading it out over more transactions they make even more money off the sale of TVs, stereos, food, clothing, or whatever the store's main specialties are. Against competition that's willing to make no profit whatsoever on your product, the specialty stores have huge problems.
but I din't know how to make a buck off my ideas, any suggestions?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Of course these stores are losing money. Most of the time I buy my music online, or if I really need it now, at Walmart. It's just cheaper, and that's all that matters to the average joe/jane.
Is it just me or is todays music over run by chart toping pop-punk and sissy boy band rock music? I havent bought a CD in probably 3 years because there is no such thing as good music anymore. The few songs I do want I download for free because its not worth paying 15$ for a cd. As far as movies go why pay 8.50 for a ticket, 4.50 for a soda and 4.50 for a pop corn when I can rent the movie from block buster( and even they are expensive) and watch in the comfort of my own home. Pause if i need to pee or answer the phone?
I have no idea how Sam Goody would be hemorrhaging money when they inflate their shipping costs by 875%.
I bought the GBA game Advance Wars from them and paid $14 US for shipping. It took well over a week to arrive, and when it did the postage mark was for $1.60 US.
I let them have it in an email, but they claimed it was all part of the "third party shipping".
Whether it's games or music, if they're going to practice business like that, I hope they fold sooner than later.
I keep wondering why nobody seems to mention the health of indie stores. These stores tend to feature indie labels and more niche styles of music. I would guess that they aren't suffering as badly as the big overhead stores like Tower. Tower made its money moving volumes of major label stuff. Major label sales are down- Tower is stuck with the overhead of a large corporation and dwindling demand for it's products. Meanwhile indie labels are turning profits and seeing growth rather than loss. I would suspect that indie stores are following the same trend. I can't find Skin Graft, Arena Rock, Kill Rock Stars, Dischord etc. CDs at the chain stores- only at little indies.
The more that major label music sucks, the more people will find stuff they like on indie labels and, hence, at indie stores.
So in short, buy your Korn at Best Buy for $13. Buy your Fugazi at indie stores for $10. Tower has nothing left to offer...
I used to buy a lot of CD's from the major labels. Probably a good 20 or so a year at least.
Then Napster came along and I actually bought more CD's since I could test out an album before I shelled out $15 for CD. Hence the almost total disappearance of 1-hit wonders in my collection after 1998, but I probably bought 30 CD's a year during the Napster craze, 30 CD's I cared much more about since they weren't 1-hit wonder CD's.
Then the RIAA went hardball on Napster and company. Metallica slept with the RIAA. CD prices actually rose. More manufactured pop was released, not the bands I enjoyed, the bands who cared about music and actually wrote their own songs. I went down to 5 RIAA CD's per year and just listened to the CD's that I owned already. Meanwhile my business with indie labels has increased dramatically, especially when they let me listen to their songs for free before buying them.
The only time I buy RIAA CD's is when they are on-sale for $6.99-9.99 at Best Buy the week of their release (why can't they be that price all the time? Indie labels seem to be able to do it just fine). The rest of the CD's I buy from indie labels. I also buy all my CD's online or at Best Buy.
RIAA lost me as a serious customer. Simple as that. When they lower prices for good and change their image with the public, they will win me back. Until then, they can go on sleeping with Britney.
This goes for DVDs at the offending retailers as well.
-matt
Believe it or not CDs are for most people a luxery item. During the boom days CD sales where up and now we're in the bust days sales are down, hmm think they may be linked?
It really does n't matter because whatever the cause the RIAA will say that piracy is stopping their GOD GIVEN RIGHT (tm) to make money. Infact I seem to remember in the boom days the RIAA where complaining even though CD sales where up.
Spending $10-$20 on a CD that has maybe 1 or 2 tracks that are good is too expensive in this economy. In addition, the number of tracks on a CD has been going down. People are losing their jobs, taxes are rising, the cost of living going up, the value of that CD is becoming lower and lower. The RIAA is now starting to see the effects of decreasing quality in their products. I see the RIAA as the Ludites. They want to continue the old model, and don't want to give their customers a better product.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
One thing that interested me a while ago was a piece about how it cost more to make an audio cassette than a CD, yet CD's are being sold at a price more than double that of a tape. Everytime I look for a CD I like, I flip it over, and I am miffed when the price is $23.99 for something I know couldn't cost more than $3.00 to make en masse. Considering their cut per album, it is disheartening. Hence why I order all my music online, after I can hear the songs and know they are good.
I agree with you that the RIAA will do all it can as it writhes in its death throes after having missed the bus when the Napster Revolution took place.
It reminds me of what Thomas Jefferson wrote:
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
When the price of a new CD went to $20 I simply stopped buying. I have no downloaded MP3s and no copied CDs. I've simply curtailed my music purchasing due to what I see as exorbitant pricing. Period. And until prices come down I will not purchase another CD. I am who the music industry is loasing as a customer, and they just don't get it.
Imagine that - go to any store, download an album onto the iPod in a matter of seconds (via the fast Firewire or USB2 ports). This way anyone with an iPod, no matter what OS or platform, can get music onto their iPods!
Virgin Radio are streaming in Ogg Vorbis, tried to get this submitted as news that some would be interested in, but yet again the person checking for submits did not think it was news worthy.
Just go to www.virginradio.co.uk its there.
Wish one could see the stories they reject. Wonder if you have to actually be a subscriber to get stories submitted?
Seems that most analyses of why traditional music stores are not doing well seem to migrate towards the "buzzworthy" answers like P2P. How about the other reasons, such as a lack of demand for entire albums? Short attention spans aside, a piece in the puzzle is that people don't want to buy an entire album for one song, especially back catalog titles with one-hit wonders. I mean, come on, Eileen.
Also, speaking of which, do traditional music stores make money off of back catalog sales? It seems that online shops are the future of back catalog sales, since no brick-and-mortar store actually wants to keep one or two copies of older stuff in stock.
I recall a few years ago when an article speculated that the future music store would be nothing but a computer terminal with a burner, CD labeller and a high-resolution color printer. No one but home users seemed to pick up on that idea.
Losers choose to abuse the use of "loose".
OF course the RIAA will use this to score points. That's what good lobbies do. But, a number of other things are going on that preclude attributing the bad times at speciality shops solely to p2p downloads.
First, the population is getting older. Buying music is, for most people, an activity that decreases as they get older.
Second, in addition to downloading, music is offered for sale in many venues that weren't available a decade ago. As the article notes, why make a special trip to a speciality shop when you can buy it from Amazon, at Walmart, or on your next stop at the bookstore.
Third, I'm skeptical about the 40 million Americans download music claim, or the common assertion that filesharing prompts purchases that wouldn't happen otherwise. But, if/when it does, it seems likely that the purchaser will be inclined to order it online using the same computer used for the download, rather than going tothe trouble of traveling to any store -- big box or speciality shop -- to make the purchase.
Fourth, this is very speculative, but the music industry has, for a number of years, lacked the one or two overwhelmingly popular acts that can spike sales across the industry. (Think Beatles in the 1960's.) People who would not otherwise ever buy music do buy the music of these acts.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
than I did all last year! 'Why?' I hear you ask.. well I'll tell you!
HMV seem to have pretty much doubled in size their metal collection, now featuring bands such as Nightwish, Dark Tranquility and At The Gates, i.e. they are selling the music I like (at reasonable prices), so I'm buying it.
How did I hear these bands to begin with? I downloaded their MP3s from Audiogalaxy AGES ago which I found using the music categories AG used to have. (I admit I haven't been back since they started charging.)
I'll willingly pay for music by bands that I like, if it is sold. Most of the few CDs I did buy last year were bought at gigs anyway as the stores didn't stock them.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
The article only talks about large retailers specializing in new CD's. What about the local CD stores that sell local bands and used CD's? Does anyone know how they are doing?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Everyone should stop buying music. If you want to listen listen to something that is free or gather around a campfire and sing to yourselves.
stores which sells items in which intangibles have more value than tangibles are the most likely to be affected by internet. Thus books (what is in it costs more than the printing and paper), CD, Software etc are going to be affected first.
The second affectees are those whose products are bought on basis of properties which can be quantified easily. This includes computer, digital camera, MP3 players etc.
Third are those items which people don't buy for themselves but are gifted (outside family). This includes toys etc.
Next would be items which have only functional use. Electronics, stationeries etc.
Next would be items which can be externally appraised.
Last would be personal items. Clothes, cooking utensils, food and drinks etc.
Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?
Or, could it be consumer backlash against RIAA for their ham-handed actions against their customer base?
