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Universal Music To Cut CD Prices
phlack writes "CNN Money has an article about Universal Music Group's plans to slash their CD prices to $12.98 SRP, in an effort to combat piracy and bring consumers back into stores. It makes me hope the other giants will follow suit, and wonder if the music industry is finally listening to some of the consumer's complaints."
It's about time - CDs have been overpriced for years.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.
I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
So they are finally going to match their competitors (Best Buy, etc.) in CD prices? I still don't understand how those big chain stores, who charge $17.95 for a CD, stay in business. Maybe they should take a survey from their consumers, about what they're actually willing to pay for a CD. $12 is about the tops for me, and it better be darn good for that much money.
Slash?.. I will wait till they have a homicide of the prices.. 2-3 bucks is just a joke.
They are finally listening to us!
Some People will allways steal....
that's just how it is!
I dunno, $0.00 is pretty hard to beat.
The Price of itunes files rose to $970!
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
for the foreign people it would be good to know, what the original prices were before the slash.
anyone?
thanks
It's a start...
How generous. Rather than making 90,000% profit on $0.02 worth of plastic, they're
taking it in the shorts with a measly 65,000% profit.
Give me a break. Like $12.98 is going to make me get excited about driving my car to a Brick and Mortar to purchase $0.02 of plastic. This is like Microsoft's strategy of settling lawsuits by selling software at a discount to schools.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
If you ask me, I think the right price for a CD is about $5. $12.98 is a bit much (and why 98? do they think consumers have gotten wise to the whole $n+.99 thing?) It'll eventualy happen.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
the riaa is so good to us. the slashdot crowd must stop abusing their masters.
...now the next step would be to start recording new bands that sound good... if there even exists such a thing anymore.
Does this mean we get some decent music too?
No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
You probably can't convince me that the move by Universal -- a unit of hard-luck French water utility Vivendi -- doesn't have anything to do with Universal's pending aquisition by GE's NBC unit.
I figure it's one of two things:
* Vivendi is looking to spoil the deal with a profit-killing "poison pill". This would be the strategy of former Vivendi chairman Jean-Marie Messier -- but it's also part of why he's the former chairman.
* GE has already given Universal marching orders -- this was planned months ago. According to this morning's NPR report, Vivendi has been shopping for a buyer for its entertainment units for months, but all previous deals have fallen through. They're likely to do whatever GE says at this point (unless we're back to the first option).
General Electric isn't in the business of filing baseless lawsuits -- they're in the business of making money. Maybe they'll be the ones to blow the lid off the CD price scam once and for all.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Most slashbots are probably familiar with price wars in computer hardware....perhaps we'll see some with regard to CD prices.
Would be an interesting situation where one could get an artist's release from two different labels, so there would be real competition between them.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
I never bought a CD and never downloaded an mp3. I get my mp3 files from friends and that's all I ever listen to apart from my audio tapes and radio. I still consider all CDs to be expensive. Will never buy one till they cost a dollar each. How many of you are like me?
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
not $13.
Quality = good, price = high, result = Some people willing to pay.
Quality = bad, price = high, result = far fewer people willing to pay.
Quality = bad, price = low, result = Some people willing to pay.
Quality = good, price = low, result = maximum number of people willing to pay.
Simple economics. Price of normal goods go up, demand for inferrior goods goes up. Substitute CD's for "normal goods" and MP3's for "inferrior goods".
I hope this is amazing because they're willing to actually do it, not because they think it's a revolutionary idea.
~Will
sig?
You have already proven you wish to screw your customers at any given moment. You have been hostile to me, you know the guy that paid for your wares, for far too long.
I left and am not coming back.
It nice to see a price drop and hope it means that more people go get CD's. I mean I will admit to having a large MP3 collection but I still use CD's as the quality is vastly superior on most of the MP3's you download. On a decent stereo its easy to hear the difference. Now of course if those price cuts are passed on..
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Explain why Cassette is still going to be cheaper. No, really. I want to hear it.
Could it possibly be that CDs are way, way overpriced, even at $13?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
..are SRP and MSRP?