There's some good news though!
.mp3 file put into file sharing systems and RIAA expects many music pirates to be totally demoralized and overwhelmed.
After the eagerly awaited replacement of Ms Rosen by Ms Bono there will be Sonny & Cher songs in every bogus
An anonymous spokesperson said it would be "Total shock and awe" and that "their moral will be crushed". She added that "they will be slaughtered".
Isn't Wal-Mart one of (or *the*) largest retail seller of CDs at the moment? I'm sure that's not helping. Of course, I won't buy anything there either, not if I can help it.
I prefer used CDs, anyway. Cheaper, same discs. Unfortunately, the one chain store that stocks 'em - Wherehouse - seems to be bleeding out into oblivion as well. They've closed most of them in my area, and I saw a bunch closing down in L.A. recently as well...
I wonder how much the record industry spends on legal fees, disseminating misinformation, bamboozling politicians and hiring a new 100-lb gorilla to head the RIAA every few months. If the record industry, as represented by the RIAA, pursue their current practice, they will eventually collapse due not just to declining sales but also to their inability to cut costs (including legal!) It's not because of the piracy itself; it's because in their total obsession with it, they are completely losing the customer focus. (What little they had in the first place.) Whatever, it looks like Apple and co., are willing take up the slack.
People still shop at real stores still?
Music retailers are having trouble selling music because the music being offered falls somewhere between boring and terrible. Despite claims about advertising being able to brainwash people, no quanity of clever marketing can make people buy something they don't want or enjoy.
Interesting music is not being promoted, so it's hard to find. I keep an eye on artists I like (Rollins Band) but finding new stuff is rare these days. I wish I knew a reliable source for new, good music.
The problem with these stores is that they are all trying to sell a commidity item. There is no difference in that CD whether you are purchasing it from Amazon, Goodies, or Tower Records, somehow do these stores expect that just because they have the product that they automatically will have people begging them to sell them that CD? It is a commidity, someone can get it anywhere.
If they want to sell something, they have to sell a service, give people a reason to go their store and buy a CD there, listen before you buy, or a nice place to relax while chilling with their music. Just throwing the thing up on a stand with a big sign saying *$16.95* is just not good enough anymore.
Suppose:
-Tower (or other big music retailer) had a massive storage system with a vast library of legally copied CDs. Could be near-line storage to be a bit cheaper.
-I walk up to a kiosk and pick songs from the catalog of music, building my own playlist.
-I pay the cashier using the playlist number.
-I wait a few minutes while my custom CD is burned.
-The waiting area is full of t-shirts, knick-nacks and bric-a-brac related to music so when I pick up my burned CD I pay for a few shirts and a pair of "Fleetwood Mac" bookends too.
-I am happy with my legal, high quality music.
-The store is happy with my money.
It would work for me! As it is, I have not been in a music store or the music section of a bigger store in years. I refuse to pay $18+ to get just two songs that I like mixed in with songs I'll just ignore.
they have reasonable prices (about $11-$14 new)
they have a good selection (everything but pop and newer country)
they have a knowledgeable staff
quick special ordering
they carry smaller, independant labels you'll never find at *insert huge chain here*
Just an example, the new Radiohead album:
borders: $19.99
independant record store: $12.88
... is employees who know where the really good stuff is.
From my experience, the clerks in music stores - with a few notable exceptions - mostly listen to rap, metal, or old rock. What I want is to walk into a store, talk to someone, and have them guide me to where the good (!!!), relatively unknown music is. I love going to my friends with a new CD and saying, "Check this out, I bet you've never heard of them, but they're an excellent band!"
Until that happens, I'll listen to shoutcast and download the good stuff. I'll do the work myself.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?"
The RIAA uses P2P as a scapegoat for the failed business models of the labels it represents and their inability (or unwillingness) to adapt their copyright stance in the face of new technology. In fact, the answer to your question is "both" in that as the reports of declining sales come out, the RIAA uses P2P to distract attention from the fact that labels have degenerated into top-heavy marketing machines.
The RIAA is not the record industry. When the RIAA says "we", they mean the big 5 record labels (Universal, Sony, EMI, Warner's, BMG). The RIAA is the recording industry's lobbying arm, charged with keeping the names of the labels out of the headlines as they seethe forward into the breach.
I'm wondering if accused P2P users can adopt a defense that they are non-profit broadcasters who got caught not paying their compulsories.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Why do half the posts on this story talk about the RIAA? The story isn't about the RIAA. It's not even about CD sales as a whole (though they do mention the declining CD sales); it's about SPECIALTY MUSIC STORES losing market share. Even if you don't want to read the article, at least the story submission. Or at least the first sentence of it.
I've never been elected to anything in my entire life! And I hold that as a personal badge of honor.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
One has to kinda feel bad for the recording industry, poisoned by the P2P, we watch this dinosaur breath it's last few breaths. Sympathy aside; do we need record labels? What need or demand do they fulfill? They take artists, produce their albums, then distribute the album (radio/CDs.TV) - their revenue is generated from record sales of which 1-2 percent ends up going to the artist. Artists make money by touring and endorsements.
Recording equipment used to be extremely expensive - thus making bands dependent on record labels to front the money needed to make an album. This is not the case anymore. One can make a professional recording studio for under 30,000 dollars, and this number keeps shrinking every year. Bands can produce/fund their own albums. Technology has brought 'Recording' to the individual - eliminating the 'Industry'.
What about distribution? Well, it is evident the Internet is a pretty effective medium for distributing music. No longer are people limited to being exposed to new music solely by what they hear on the radio or see on tv; rather millions of people can be exposed to your music via the internet. Radio and TV were easy for the RIAA to control/influence - but the internet is to decentralized.
No more mass marketed music? Sounds like a good idea to me. No more boy bands, brittany spears, lincon park, etc. What does marketing have to do with art?
History will explain the recording industry as merely a phenomina fueled (and destroyed) by the development of digital technology. IMHO.
..is that most people treat P2P as radio/TV - and just as people don't run out and buy everything they hear/see on TV likewise they don't do it with P2P - and wouldn't have anyway - the loss is probably negligible.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
For Craps sake!
They spend Millions on anti copy features and destructable CD's.
LOWER THE FUCKING PRICE!!!!!!!
There is no reason a CD should cost more than $10.00.
But we all cared about music, and we knew music very well. All the store sold was musical equipment, stereo equipment, and music - not pins and ribbons here. But my bud was in school and didn't really care too much about the store - it was a trap for him (the family business) and he was more concerned with getting his phd so he could get on with a career of his own.
Anyway there were probably tens of housands of music stores like that back then. Some were hard core, some were family businesses - but most all had one thing in common: the people running them at least KNEW something about the music they specialized in. A good many of them traded in used records as well.
But most of those places are gone now - they died even before the chains started feeling the pinch. With the chains in the back pocket of the majors, I think this change is actually a good thing. Because the one thing the indierecord stores CAN provide like no other is service. If the indies were to specialize in indie artists, in providing a local "hangout" and a place for people to gather and trade knowledge and music, they could once again become a dominant force in the industry.
Consider: why is it OK to hang out in a book store, sit and drink coffee and read all day, but record stores think this is so bad?
Even with the internet, people still like gathering and hanging out. Provide a place for them to feel comfortable and organize your service around that model, and there's no telling where the stores of the future could go. Think about people sitting around, drinking coffee and eating crullers, trading music on their ipods, exchanging knowledge - maybe even bringing in their old LPs to have them "ripped" to SHNs or APEs on the store's high quality LP playback system.
No matter how they spin it, I just never hear a downside when talking about the death of the (old) music industry. It's a great time to be alive... unless you're a slave of the RIAA.
The RIAA has no one to blame but themselves. We as consumers have voted with our wallets and they simply refuse to accept this so they are trying to legislate us into doing it their way. It's obviously not going to turn out how they would like it to.
I saw this coming when they went after Napster. Take down the largest at the time P2P service with centralized servers and replace it with numerous decentralized servers with no one to go after except for the user and you're fucked. So going after the person you're trying to convince to buy more of your product is your business plan RIAA? You bunch of fucking idiots. Whoever is dishing out the advice to the worlds largest group of techology n00bs should be shot. This has to rank as the best example of how not to do business, how not to work the P.R. angle, and how not to work into motivating your customers to spend more on your products.