Dude, there are a zillion bands that sound good, with CDs and everything. The problem is not getting new bands, the problem is getting their stuff on the airwaves for people to experience. Check out your local independent radio stations. There's a _fantastic_ morning show here in Seattle on KEXP (kexp.org - check out the online stream & playlist). The show is "John in the Morning". Flat out fantastic stuff that you won't hear anywhere else on the airwaves in Seattle. Listen and then buy their CDs from their own websites, whatever you have to do to support them, if you want good music.
I'm happy to pay $15 a CD, although I know its only worth $1. But I go out of my way to buy music from independant artists that are not associated with the RIAA.
;)
If they lowered their price to $1 I might reconsider my personal boycott.
Oh, and don't boycott on my account. Be yourself. Think for yourself. I wouldn't have it any other way.
The business model has already changed - now the businesses need to catch up. People don't want to buy albums, they want to buy a cut or two from an album.
I think given a flexible less restrictive model, one that allows the purchase and even copying of a song say to a CD with other songs from other albums. People want to know that they can play their music in the car, on their bikes, wherever they want to.
The record industry must loosen its control a bit and I think they can win their customers back. Right now people feel ripped off by the record companies and that is why so many have taken to p2p.
I was just talking to one of my friends about how I'd be interested in buying a few albums were it not for the high prices and copy protection bullshit. Now if the copy protection can go away, the RIAA can welcome me back as a customer...
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
"We strongly believe that when the prices are dramatically reduced on so many titles, we will drive consumers back to stores and significantly bolster music sales," said Universal Music Chief Executive Doug Morris in the release.
;)
------------
[sarcasm]
*GASP!* No? Really? Supply and demand works?
[/sarcasm]
Too bad some of your audience have decided to kill off a portion of your demand... okay, maybe not too bad.
Wonder what they'll learn in ECON 201 next year?
-Jellisky
... go screw themselves. On the day they annonce their intention to intimidate more Americans with their corrupt lawsuits and lawyers they throw this PR bone out?
No. Way. I'm done buying CDs from anything other than non-RIAA affiliated artists. I don't care if they announce that they're giving them away. As far as I'm concerned, the products of those companies are contaminated with the misery and exploitation of ripped-off artists and ripped-off consumers.
Starve.
- L
I never bought food and never gone to a grocery store. I get my food from friends and that's all I ever eat apart. I still consider all food to be expensive. Will never buy any till they cost a dollar each. How many of you are like me?
So that'll be 12.99 in the UK then...
Seriously, this whole pound to dollar thing is probably most exagerratted in media sales (with the exception of electronics). While Amazon and some high street retailers may offer a CD for 9.99 at the moment, I guarantee that on the whole, they are only chart CD's that are priced as such to shift in quantity to gain high chart positions. Decent back catalog albums can still easily hit the 15.00 mark over here - such is the cost of listening to non-chart music.
Some places like Fopp do seem to offer reasonable prices though - Fopp stores are dangerous places, you go in looking for one CD and come out with a pile of them. Hopefully, this change will filter through to shops like these, but in the current economic climate, I guess retailers will use the cut to boost their own profit margins.
...to my complaints, or else the Backstreet Boys + N'Sync would have died after a month of brutal torture, and Spears + Aguilera would have had their vocal cords surgically removed and would be chained to my bed...
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
at a local independent record store, and having paid $18 for the privilege of owning something i have been listening to for a month, i say it's a step in the right direction.
i really like the sound of cd's vs. mp3s, and do buy them- but at $18 a pop? it does limit me. that $12.98 should translate to $12, which is still about $3 more than they should cost, if one extrapolates the price of vinyl. but, it's a start in the right direction.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
You see everyone! We are winning! Everyone posted saying theres nothing we can do. Just look at what this dumbass Alex said, I bet he feels stupid now
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77075&cid=685
How do you feel now Alex?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
$0.02 worth of plastic
The materials are not nearly as important as the information. Would a person be worth as much if his body were reduced to raw materials?
Will I retire or break 10K?
12.98 plus 5% sales tax = 13.63
I think the whole thing should be under $7 for an average CD. Some exceptions would be top hits CDs where they have collection of most popular hits and due to larger number of tracks worth listening to, the price could be 12.98.
that cds are too expensive, don't come with any incentives to carry on buying cd's, and don't contain enough 'freebies'. there should be a discount token in every cd you buy to give you money off buying another, and there should be track and band information with the CD, competitions etc too, at the moment it's too easy to think of reasons not to buy CDs.