You cannot legislate the free market via scare tactics and propaganda while in the mean time not working to create a more technology based business model and not expect to demonize yourself in the process. As soon as the RIAA starts to bear down on users and suing the shit out of them then they'll really start to see a backlash of epic proportion. It will come to that and they're going to be in for the shock of their lives. Fuck the the RIAA/MPAA. They are getting exactly what they deserve and there's not a person I know who feels any amount of guilt over not being ripped off and now having a choice.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
There's an answer that could virtually wipe out P2P music swapping, but the record companies are so blinded by greed that they will never see it.
Ever since recorded music first came into existance there is one thing that consumers have wanted and the record companies have steadfastly refused to deliver:
The ability to purchase exactly the songs you want and only the songs you want. At various times you've been able to buy singles in various formats (45 rpm, CD, cassette) but even then, the record companies dictated which songs were available.
The answer is amazingly simple: Put every song in existance on-line in one central location for download at a reasonable price (25 cents per song or less) in standard mp3 format with no DRM crap. This would be enormously successful and would generate huge revenue.
But the record companies will never agree to this and never even allow it to enter their minds. They are still locked into the mindset of "why should we let people buy one song for a quarter when we can force them to buy an entire CD for $18".
I hate to associate casual file sharing with something like big time gangsters and flaunting criminal laws like the USA's old alcohol prohibition period. But I'm going to do just that. What an excellent example of a vocal minority flaunting its abuse of power, of passing laws eliminating citizens rights, creating laws to turn respectable law abiding citizens into criminals, and all the problems that errupted from it. Why do politicians feel they have the right to destroy the trust of the citizens they represent.
Oh, that's right, because some corporation donates millions of dollars to keep them in power. Who would care if it was just some corporation moaning about their terrible victimization at the hands of 15 year old kids? Not anyone if they didn't get our elected representatives to attack the citizens of America over things so petty. To protect a corporation's un-American rights to control distribution channels, what you see and hear, and the public domain they stole from the American people, our government has completely sold us out. Anyone who doesn't want their children labeled criminals and attacked by their government to protect unreasonable demands by corporations should be insulted and view those dishonest politicians as enemies of the people, and traitors to the USA. That's right Orin Hatch, as far as I'm concerned you sold out every American citizen to get your name in the paper, to get re-elected, to serve your party's interest over that of the American people and you did it for a bunch of multinational corporations. As far as I'm concerned you're a traitor to your country and should be put on the next boat out of here.
The subject line says it all.
Moderators should've given a +5 Insightful instead.
Though general sales may be down, and the stores are becoming more and strapped for cash, these stores still play a role in how I acquire music. Unlike most popular music, which is readily available via the web or p2p, regional music by artists from Hawaii, or for that matter, from other parts of the world, have no real means of outlet except from the stores in their region, or through the occasional specialty order or imports.
For example, I was recently very fortunate to have spent the last two months in Hawaii (away from the drenching mid-atlantic east coast weather) and I was treated to the sounds of the island. While I was there, I had visited quite a few various msuic outlets, (which on Hawaii, Tower Records has a good market share from the number of stores I had saw), and there is a wide selection of Hawaiian artists to choose from. Being 'tech savvy', I immediately tried to find Hawaiian online, and not to my surprise, it was almost non-existent. Albeit there was a few to choose from, and they were considered 'popular', much of the other artists just were not available. However, I chose to buy several CDs (I bought more CDs while I was on Hawaii than the last few years combined) and I was very happy with my selection.
Coming back to the east-coast, I had continued to listen to more Hawaiian music, courtesy of KCCN and I was tempted to find more music. Again, trying to find them online (web, p2p, amazon and the likes) was impossible, and even going to the local Tower Records down the street, I had found a very poor selection of Hawaiian artists. Needless to say, I called around, and was finally able to locate the CDs that I was looking for. Unfortunately, I had to pay more for these CDs than if I had purchased them in Hawaii. (I had some friends look up the prices at the Tower Records in Hawaii.)
So what is the lesson in all of this? Unless the 'on-line' vendors can provide the selection and customer service, though the music specialty stores may go dwindle, I don't think they will completely go away. A few of the strong ones will remain, if not, they will all end up like HP and Compaq and consolidate efforts rather than to eat into each other's market share.
- If I want to buy a "top 40" record, I'll pick it up for $12 at Best Buy or Target or something like that the next time I'm in the neighborhood.
- If I want to buy an obscure record by a local or indie artist, I'll visit the local House O' Piercings And Attitude (aka indie record store).
- If I want to buy something that nobody'll have in stock and it'll have to be special-ordered anyway, I'll go to Amazon.
See Sam Goody in there? Neither do I. There's no reason for me to go out of my way to visit a place that charges 50% more than Best Buy for the same mainstream crap. Besides, my days of "gotta have that new record right now" are over. If I am feeling lazy and willing to pay the premium, I'll just buy it from Amazon.Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
I spent 20 years of my life buying mostly overhyped crap by these companies. Almost every album I bought was a ripoff with just a couple songs of any quality on them. For 2 or 3 years I didn't buy any music because it was so awful, expensive, etc. Then I found p2p. I can listen to what I want at no expense to me. If I find a group I like that is independant I can buy the CD for a nice quality copy that supports the artists that have earned it.
At $15 to $20 per CD that works out to about 3 hours to 4 hours of work for someone working minimum wage. Who would work 4 hours so they can support Britney Spears' music career? The sooner her career's over the sooner we get to see her in Playboy.
The RIAA/music retailing business in its current form is dead. It's not dead because of P2P being good. It's dead because it has been a piece of crap years but they locked out competition. P2P is the only competition out there for RIAA. Anything hurting their sales helps respectable companies and artists enter the market.
If you look at the killer stores like Toys 'R Us and the Sports Authority they have a hard enough time staying in business. Anyone remember Jumbo Sports, i.e. Sports and Recreation. The RIAA is using its coffers to keep a model that has been proven to fail against the internet, where the killer stores don't have what it takes to compete with the internet let alone the wal-marts and targets.
Even if you don't want to read the article, at least the story submission. Or at least the first sentence of it. /. quote:
"You must be new here"
obligatory
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
The only thing these stores specialize in is charging $18 for a CD.
postmodernsideshow.com
I have say I have just about stopped buying CD all together. I don't download any music off the net. I have slowed my purchases because of the RIAA's language and action.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
It's the combonation of the shitty economy and the price fixing by the music industry making cd's an expensive luxury that fewer people feel they can afford? I don't know about anyone else but anymore I listen to independant (and free) net radio and download indie mp3's (legally). I can get more than my fill of the pop flavor of the week listening to the radio every once in a while and get the rest of my music online.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I use to buy two CDs a week. Then it went to one CD and one DVD once I got a DVD player. The first thing I would do when I buy a CD is to make a copy of it and put the original away. This is simply because I have kids and the number of scratches I find on them (once I pick them up off the floor) would make the initial investment I made very expensive. I don't think this is piracy, I believe this is simply looking after and valuing what you have. I stopped buying CD simply because of the false and demeaning stance the RIAA has taken which would make my backup activity illegal! Although piracy should be (and is) illegal, where the phuk does the RIAA get off assuming that I am a pirate simply because I value my property.
Heh, you guys might find this funny. I was reading about the Register today and they had an interesting editorial about Hilary Rosen. Check it out here. I about died laughing when I read that.
"Derp de derp."
I never buy CD's at the aforementioned stores, because they insist on selling everything except the popular new releases and a few specials at MSRP, which means $19 or $20 these days. As I've said to many people on many occasions, I will never---that's not now, not tomorrow, not in 10 years, not ever---pay $20 for a CD. Not ever. Not. Ever. And I am not alone. That is why these stores are dying.
[ home ]
Funnily enough when I think of specialist music retailers I think of the stores that concentrate on one type of music, like all those DJ stores which still carry most of their releases on Vinyl only.
These small stores have their financial problems, but they tend to keep a loyal customer base regardless of internet downloads. I go to my favourite places, bring some beer, listen to records, listen to more records, maybe buy a few. HMV, tower and all the others just don't encourage loyalty, if you tried to just hang around and talk abotu music then the security staff would probably ask you to leave.
Anyway.... just an aside
Industries like the RIAA and music distributors are using a model that doesn't work anymore. Technology has made them redundant. All you need to play recorded music is to have a copy of it. Obvious enough, but only recently has the media carrying the music itself become irrelevant.
Time ago, that copy came on vinyl, then tape, then CD. Fine and dandy, and the record companies supported this customer demand fairly well (not really music companies - the label and the artist was a different thing). They progressed through the different media and made a ton of money.
So here we are in 2003, and people still want music, but many of us don't need or even want a CD to hold our copy of the music - we just want the music!