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
does this mean that places that sell below SMRP are gonna be selling these discs at 7.99-8.99 or cheaper?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
CDs in Canada are about the same price but in $CDN ($10-$14CDN for most discs at Futureshop is $7-$10US). A great side-business is buying CDs here and selling them on ebay. It's even better to use the columbiahouse canada discs which end up costing $7CDN ($5US) after all the catches.
Would be an interesting situation where one could get an artist's release from two different labels
None of the major labels' artist contracts would allow this. Most labels either take the copyright on the recording outright as a "work for hire" or (for the most established recording artists) demand an exclusive license for a long term.
Will I retire or break 10K?
We are fighting back. People are boycotting, people are buying used CDs, people are setting up sites like
http://www.downhillbattle.org/
And http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
The fight is just beginning! Its not even close to being over. This should prove that fighting back works more than begging politicians with emails and letters.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
who feels that this move seems a bit lackluster? Now I'm all for cd prices to drop, but who is excited by this? When I can get big CDs for the same price as some of the independent artists I listen to (avg cd price $8 - $10)... then i might go some more cds...
besides who wants to pay $12 when they could have the warm fuzzy LP :D
transmission_err
When I was in school, I was buying a couple of CDs a week from used music shops.
Later I kept on buying CDs whenever I felt bored and wanted something new.
Probably about once a week I'd shell out for a new disc at full price.
I stopped when it go to where i couldn't find a new CD for less than $18-$19.
It's been at least 6 months since i aquired any new music.
I think in October I'll probably end up getting back into my old habits.
Sipping on Jolt and Dew. Laid back. With my mind of my cubicle and my cubicle on my mind.
If the record industry thinks that they are going to bring consumers back to the record stores just by cutting prices (and $12.95 still ain't cheap), they are missing the point. It is still content that drives record sales, and the content that the industry as a whole has been putting out over the last several years has been, with a few exceptions, dreck of the first order.
However, producing content that people will actually want to spend money on will require a complete change of mindset for the industry as a whole. Almost any CD released by the majors nowadays cannot properly be called an album, as most of the content cannot be described as anything but filler. Nobody wants to pay $12.99, $15.99, or even $9.99 for one or two *good* songs and a bunch of dreck.
Don't Panic!
There are plenty of people that still buy cds today at $20. I think they will be glad to by at $13. Some that dont buy now might even buy at $13.
....for one decent song.
Even that is giving the average album a LOT of credit.
My old sig was REALLY stoopid.
Ya downloading mp3s is like jacking off.
Everyone does it but the uptight lamewads won't admit it. (some think Jesus will beat them up, people think it's unethical)
Fuck it man, if everyone does it, lets stop fucking lying and just let it all hang out. Smoke weed, Jack off, download mp3s. ok, stop lyin'.
Until CDs are around $5.
You are right they are robbing both consumers and musicians, so lets fight them back. Stop buying their music.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Seriously, even at $12, it's ridiculously high-priced. Just analyzing this with basic economic semantics - a Hollywood blockbuster feature that costs $50 million will sell on DVD for $10 at Best Buy, while the CD soundtrack to the exact same movie, which cost less than $500k to produce, will cost $15 (OK...now $12). I think there's some perverse pricing disparities that they need to address here.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
I wonder what happens to the artist's cut of the pie. I mean, they only get pennies from each sale as it stands now. You don't think the record executives are going to take a pay cut, do you?
I wonder why the SRP is $12.98 and not $13?
Ahh, I get it, that's where all the money comes from for this:
Just my 2 centsExplain why Cassette is still going to be cheaper.
Less demand among consumers for cassettes.
Some CDs have bonus tracks not available on cassette, and the songwriter and recording artist get paid only for the CDs.
A CD case typically has more space for liner notes than a cassette case does, and the graphic artist gets paid only for the copies included with CDs.
Some newer CDs come with promotional items such as DVDs containing music videos and glimpses into production.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For that price I can get a loaded DVD with tons of extras. CDs should be no higher than $10.
Well I hope the price cuts make it across the pond. Here in the UK, the average new CD from a high street store will set you back 13.99 ($21.93US)!
No wonder the tabloids dub the UK 'Rip-Off Britain'.
I've been building my Classical and Jazz collections over the past couple years. (Let's hear it for Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky!Jazz at Massey Hall anyone?)I buy online, mostly at Amazon.
It's very rare I pay more than $12 a CD. Even two disc albums rarely cost more than $20.
When I do pick up a popular CD I haven't paid more than $14 that I can remember. (Can't wait for the new Seal album!)
I don't know where people are buying their popular music. In brick 'n' mortar stores? In the year 2003?
I mean, look at Amazon's top sellers list. Most albums are between $12 and $13 already. Shipping is free if you buy $25 worth of stuff. You only pay taxes if you live in Washington or North Dakota. Why would you not buy your music there?
If you do go to a physical store, Target has many chart topping albums for $10. Last time I browsed the racks there I didn't see anything over $14. No shipping charges, obviously, but state and local sales taxes apply.
If you have a job I don't know how you can seriously complain about the price of CDs. I really don't get what the story is here.
[Note: Say what you will, Amazon does everything right when it comes to buying stuff on the web.]
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The best solution is a build-to-order (BTO) CD. Specifically, the major music companies band together and set up a BTO booth at Target or Walmart. The consumer selects the songs that he or she wants, and the BTO booth burns the songs into the CD at the time of purchase. Each song would be individually priced. The neat thing about this approach is that it is essentially a just-in-time (JIT) system. Neither Target nor Walmart needs to maintain a huge floor space just to hold pre-recorded CDs. The store sells exactly what the consumer wants to buy, and the store manager never needs to worry about returning unsold CDs to the manufacturer. The financial savings to the store can be passed to the consumer in the form of even lower CD prices.
Furthermore, the songs themselves would be stored in a central database at the headquarters of Walmart or Target. They would be downloaded by a high-speed intranet to the computer burning the CDs in the BTO booth in each individual store.
An alternative to the BTO booth is a BTO web site. The consumer selects the songs that she wants. They are then burned into the CD, and the CD is shipped to the consumer.
Thanks to their friends over in the Movie industry, $13 still isnt low enough for me to buy a CD. Most DVDs are $15-25, and it doesnt necessarily mean that the $15 movies suck either, I picked up Dogma last week for $15 at BB. A $13 CD or $15 (or $20) movie? CDs would need to go down to $10 before I start looking for them as entertainment again...
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I'll keep you all posted as to whether the price reductions get to us. Going rate currently 15.99 UK POUNDS (23 bucks at a guess).
Entire concept of how music is licensed is broken at this point anyway. CDs being more than $8.00 for most people is too high.
How many artists see much of anything in the form of royalties? The problem is that we have not just middlemen, but corporate middlemen, companies that have to pay staffs that are not particularly small, as well as satisfy shareholders, pay corporate executive bonuses, and maintain voluminous legal departments, all to distribute this small piece of plastic. How does this work?
It should not cost so incredibly much that even a full dollar per CD should come to be even $12 to sell it. Distribution should not be nearly that expensive.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You're missing out on so much by not going to concerts. Find an band/musician you like and go see them. It's so much better than just listening to a CD (if the band/musician in question is actually good live). Nick
please... rock really is dead now. I mean look at Nickelback. They already had 2 albums behind them before they became big. Record companies are desperately looking and scrambling for bands to come out and make it. What happened to progression in rock music? What happened to technicality? It's all gone. Now is the age of overly simplistic, bland garage.
My ideal price for a cd is 7 bucks. That's as high as I'll go. A CD is 20 year old technology. Why haven't lower prices kicked in? The cost of a movie ticket is between 7 - 10 bucks. Have to make the price of a CD competitive with that if you want me to buy more CDs.
I wonder what the artists think of this?
Artists almost totally (with very few exceptions, as a percentage) support the studios which direct the RIAA in its campaign against music sharing
Very few artists leave the studio system, and new ones are signing up daily by the ton. If you look at the music press, there are very few dissenting voices, nothing that you could call a major movement against the old system.