That's what the record industry can't handle. Their distribution and business model needs to be overhauled. They need to reshape themselves into pure production and marketing houses, but get the hell out of the distribution game. If they were smart, they'd sell "per song" to Amazon, or whoever, and do it just like iTunes does. Hell, you could set up terminals in CD-Stores for punters to grab the tracks they want directly to their iPod and then pay at the counter.
P2P has always been there - we used to swap tapes and dubs back in primary school years ago - so I don't buy the "Napster is Killing Us" lines. If they play the game right, people won't need to scour the net to find their favourite tracks in high quality - they'll just dial up Warner Music, or the 50c website or whatever and download it. I'm sure some payment method could be handled, say a monthly account type of thing (eg, pay up purchases on the 20th), or an online version of EFT-POS to avoid CC charges.
It's not that difficult, but these cats seem to be shit-scared of making the necessary changes
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I just can't fathom paying more than 20 bucks for a CD when I'm not even sure I'll like half the songs on it. I can't see paying that much when I like the songs on it too.
Why don't they drop the price back to like 12-15 bucks, then people might actually want to buy CD's again. They only cost a few cents to make anyway, the rest is all profit...
------ Will of Iron, Knees of Jello.
Anyone else read "download spiral" in the subject?
my
Our local "independent retailers" are often as pricy as our big stores. I live in Harrisonburg, VA which is a college town and our bigger retailers like Sam Goody and FYE actually have been known to be substantially cheaper. I bought a copy of Tool's album Lateralus for $10 at Sam Goody on sale. It has been on sale 2x in the past 1.5 months.
I'll admit that you can often find stuff for a dollar, may be $2, cheaper at our local stores, but usually I feel like I'm getting ripped off if I've checked CDUniverse.com. I usually find THEIR prices are $2-$3 cheaper than our local indie retailers. I've often been amused that I could often buy a CD online and even with the shipping it's $1-$2 cheaper than the local stores, indie and big corporate alike.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
(A RANT) ...Especially since the FCC's recent "deregulation" ruling allowing monopolies of the airwaves. Say goodbye to anywhere having a "local scene" that would generate some income for the music industry. Without the local airwaves to promote local music there will be less and less choice. Without a large pool of local musicians to draw upon, and by focusing on narrower and narrower "cash generating genres", the music is always going to get worse, and sales will go down. Right now music is targeted at 14-year-old girls and moody teenagers, AND THAT'S IT. What about the rest of us? Box sets of stuff that's 20 or 30 years old. Wow. How about some good music? How about videos on regular TV? If the Beatles came out now they'd be ignored, because they "don't fit the mold". Screw the music industry! Support the musicians, encourage the good ones, and spread the word around when you hear something good. Go see the bands live. Buy a t-shirt. It's about time that the music industry stopped being a bunch of lawyers and turned into artists again.
To all music retailers, I have the answer. Yes, I, a nobody on /., knows exactly what you need to do to sell many times more albums than you are now.
First, lower CD prices to something like $6. Sure, it sounds like you would be loosing a lot of money, but what's the alternative? Sell a few hundred CDs at $20, or sell thousands and thousands at $6? I'll personally go and spend $300 on CDs as soon as I hear about the prices being lowered... I'm sure there are many more like myself.
Second, it's more convient for people to sit on their asses... Sell entire albums on the web for a couple bucks less, and not only will people be happier, but you save loads of money by not having to ship the disc all over the world, nor do you ever have to tell your customers that you are out of stock of a particular CD.
Also, no DRM for me. I'm sure you'll put a complete stop to sales if you don't let people do what they want to do with their music. Come on, how many people are going to go through the hassle of using P2P, eating up their bandwidth, and wasting lots of their time, when they can easilly and cheaply get exactly what they want (from you) with little to no hassle at all?
That should just about cover the major issues. If you follow my instructions and don't see huge increases in profits, I'll give you a 100% refund, no questions asked...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
So much cool shit there, I thought I was going to die.
But fuck them. Fuck them in their ears, just as we get fucked in the ears listening to the shitty music they put into the machine. Fuck their silly equations implying what music we "must" like. The stuff in these "speciality" stores is the crap that plagues today's radio stations. I Live in one of the most culturally diverse areas of the US, the New York Metro area, and most of the radio stations here are owned by the same company, and most of them play the same garbage. Do they think we want to listen to a bunch of whiney, scrawny white kids with tatoos or a bunch of illiterate hip hop artists talking about clubs, cars, guns and bitches? I certainly dont, and none of my friends do either. Maybe thats why album sales are down? Maybe its also the 18 dollar sticker adorning the cd's. Have i illegally downloaded music? yes. would i if i felt i had a viable alternative? no. Being morally bankrupt as they are ripping off the consumers, i hope they go financially bankrupt as well.
Back in the 90's when there was a recession, CD sales are unaffected simply because it's a new thing. Remember the ads back then? 'Crystal-clear', 'just like being there at the concert', 'hi-fi', etc. The medium that was affected by the recession is the cassette tape.
Fast-forward to the 2001 recession. The CD is more ubiquituous than cable TV, and the technology is two decades old, so it is more likely to be affected by Joe-Sixpack's "under-employment" just like the cassette tape was back in the 90's. However, a new technology is encouraging Joe to pluck down his hard-earned unemployment money and visit the store: DVD.
DVD sales are skyrocketing, completely oblivious to the current recession.
I don't have enough money for a car either, you don't mind if I steal yours do you?
Secialty restaruants are having a similar problem of people going to food discounters like grocery stores to get things to eat. Food "pirates" have enven set up soop kitchens! They must be stopped or the country's biggest and most important industry, food, will implode.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Tower here in Boston - before it closed down and turned into Virgin - used to have an amazing blues section. Blind Lemon, Charley Patton, you name it. Actually it had an amazing everything selection. And the HMV in Harvard Square, before it closed down, had a seperate room for electronic stuff, with stuff like Thievery Corporation and Peace Orchestra. Damned if you'll find Peace Orchestra in Target.
The problem with Tower wasn't their prices or their merchandise, is was that they had this policy of only hiring Sex Pistols rejects who were all ornery fucking bastards that treated you like you were stupid, by default. I hated shopping there and I'm glad it's gone.
c-hack.com |
- Take your iPod to Virgin Megastore.
- Pay $10~$20, have a special section/directory loaded with the current Top 40 in DRM-wrapped AAC.
- Return every few weeks, pay a $2~$5 top-up fee, and have the Top 40 updated.
- ????
- Profit!
As much as I hate their actions - it's not about the money, or the music, it's all about control - this seems like a good solution from their point of view. It's an extension of their current paradigm (radio), it reinforces their market manipulation and lock-in (Top 40), and they get revenue! What more could the bastards want?!(This idea (c) 2003 by NoMaster / The Bastard Software Co. All rights reserved. Open other end. Content may appear larger than actual size...)
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
The best thing that could happen is if the industry went the way that Apple did with it's music service. Like a song? Download that for a buck. Like the whole album? Download that too for a few more bucks. Heck, I've been wanting to get an MP3 player, and the IPOD is the thing that'll probably push me over the edge to do it. They just need to get Windows or Linux service to work.
I read today that Apple's sold more than 2 million songs this way so far, and that's just to Mac people (since the service is currently Mac only). When it goes Windows, they'll probably be a lot more.
Not as many as P2P, but then, those people don't pay anyway. They're just leaching off the people that end up buying music in the stores.
I though about it for a minute and bought nothing. Yes, nothing.
So approx eighty bucks for four cd's, let me say that again, EIGHTY bucks for four new CD's. Eighty f**king bucks, no way man.
Since then I've been buying most of my CD's used online for the past year for less than a tenner. And I've been buying more because their cheaper (and cheaper than most of the local used record stores).
The only way the record companies, and stores, are going to keeps sales up is the lower prices and improve the quality of the music being released.
I have a very small mind and must live with it.
-- E. Dijkstra
Of course it will provide more ammunition, but they'll go out of business soon enough.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Tower Records: $9.99
c-hack.com |
Here's a theme song on the whole topic (now version 2!).
c-hack.com |
Which wouldn't have been playable on any of the current players.
Which would have required record stores to stock twice as many discs, meaning probably half as many selections, since they would have the old and new formats.
Which would have increased mastering, manufacturing, and inventory costs.
Which a lot of people wouldn't have wanted to update to because frankly most of us don't want to spend an additional $500-$1000+ for a difference we can't hear.
Which wouldn't have succeeded well at all for years at best.
Which might not have played an any computer players, ending that market.