That's where the problem lies. The vast majority of artists couldn't care less about the legal persecution of their fans, not enough to complain actively anyway, and many actively encourage that persecution. The few anti-studio activists are nice to see, but represent a drop in the ocean, and are not making significant headway among other artists.
So in many ways the wrong party is being blamed when people see the RIAA and studios as evil. The root cause of this problem is the artists.
Right... and SCO will drop their lawsuit and release the UNIX code as public source, Republicans and Democrats will agree to work for what is best for the country and not what their party politics are, MS will donate millions to Open Source development, and every member of Slashdot will win the next Powerball lottery. Start holding your breath now folks :) First off, this is in no way going to be a permanent thing. This is a publicity stunt pure and simple, and prices will go back up to their existing levels within 6 months if not less, and that's even assuming retailers drop the prices by a corresponding amount and don't pocket the savings difference themselves.
TPF
Now's the time. Go out and purchase these. If you don't then you are a thief and the RIAA should be able to prosecute you.
I myself pretty much only download music. Without that "I buy the CD!" lie attached. But now I will, because without this all of our "they're too much!" arguments are gone
And just so you know, major labels don't see profit on an album priced like this until they sell > 700k or so, so yes, they are taking a gambit.
This won't make me get out and buy CD's, even though 12.98 is not bad for a good CD. Until the RIAA STOPS trying to hurt college kids struggling to make it, until it stops going after individual file swappers and stops lobbying republicans for more power so they can HACK your computer, then I will buy CD's again. Sorry artists, but maybe if you speak up the RIAA will listen. For now, I have a decent music collection I bought before the RIAA started fucking with everyone, and am getting interested in bands that do their music for free.
$12.98 is still over the top. Let me pay you $5.49 and it's a deal for both of us. It makes me sick to think that Brittneys stinking little pussy is worth more than a thoracic surgeon.
Do yourself a huge favor and go to a few concerts. You won't regret it, it's quite different to listening to a record.
I haven't purchased a CD in years... I thought they were $12.98
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Cassette tapes are more expensive to make... so why still the premium for a higher margin product. Is it the sound quality? The lifespan? I suppose it's just what the market will bear. However, the market has carried the lumbering weight of these extortionists for quite a while now. I really think that it's too late for them. They've alienated generation Y pretty severely.. and they are about to make it worse. In fact some would argue (and they did on NPR recently) that copywright law in general is now lost on Gen Y who flat out simply disregard the existing institution/laws. That is extremely dangerous. The RIAA cannot simply criminalize 60M people (which is the figure the same program was using for file sharer numbers.) That will never work. Still 10 years away from their industry collapse... but $12.98 is a good baby step in the right direction. When will we get a real, honest to god, as a format, music promoter?
My CD collection is now RIAA-free. If this happened a few years ago, a lower price might have sated my anger at the RIAA, but now I feel I'm beyond the point where I can be brought back into the fold with a mere price drop on CDs. After all, is even a 20% price cut worth it when the CDs you're buying are copy-protected?
Pay your lackeys to repeal the DMCA, then we'll talk.
sorry... bland garbage.
Hasn't most new releases been around the $12.00 mark? Not that I pay that much attention, but I have seen new music cds at Virgin around the price of $11.99.
Besides, I still see a lot of older and non-selling stuff priced close to $18.00.
I've never been to a concert in my life and don't understand why I should care to
Let me help you. You may want to see a concert if you think you'd enjoy:
- the feeling of 'never stepping in the same stream twice' -- go see artist X every year for 5 years, and each performance of any given song will 1) be different than the CD version, 2) be different than the previous year, 3) be different than the previous night!
- hearing unscripted improvisation between artists -- many musicians claim that the set they're most proud of playing was NOT the one recorded in the studio for the CD
- the little live mistakes and recoveries of talented artists -- you'll rarely get that on a CD
- experiencing the energy of dozens or hundreds or thousands of like-minded people simultaneously grooving or interpreting or dancing or just chilling to the same music you love
- to experience the artist -- 16 bit stereo samples @ 44.1kHz captures audio quite well -- but it doesn't capture dance, facial expressions, stage antics, synchronized light/lasers/visual effects, costumes, etc.
Recorded music is here to stay, obviously, but live performance is different. It's not necessarily better. If you like any given artist though, it's enriching. More times than not, if I've appreciated an artist before going to see them live, the live experience made me respect them even more.
Some (not all) artists are multidimensional. CD is great for the car or bus or office, but CD doesn't do many artists the justice that live performance can. And of course, some artists suck live. Explore.
So, if theft is a protest, what's next?
I don't understand where some of the current thinking about music theft came from. Artists have other choices to get their music heard, so most must believe that they have something to gain from big music companies. If you don't like it, don't buy it or create your own. If you're stealing it, you obviously do like it or want it, so what exactly makes music downloaders anything other than thieves? Slashdot posters often lament consumerism and greed. Wanting more music than you can afford and resorting to theft seems pretty high on the greed scale to me.
Regarding the article, placing the lowering of CD prices in the category of "victory" presumes that copying music is a moral activity. Yeah, right...
Damn, dude, I have been buying CDs for $10-$13 for years. Are prices really that bad now at the chain record stores?
Remember the artists who only get 5 percent of the sales (roughly $1 from a $20 which is what I've read). Now they're going to complain more that they're getting short changed from consumers and not the companies they have contracts for. I think it's time for another commercial with britney spears telling us not to steal from her. That'll do it.
It cost a dollar to create and is the most profitable media ever; the CD.
When I worked for a car dealership (doing computer stuff, not sales) Subaru decided that the prices on accessories were too high. To correct this they lowered the list price.
Not the cost mind you, but MSRP.
Now the dealers were force to take a paycut while Subaru kept the same profit margin.
I would not be suprised to find out that the cut in list price on the cds was much greater than the cost the stores pay.
I don't really mind double posts on
This is the first positive the record industry has done in years to combat file sharing. Really. I'll download a couple songs to see if i want to buy a cd. a lower price is going to be a heavy factor in my decision making. if a disc is $10 or less, i'll buy it, a lot of times site unseen (or unheard) if someone has reccommended it to me. $17? nah, i better listen to a few on the tracks first.
Still over $12US - that's still gouging! And why the heck is a tape (which costs more to produce) costing less. When you're buying music, you're not paying for the product - you're paying for some crappy singer's IP that they sold to a record company for a dime.
Musicians have got it rich - they do a little work and make a record, but expect to be able to get money every time someone else sells it for them. Real people get payed a wage for the hours that they work. Real people don't get royalties. Workers at Ford don't get payed extra every time one of their cars gets sold.
It's rich to hear musicians complaining of people copying their music. If they didn't wan't it copied, why did they compose / sing / record it in the first place. They're doing a "luxury" artists job and they expect to be given a life of luxury because they can "sing". They should get some perspective on things. What they do is not important. They're just musicians.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Retailers will probably keep the CD's all priced the same.
If they don't, then the others will probably respond in kind.
When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
The dems has as much chance in '04 as you fucking geeks changing the world through your incessant bitching about the RIAA and SCO. Fuck you, you cheap bastard. Go steal some more music.
I think they do that. I got a free cd coupon with a pizza once. Very limited selection, but nice to be able to choose. That was before I learned about p2p and googling " mp3 'parent directory'"
I'm talking about the majority here .. there will always be people who steal, but ....
In post-capitalist 17th century UK, people couldn't afford bread. Rather than storm the bakeries and steal the bread, they stormed the bakeries and demanded a fair price.
People are happy to pay a fair price. Thats the very definition of fair value. A value people will pay.
Between overpriced and free, people choose free. But when they sense that a fair price can be obtained, ie, when the bakers (ie, the RIAA) are actually willing to come to the table and discuss the price, people will choose fair price over free because we require our socialeconomic systems to exist in order to benifit from them.
If we can't benifit at all, we might as well get for free. When we can benifit, we're smart enough to support that system rather than torpedo it.
Its the survivalist instinct that makes us choose between not and all and illegally free, and the same instinct that makes us choose fair price over damaging suppliers by aquiring their goods in a way that will put them out of business.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I haven't bought a CD in a long time, I was so sick of what I wanted being $18. I could find certain things on sale for $12-14, but you never know what's going to be on sale.