And which wouldn't be immune from digital ripping, compression, and filesharing anyway.
You call that a plan?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Granted, satellite (Sirius and XM) aren't widely used, yet, if the do survive I expect more people will have less desire to buy CD's when they find 100+ channels to listen to. I spend, on average 2 hours a day driving, so I figure I'd know as well as anyone how convenient satellite is.
I don't work for, nor am compensated by either XM or Sirius. I just happen to be very happy without lugging CD's around and dealing the radio DJ's who totally suck except in their own egos.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I believe the answers are yes, and yes.
thus, your example, like Borders, sucks.
Some chains are trying to adapt - Virgin Megastore is testing an in-store service to download songs to portable players,
So they want you to go all the way to the store, download a few songs and then give them money? That's such a better idea than just staying home and getting the music for free..
Many religious groups have asked for a ban on Harry Potter books for promoting witchcraft. Yet they obviously have not read the books, for if they had, they would undoubtedly be shocked at the level of homosexuality. One can only conclude that the Catholid church ignores homosexuality among young boys as they would make excellent alter boys and future priests, if they renounced their pagan ways.
I would distingush these stores from 1. for the sheer fact of selection. Wal-Mart and friends are very conservative when they stock their shelves, and they even have the clout to force album edits and art redesigns.
-------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I haven't bought any this year. I used to buy a couple per week. I have 61 mp3 files (I just looked) on my computer. I have thousands of ogg files, all ripped from my own cds. I don't buy fewer cds because I'm stealing music, I buy fewer because
a) I don't much care for what the studios are producing these days, and
b) I've got other things to spend my money on besides cds that may only contain one or two decent songs.
Piracy is an easy scapegoat, but as long as they believe that piracy is the cause of all their ills, they will continue to lose revenue and must eventually figure it out or die.
They are blind to their true problems.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
I can only hope to understand the mindset of the average consumer by observing myself, and by doing so, can say that a good deal of what the music industry is doing is wrong (in both the ethical and logical perspectives).
About two weeks ago, I was watching VH1Classic (not a bad station, if you have satellite), and saw a video for a song from an album that I liked. (The group was âThey Might be Giantsâ(TM), the song was Ana Ng, and the album was Lincoln, if I recall correctly). So I was sitting there thinking âhey, I like this album. I used to listen to it in my car all the time back in high school on tape. I have no idea where the tape is, but I might as well get it on CD despite already paying for itâ(TM). So I pulled out a 20 from the ATM and went to the local record store.
Yes, I figured that it would be at least 20 bucks. If not more. Sure, too much money, but when the music bug hits you, and you just have to listen to a particular album at a particular time, what else are you going to do?
I went to the first record store, a Warehouse music. I checked first in the used CD section. Nothing. So I went to the new section. Nothing. Not to give up, I bit my own pride in the rear and went to the local Best Buy. Still no luck.
As I was driving home, defeated, it hit me. Both stores had many, many copies of the latest garbage ready for sale, but nothing that I wanted. I went to Amazon, and discovered I could pick up the album for far less then what I expected the record shop to sell it for, but the bug was in me at that moment, and I didnâ(TM)t want to wait.
So ultimately, they lost a sale. Heck, if Iâ(TM)m going to wait 3-5 days for Amazon to ship it to me, I may as well spend a few evenings downloading each song off the Internet and burn a CD. No, I wouldnâ(TM)t feel bad, because I already purchased the album over 10 years ago, and by all rights I own the right to listen to it.
Thereâ(TM)s a point to all of this. And it has more then just a record shop not stocking old albums. It wouldnâ(TM)t bother me if they were just out of stock. Itâ(TM)s that all this money, time and effort is spent on promotion of albums that I really donâ(TM)t want, nor would ever want. I guess somewhere out there is a few people who get taken in by all this promotion to buy crap, but Iâ(TM)ll be danged if I know who they are. And you have to wonder to yourself, as I did looking over stacks and stacks of CDs filled with the latest recycled crap rock, that perhaps if the record companies didnâ(TM)t spend millions on promoting the bland flavor of the month that there would be room for a few records that are any good.
The Internet is generally stupid
Which made very good sense when the industry moved from LPs to CDs, and moved from 45rpm to 33rpm and moved from 78rpm to 45rpm. Each represents a leap forward in quality and/or capability. And you CAN tell the difference between 5.1 dolby and stereo.
But these days, the difference between MP3 and store bought CDs isn't all that great. Certainly, MP3s make FM radio moot.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Last month I forked out hard cash to buy two genuine, factory-labeled DVDs:
A Clockwork Orange
Harold and Maude
I paid money for these movies because they're worth it -- both are classics and far from the current formulaic run of the mill dross that Hollywood is churning out these days.
Would I pay good money to buy a legal (or even bootleg) copy of a Madona or J'Lo movie? Hell no!
The same goes with music. Offer me good quality content at a reasonable price and I'll gladly part with my money.
Offer me crappy content at a rip-off price, bolstered by "in your face" marketing and my wallet will stay firmly in my pocket.
So why can't other people spot the reason that sales are falling???
Duh
Recent thought that occured to me: mass market tactics are generally designed to appeal to young consumers. You could argue that the high water point for the median target age of that demographic happened when the children of the baby boomers, the largest demographic wave to hit the scene in a while, peaked sometime in the late 80s and early 90s. Put plainly, there are fewer kids to pick up the trends.
Tweet, tweet.
...but I can't... Although I have stopped shopping at these large chain record stores years ago. I decided to start supporting local small business since the money stays in town for the most part anyway. I also convince all my friends to shop at these stores too. It's not hard when the smaller stores are willing to cater to special interests and actually care more since they're usually owned by music lovers themselves. It is so much easier to find good music and not be stuck with choices off the billboard marketing charts. I also have succeeded in not buying a CD for about 4 years now, I stick to vinyl because it sounds better, the cover art is bigger and I dj from time to time. The only drawbacks are weight and the fact that ripping vinyl to CD is a little tedious.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
I'll always hate Tower Records. First, it killed School Kids Records in Ann Arbor. School Kids was amazing, the prices were high but you could find anything you wanted and the sales people knew music inside and out and were utterly willing to help.
Second, it was nearly impossible to find anything at Tower. Once I went looking for a CD by Blue Cheer. They were a white boy blues, psychedelic, hard rock trio from the late 60s. Tower has all music separated into genre. Since the store did not have a genre for white boy blues, psychedelic, hard rock, I looked under Metal. I looked under Rock. I looked under every genre I could think of then I just gave up.
I went home, got on Amazon, found the CD within seconds, and had it shipped within the week WITHOUT paying sales tax or shipping.
Oh yeah, I'm crying over Tower's death!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The thing is, there's a certain economic balance that the major record companies have been unwilling to conceed to. Downloading mp3s isn't actually free... it increasingly takes time and effort (and getting past the marginal fear of 'getting caught'.) But I still find it to be worth my while because there is NO WAY I'd consider paying $20 for a piece of plastic with some data on it. And music is only getting cheaper to produce (especially electronic music like I'm into.)
However, I'm totally willing to pay $5 for a CD with all of the uncompressed audio (as well as properly ID3's mp3 versions) - because it's nice to have a physical item - I'm just not willing to pay $20 for it.
I understand the record companys' business strategy just as well as I understand the US's reason for going to war... that is to say I'm totally baffled. Man, I just don't get this stuff anymore.
Despite your lack of confidence you have gotten the first post. Keep on trolling.
YOU DID IT!!!!
Look at these stores : Musicland, and Sam Goody
So I don't go to these places because they sell the same crap that everyone else does and basically have an all around poor selection and over charge as well (well in the malls anyway, where you tend to find them).
Now then, why in the hell would I go to their website to buy music? If people are going to buy from anywhwere it's probably going to be from somewhere that you can get a variety of things; Amazon, B&N etc.
Are you sure you aren't just growing up? When I was 12 I just sort of assumed there really *was* a big party going on down at the radio station 24/7. Now it seems awfully phony. When you liked pop music, did your parents? (No.) So of course you won't when your kids do.
One I think is quite relevant. If you have a store selling widgets, would you charge $9.99, or $10.00?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
In related news, Britney dropped off the Forbes Top-100 Celebrity List after topping the list last year. Her loss of income is obviously due to file-trading of her songs. She's getting a star anyway on the walk of fame for some reason.
Castle Wolfenstein: enemy territory. America's Army is free, but government funded. By the way, in the future, completely open and free games will have so much depth and substance it'll blow your mind.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
There is a good reason for having cheap access to information.
I like to have all my information on computers. This allows me to be more efficient.
However, producers of information need to be rewarded. Technology reduces the value of publicized information. Any information released to the public (not necessarily to the public domain) that is really worth acquiring will be in some form available for copying. Besides, no one wants to pay more than necessary. They question the arbitrary pricing of the recording industry.
I believe that information should be available for reduced costs. The newest information should have a premium price for those who have the greatest need to have it right away. However, information just joins a sea of data that loses its value.
Information and art are meant to impel us to a better world. A lot of people need to wake up to any inspiration they are getting. Where is the ambition? Where is the initiative?
Art is not just to keep people entertained all the time. There's certainly enough available to maintain a level of good feeling, but people need to motivate themselves rather than just letting a select few people in the world take all the risks.
There is a lot of very inspiring art happening nowadays. Reward the artists. Become inspired. Do something.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
In first half of the 20th century, new technologies made possible a new bussiness model for music: the sale of recordings of the music, creating a market that was the analog to the marked that existed for writing, and that was made possible by the printing press.
By the end of the 20th century, another new technology made this bussiness model of selling recordings no longer viable.
Now, at in the very first years of the 21st century, this model no longer viable, we are seeing the fight of those that grew powerfull under conditions that no longer exist, to revert History, to revert the flow of time. It's a bloody battle repeated oveer the centuries, that always created a lot of senseless suffering and ever ends the same way: with the defeat of those who oppose History.
Recording companies---that were empires---are simply doomed, unless they use their vast resources to reinvent themselves and create a new viable bussiness model. Musicians will have to go back to making a living the way they did before recordings were marketable, or find novel ways using the new technologies that killed the market for recordings.
Meanwhile, I'm not buying recordings. May the RIAA and the other stupid would-be History-stoppers die off already!
``L'imagination au povoir.''
Napster may be dead as a bent dog, but while it was still kicking it achieved something significant: It convinced my mom, my grandma, and my friend's mom and grandma that they could find and download all the Perry Como songs they could (force me to) tolerate.
They haven't forgotten. If they can't P2P, it just makes them pissed off - they aren't buying $20 CDs ever again.
-Graham
It appears that the RIAA has been judo chopped by the "invisible hand" of economics.
I mean between the fact that the RIAA is acting like an economic cartel and the fact they've set the price point somewhere in the stratosphere (e.g., US$18 or more per album-length audio Compact Disc), no wonder why sales are nose-diving. Anyone's who's taken a beginning course in economics in college knows that if a cartel sets its price too high, there is WAY too much economic incentive for consumer to thwart that cartel, hence the rise of file-sharing sites like the late Napster.com. If the RIAA had set its price at US$11 per album-length CD, the economic incentive to pirate music drops dramatically to the point that music piracy would not be worth the effort.
It is the MPAA allowing new-release DVD movies to be priced at US$20-US$24 that has actually discouraged movie piracy here in the USA, along with the fact that broadband Internet access is still not common and also that the file size of DiVX files of a movie are still very daunting to download even with cable modem connections.
That's in the window of a music store in Warwick, RI. Sounds desperate to me...
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Instead of all this theorizing, why don't we just find out what would happen if the RIAA goes under. Let's put them out of business, and then see if people stop making music. That's their argument, right? Unless the RIAA's clients can tightly control the distribution of their copyrighted work, we are headed for a cultural dark age.
Well, let's see. We've seen what the RIAA can give us. We've been eating that puss pie for years. Let's turn things around, and see what happens without them. Take a five year hiatus. Let's stop all of this hand waving and bullshit mumbo jumbo, and declare a five year abstenance from copyright enforcement. Then we'd actually *learn* something, instead of just hypothesizing.
The RIAA, MPAA, and their other chicken little friends keep saying "Bad things will happen! Beware!" Let's put their assertions to the test.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Downward Spiral would also be a good name for a rock band.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Sam Goody? Musicland? I think their problems have less to do with file sharing and more to do with the fact that CDs cost damn near $20 at those places.
It's a little silly to make too much of this. Record store chains are constantly coming and going. As a boy in Canada, I remember Kelly's, Mr. Sound, Sam the Record Man... all gone. Some were eaten by Wal-Mart, others were simply badly run and were replaced by something else.
The RIAA gestapo will certainly attempt to build a link between the failure of record chains and filesharing, but it has little to do with people buying more or fewer CDs.
CDs were even more outrageously overpriced in the 80s, but at that time CD sales were much higher as people were replacing their old LP collections. Funny how the record companies no longer talk about that phenomena when whining why people aren't buying their latest releases by The Backsync Boys or one of the 17 bands who sound like Pearl Jam.
Ken:> Ken's band: http://keneckert.byus.net/wabbit
It is here to stay like it or not, barring draconian political measures and dictatorship.
Clearly there is need to change business model. What else was Internet bubble all about? Many established business models, literally ported to HTML, few scripts and few servers, clearly don't work. What else was Internet bubble burst about?
Clearly music is not what it used to be. When I was in college I could find exciting new band at least once a month, if I tried. I (and many from my generation) could listen to 2-3 albums from a single band for 6 months or more, over and over.
Still, even the hardest music junkies arrived at 200+ vinyl records and that was it, for the next 5-10-15 years. Eventually they upgraded them to CDs and bought maybe extra 20-30 CDs of new, young bands. To stay in shape and remain open for the new things, so to say.
So where is the basis to expect the sales of music via standard distribution channels to grow, or even stay level nowadays? It doesn't exist.
Yes, I don't like ordering online. I also want to have hard CDs of any music that I want to keep for a long time. But there is a limit to it. At the same time I am getting tired of changing CDs. I used to think I need a brand new stereo equipment at least every few years. It was also very important piece of furniture, in every aspect of social interaction. Now I see it almost as garbage, taking room space.
Most people won't rush, as they used to, to upgrade to the latest version of Windows. Minority will continue to play with Linux and Mac. The same goes for hardware. At the same time more and more people are getting used to keeping music and other media content on their computers.
So where is the big money in music distribution via Internet? Nowehere. People just develop needs to experiment more for less money. On Internet there is no place for monopolistic vendor to apply the old business equation: increase the quantity and lower the cost.
Otherwise, by now we would all be happily paying $35 per month for guaranteed quality and delivery monthly stream of music of our momentary choice to our computers over the Internet. Why are we prepared to do the same with cable but not with music?
First, because the technology is still not reliable enough. Second, because the medium is different. It is much more about the discovery, search, temporary whim and experimentation. It is much less structured, preprogrammed and much more diverse and distributed.
Sorry media content distributors, but without planetary dictatorship and complete control over all Internet backbones, money flow will only continue decreasing. And so even if piracy was nonexistent.
Eventually it will hit its evolutionary bottom. It would still be a good chunk of money but nothing as stellar as it used to be.
Started listening to streaming FUN and NRJ, Paris circa '98 and moved to the hard stuff, Euro-trance, circa '00.
What are the U.S. music companies doing to get my business? Revolution magazine was a start but it died/was killed.
I'm middle-aged. I'm supposed to lust after corporate farm-raised children like Britney or Christine? Wonder at the subtle musicality of Hip-Hop? Carry my coon dog down to the Redneck Fest? Those 20-minute "summer of love" stoned guitar solos really were boring, aren't they? A cold sweat on the back of my neck tells me the 10,001st listening of "Hotel California" is the one that makes you slit a wrist.
Put me down for a firm check in the box, "What has the music industry done to get my business lately!"
This would seem a fair argument if I didn't actually find modern music more enjoyable to that of the past. Most of my daily listening is stuff that's come out within the last few years. Of course, there's plenty of ELO, Huey Lewis and The News, and greats from the 70's and 80's, but I love modern stuff. It's just that mass media removes a lot of the anticipation.
Perhaps it's that I've heard almost every style there is about, and so music, on the whole, doesn't excite me anymore in terms of its newness.. whereas I am now more interested in albums and songs after I've 'got into them'.
As you say, this might just be a part of growing up, as I am sure there are kids who scream at their parents nowadays until they buy the latest kid favorite.
I went music shopping today. First I went to the used CD store, found an album I wanted for $7.50. Then I went to the hip CD store that prides itself for it's good selection. I wasn't able to find any of the artists I was interested in, and I'm not talking mp3.com artists, but actual artists signed to record companies. I guess I'll have to buy online. One of the problems with the internet, a lot of people have gained a lot wider selection taste in music.
is they're specialty stores that don't cater to the specialtytition. I mean, you're going head to head not just with each other, but with Walmart, Target, heck market. Admidtily I haven't been into a Tower or Sam Goody in years, but the last time I was I couldn't find anything but big name bands. In contrast My local Zia's (a fair size record store here in Tucson, AZ) has lots of small (and local) bands and niche stuff. The trouble is everyone has those big name albums, and so there's lots of compitition. I mean, you're going head to head not just with each other, but with Walmart, Target, heck even some super markets carry big name cds.
In contrast, when I when to pick up John Arch's new solo album (Fate's Warning's first singer, one of the best metal singers ever BTW) there was pretty much only one place in town I was gonna get it, my local Zia's.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Hmn, wonder why Tower Records is having a hard time selling.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I can't remember the last time I went to a music store. But I don't pirate music either. Instead, I order all music CDs on-line and have them shipped to me--much bigger selection, less hassle. I suspect that's the problem the brick-and-mortar music stores are suffering from.
Several years ago, I swore never again to frequent Sam Goody. I had bought a CD there which (supposedly) contained explicit lyrics. I took the disk home, listened to it, and found it had been censored. The naughty bits were bleeped out. The disk was not labeled in any way to provide evidence that it had been censored. Quite a disappointment.
I go to used cd shops, or used record shops (nothing beats vinyl baby! And Jethro Tull still rocks!). 5 - 10 bucks CAN for a disc, how do I say no?
So now the record stores want to join the major labels in an effort to get my pity. Sorry fellas but I find it really hard to feel for the situation you've gotten yourselves into. For years you've been pushing nothing but that rap/hip-hop crap that advocates drugs, rape, assault, and murder. Now you want everyone to feel sorry for you because the kids you've been pushing that stuff on are stealing from you? HA! That's like a heroin dealer bitchin' cause his junkies just stole his car. Start putting out some decent music and I'll be happy to buy it from you.
While visiting Memphis recently (Memorial Day weekend) I took the Graceland tour through the former home of Elvis Presley. When you get to the section of the house where his awards are, you see row after row of gold albums for record/album sales of 500k and greater (this section is mind-boggling - once you see this, you realize why he was/is "The King"). Anyway, I noticed that many of the awards had the lovely RIAA logo on them. Interestingly, this was a graphic of the association's acronym, embedded in a tonearm/needle object above the simulated grooves of a record. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? It reminded me that the RIAA has, and will always (try) to be about controlling the media which the songs are distributed on .
Some day, they might get it right (in their minds) in the digital domain. It will be interesting to see what this "context" is... in the worst case, think "Minority Report" meets the Music Industry(TM)... "You are being arrested for the future action of rendering audio..."
Damn pre-cogs.
I'll echo the previous comments that complain about the usually rediculous prices of these "specialty stores." Granted, new stuff is usually on sale to some extent, but if you don't buy it a month after it comes out, it costs $19.99 (unless it's old and/or crap enough that it hits the cheap bin).
Myself, I don't buy new CDs anymore. Used CD stores are where it's at. My music costs $8-10 bucks/disc and I usually find what I'm looking for after 2 or 3 visits.
I don't understand how mall stores can stay in business anyway, when there's usually a Best Buy or K-Mart nearby that will beat their prices by about 4 bucks.
Serves 'em right.
My stupid web site
Now for the love of all thats holy, drop CD prices by 50% and you'll see an increase in sales.
That's right, sales. Not profits, if they complain about the low income, then those corporate money grubbing bastards can lick my hiney.
That happens to everyone when they get a bit older. It did to me in the mid 80s. It's not necessarily the fault of the RIAA.
my fav song from that disk. Wuts yours? :)
The leap forward in 'quality' is only in 'quality of reproduction.' For people who view music as a 'utility' item that's fine.
For people who treat music as an aesthetic experience, there's still a LOT of value in older format materials. I bought a box of about sixty 78 RPM disks at an estate auction yesterday. I haven't listened to any of it yet, but there's some good stuff in that pile. I saw a few Al Jolson titles, and some other eclectic stuff that's going to be fun. I paid $2 for the box. Most of it is at least 70 years old, and I know I'll like some of it.
Some of the finest classical recordings I have in my collection are on monophonic albums from the 50's or the early 1960's. Great performances that will probably never happen again.
Listen to the music, don't fret about the quality of the medium.
I've not bought a full price CD for over two years. Neither do I use any p2p service.
Why, because the current music promoted by the big media companies is unoriginal rubbish.
There is new stuff worth buying, but you will never see it on the shelves of the mainstream retailers.
Put every song in existance on-line in one central location for download at a reasonable price (25 cents per song or less) in standard mp3 format with no DRM crap.
Given that the songwriter automatically gets eight cents per download (pursuant to 17 USC 115 and corresponding regulation), the recording artist would get nothing out of this.
Will I retire or break 10K?
1. Bad economy
2. Bad music
3. Bad prices
4. Piracy
5. No affordable single CDs
That's the RIAA's real problem. Competition.
There's a lot more content on a DVD than an audio CD, it costs far more to make a movie than an audio recording, the movie plays longer than an audio CD, yet movies on DVD are cheaper than music on DVDs. What's wrong with this picture?
And then there's the basic problem that most of the mainstream musical genres are mined out. The best symphonies are a century or more old. The best jazz is from the middle of the 20th century. The best rock was made several decades ago. The best house, rap, and hip-hop dates from a decade ago. Until somebody comes up with a new mainstream genre, the RIAA is stuck. (People keep trying. Gospel rock? Country/rap crossover? Noise music? Next, please.)
Video killed the radio star...
Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?"
Or it could be that the teeny boppers are running out of disposable income and everyone else knows the music sucks ass. I haven't heard any new decent material on the radio for a long time. Everyone is trying to sound either like Blink 182 or Britney. I think the music industry is starting to feel the backlash of homogenization and the one-size-fits-all mentality. I hope I'm right, because I would love to taste the irony that the RIAA and Clear Channel are on the path to mutual destruction at each others' hands.
-R
CD sales are down for a few major reasons. One people see less value in them than they used to and they are expensive and risky compared to other forms of entertainment. That is they don't give you the bang for the buck that a dvd or a concert ticket does and you never know if your gonna even like the music on the cd.
Two, the RIAA has been by their own numbers selling 25% less albums than were for sale in previous years. Compare that to only a 10% decline in their cd sales.
Three: CD's as a loss leader. Stores that sell CD's as their primary business cannot compete with stores like Best Buy, Walmart, Kmart, and Wiz and Circuit City that sell them at a loss because they bring people in to buy high margin items like TV's, clothing, and computers.
Four: P2P "piracy" and disdain for the RIAA and its tactics. When people copy a movie they say "oh cool I don't have to buy a ticket to see this movie" When people download a CD, they say "Heh sticking it to the RIAA again" The music industry has the worst reputation. Even worse than hollywood and oil companies and politicians
The fact that I haven't even heard of their online efforts speaks for the amount of effort they put into advertising.
Hopefully I-tunes being more successful than even .
.
...
they imagined & will act as some ammo against RIAA
They will use FUD to full effect though, and the
standard payola will grease the same palms
Cest La Vie
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
What does this have to do with the music business?
These companies have hemmoraged money since day one, on the premise that at some point they would make money. They've bought primo real estate, fronted outrageous costs, never really looking to see if the bottom line could justify the outlay. Surprise! Thanks for playing, "lets make the management team rich".
This has nothing to do with the music business. This is about crappy business planning.
Because Branson devised a scheme where he claimed he was exporting some records to the rest of Europe and he didn't pay any tax. The records would end up back in his stores. He got caught and he had to pay a heavy fine. Virgin Records only started to make money because of Tubular Bells.
I've been swashdotted -- Elmer Fudd
The ship is going down and everyone is going to drown but it's so damned important that he run around to kill one jerk. I guess in the end everyone just wants someone to blame. Posterity isn't quite that forgiving however.
This is only a few stores, albeit the large ones. Walmart is probably taking over CD sales. I mean, check this out:
* Largest U.S. Retailer with 3300 U.S. stores $218 billion in sales (2002);
* Largest Jewelry sales - $2.3 billion annually;
* Largest grocer - $80 billion last year for 10 percent of the market, some $15 billion more than second place Kroger's;
* Largest U.S. Employer with 962,000 workers;
As you can see, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't already the largest CD seller.
Point two, I think the prepacked pop groups are suffering the most from p2p. The average age of their listeners (I'm guessing here) is probably around 15. Maybe lower. On the other hand, indie groups are doing fine. Or groups that aren't "popular". Take, for instance, Royksopp. They have some of the most amazing tracks I've heard, and it's not on LimeWire. Another group that is probably doing fine is the electronica scene. DJ Tiesto doesn't sell a ton of CDs at any point, but his music is well known. It's because better distribution of his stuff (p2p) for more DJs to play. Once they get the people hooked, people will go to shows of DJ Ts. Besides, a lot of DJs only have a few songs total, not enough for a CD anyways, just a few good LPs.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
"Sure, let's throw millions (billions?) of $$$ at an economic plan obviously doomed to failure!"
Physical media and store purchases of it are on the way out. And not because of piracy. Frickin' morons.
They don't deserve my dollar.
You can't blame MP3s. All of my MP3s are either ripped and encoded by me from CDs that I bought, or recordings that are only available as download (live recordings by fans). I would just rather listen to my my own 10GB collection than pay $20+ for a CD.
You can't blame ripped DVD content on the Internet for spoiling DVD sales. It costs $3 to rent a DVD. I usually don't care to watch that same movie again for 6 months at least. Most movies I will never watch again. Any movie that I never want to see again costs $20 on DVD. Any movie that I DO want to see again costs $30-40. I will spend $18 per movie-that-I-want-to-watch-again over a span of 9+ years. In that time, I expect the purchase price of a DVD to be near zero.
<rant>The empire of entertainment DISTRIBUTION is obsolete. Hahahaha, the makers of the VCR and 8-Track tape got bitten by UNPLANNED OBSOLECENSE. They want to whine and cry about how their business will go away and all the consumers' needs will go wanting, but that is pure bullshit. They are on the way out, and they know it, and they are cutting some legislators in on the profit while they engineer an exit from the business. TAXPAYERS SHOULD NOT PROVIDE BUSINESS INSURANCE TO OBSOLETE INDUSTRIES.
</rant>--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Dude, the past participle of "dig" is "dug" not "digged".
I wonder how much of their problems are online music as opposed to the fact that Best Buy, Circuit City and various other retailers have been selling CDs well below retail for many years now, and people are buying them there.
Companies like these sell CDs as loss leaders to get people in their stores. If your at Best Buy once every few weeks guess where your going to think of going to buy your next TV and sterio.
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
If you're signed to a label, they get your money, no matter where they buy it. If it's a packaged CD, then it's Their money, and you, the artist, only get a fraction of the money (18% if you're metallica, and usually closer to 10% if you're the newest 1 hit wonder.) Independantly recorded albums sold by the band, for $10 or whatever are the only kind that directly support the band. The only way you're likely to be directly supporting a band by buying the CD (not downloading or pirating or whatever else you can think of) is if they have no record label or contract. This is a fact of life. If 'everclear' sells you a CD at the show for $10, they probably only get $1.40 of that money, because they have to purchase the albums from the publisher/printer themselves. That guy who sold it to you, you know the over-egoed roadie wearing the 'It's ok I'm with the band T-Shirt?' His paycheck is signed by the Label or the Promoter, not the members of the band.
Speak for yourself.
Well, the business models for many other sector have seen the death of middle-man (read intermediary) companies...nothing stays on forever in a fixed state.
I believe in evolution as unstoppable force. There's nothing that can be done. No one could stop Gutenberg's invention anyway, even when those who had power, the media moguls of the age (church and princes), didn't like it at all. RIAA's members positions are still lucrative, but time is due for a change.
The only CD store in my benighted burb is a long-surviving store owned & managed by one man. He has no particular concern either for music or his employees (he won't allow any government labor law stuff to be posted in the break rooms) but he sure does know how to make a dollar. He's posted the industry's "Who cares about illegal downloading?" screed in the front window of the store, while he cheerfully buys & sells used CDs from which the artists *and* the RIAA see absolutely $0. Amazing. He pays a top price of $4.00 for a must-be-clean disc (usual payout is $2), and no cash actually trades hands: he issues a credit slip for use in the store. Now, this guy makes up to 1/3 of his profits from selling used CDs. Whatever he "pays" for the used discs he makes up for by selling them at three to four times the credit value. The RIAA wants to do something for artists ? Why don't they go after guys like him ? To reiterate: he resells discs and pockets every cent of the money. The artists see *nothing*, nor do the record companies. So somehow it's all right for him to make a profit on selling used CDs, but it's piracy for you to trade them with your friends (yeh, yeh, I know that's a loose statement, it's there for the argument's sake). He also rips out the "Not for resale" notice from the hundreds of promos he receives weekly from the industry, then he sells them in the used section. And the RIAA does nothing about this sort of theft. What hypocrisy. Their claims of being necessary are falling upon deaf ears, while their actions expose them as an organization bent only on making as much money as possible by defining, controlling, and exploiting a popular music culture of their own manufacture.
1. Fight P2P - This is what they're doing now, and if they want to make it illegal the majority of the populous will have to understand, otherwise it'll just be Prohibition all over again. Unfortunately the record industry is looked upon by its customers as a dirty industry, with Britney Spears deliberately marketted to take money from children nagging hard-working Parents like Happy Meals toys are. The Government cannot be seen to be on its side, otherwise it would upset the voting establishment (people older than 25) which sees this music as disgusting mass-manufactured rubbish. It would be regarded in the same way as the Government supporting McDonalds toys. Screaming, nagging children are the bane of Parents and is visible to all. It dissuades potential Parents from having children, inverting the Country's population triangle which will cause huge macroeconomic problems in the future.
2. Alter their product - This will be unsuccesful, I go to buy CDs because of the music they contain, not because of some snazzy stuff
3. Decrease prices - You can't beat free
4. Die out - the only remaining option. In its corruption and decadence, perhaps this would be most fitting. China illustrates what happens when a country has mass music piracy.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
LOWER PRICES!!! Jezuz. How hard is that to understand. I stopped buying cd's when they wen't from 10-12 each to 12-19. Wake up! :)
Did anyone else read downward as download when they first saw it?
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(=_=) Bani!
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I just read your post, and I wanted to check out some songs off the Type O Negative album. Forget about trying to listen to it at the local music store - everything's shrinkwrapped (some stores around here are getting systems to let you preview any cd in the store, but it should be standard for every record store, at least the ones that charge a premium!). Forget about hearing it on the local Clear Channel radio station - they all suck. No preview clips on Sam Goody, Tower, or Amazon (yet). So leaves me with the option of paying $$$ for a CD I've never heard, or using p2p to check out a few tracks. What do you think I'm going to choose? (Yes, I realize there's always the option of giving up and not listening to or purchasing this album at all). How the fsck do you expect people to but your album if they can't hear the music?!?
Let's also not forget another big problem with these stores: some of them tend to sell a wide variety of music.
Wide, but very shallow.
My own CD buying has increased (thanks to greater discretionary income than college years), but I almost never step into one of the CD stores. Shopping there is like expecting to buy designer clothing from Kmart - it ain't gonna happen. If it's general pop or orchestral music I'm looking, it's amazon.com's former cdnow that I shop. Usually, though, it's direct from the label - Metropolis Records for instance for 90% of what I listen to.
Funny thing, I've only found maybe one or two Metropolis artists in BestBuy - Apoptygma and Funker Vogt. Lesson of the day? If you won't sell it to me, don't complain that I'm not buying!
*scoove*
(and don't try to pass that nasty michael jackson my way! even FBI agents now know that only losers listen to that.)
But then I thought, shouldn't donations be considered sales?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Think about it... What if the RIAA did set up their own P2P network? You're thinking I'm crazy, but go with me here for a moment... If everyone who has money and is conscientious about supporting the music they like, it could work out well. For instance, the RIAA could use the data they'd acquire through tracking downloads or which files are shared, and provide a nice frontend for directing users to actually purchasing the music that they're sharing. The RIAA could thus focus on providing what people want to listen to, instead of trying to market what they see as "what people want".
(Admittedly, some musical gems do work their way through the machine, but I trust distributed opinion much more than an organization like the RIAA)
Of course, I don't know if anything like this has already been done already. Does anyone else know?
I used to buy cd's all the time, and occaisionally download stuff when I knew the cd had crap on it except for 1 good song. Since the RIAA has begun to attack the general buying population like rabid dogs, I haven't thought at all about buying anything
The incidents of them attacking people is so odious that I can't bear to buy anything coming from them at all anymore, and since the people who are working against them are usually not just the underdog, but intelligent good hard working people, I have little to no sympathy for the RIAA's whining about lost sales. These aren't some sorta dirty scum whom are robbing the RIAA blind, they're college students with little money who are simply listening to a copy of a song, and I doubt anyone is out any extra money from it.