But if most of the prices go down to $13 I might actually buy CDs again. Of course I don't listen to CDs anymore, I just rip them to MP3s, so they better not be copy protected. >:(
Can't we just download them online? 50 cents per song, no restrictions, instant gratification? The customer is always right you know...
OK, I admit it - I go into music stores once in a while. There's this song I like, and I don't really mind supporting the artist & other people who technically support the artist.
I've been buying CDs for the past 15 years or so. And before that I bought a whole bunch of LPs.
And there was always the $18 and the $12. I can say, with confidence, that I've never bought an $18 CD.
I'd always retract from the $18 CDs. Why does album XYZ deserve $6 a pop? It certainly isn't quality.
In contrast, I've never had a problem buying a $12 CD. Sometimes I buy a $12 CD on a whim. But $18? Never. No freakin' way. I'll just wait for radio airplay.
The only exception to my rule would be a multi-CD set. I can see paying $18 for a couple quality CDs.
And there we have it. From my sample of one person, $18 CDs simply don't sell. On the other hand, people readily buy $12 CDs, and they'll even buy them even if they're not 100% sure if it's something they'd like.
Universal has learned this. Maybe some others in the industry will learn this too. And do you know what? If the others don't go along, that's fine with me - I just won't be their customer.
At $18, I won't buy.
I don't pirate music.
So I won't listen.
The only real loss is to the aritst and the label.
Is there anything wrong with that?
About damn time.
Mind you that the 12.98 is a "suggested" retail price. It is likely that the retailers will keep their $17 pricing scam and just pocket the rest as an increase in profits. Also that $0.98... round up folks, it is actually $13. Those 2 pennies don't mean jack.
If they really want to get people to come back in droves then the reduction has to be quite significant. Drop the price to $5 per CD or let people purchase per the song either online or to have the music stores burn in the songs people want.
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
They're still a large evil media monopoly.
I'm sure glad I don't have any interest in the crack they're pushing.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
USD$12.98 * (1.38 CAN$/USD$) * (1.15 GST & PST taxes) = CAN$20.60
Doesn't look like such a rosy price now, does it?
(1.38:1 is the current conversion rate, and in Ontario, GST is a 7% federal tax, and PST is an 8% provincial tax. I'm not only a Canadian, I'm an Ontarian.)
Last month I picked up Train's Drops of Jupiter at Costco (the store, not the website) for $8.49 plus tax.
End of Line.
-Ansel.
G=C800:5
Brittneys stinking little pussy is worth more than a thoracic surgeon
The company, whose artists range from U2 to Reba McIntyre, will also cut wholesale prices on cassettes so its MSRP for top-line releases will be $8.98
Wow! You mean, you can BUY tape archives of CDs in the stores? Here I've been ripping my cds and backing them up to tape like a jerk.
This should save me LOADS of time.
best web host ever
This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
That's why I like to buy direct. This works famously for most of the artists I like (who are usually indie, punk, hardcore) but I'm sure those of you out there who favor the mainstream can't do this.
Buying direct is the way to go because the band will not lose as much of the sale. They'll still need to foot their expenses but at least they aren't going to lose on some sales expense.
Save yourself some money and support your bands at the same time.
Well, at least it's a step in the right direction. What they really need to do is offer free downloads of either full length, lower bit (less than 96kbit) MP3's or high quality, 30sec samples of every track in their catalog. Free downloads because good stuff can then be passed to friends. This is the past, present and future of advertising. Nothing works better than a suggestion by a friend or family member. This would be the ultimate way to get "Word of Mouth". What the "common Joe/Jane" want is to sample music. They usually buy stuff they like. The problem is there is so much music out there and the radio stations are all homogenous. People don't know what to buy. Given the cost of even these reduced priced CD's, it's still a tad expensive to experiment.
Hardcore file traders don't do much to the "content" producers' bottom lines. Some would never spend the money. Others may still buy some CD's from some new bands they found. Basically harcore file traders are zero sum since they provide some advertising (and therefore, new sales), while satisfying some people (loss of sales). Basically balances out.
So, we have the homogenization of the "free" classic media, an economic downturn, and a lack of major label backed new, innovative, interesting content. File trading is just a scape goat.
I don't download music as the quality is too low for me. I might buy more if there was a better way to sample music (like http://www.apple.com/music/store).
I would only buy from iTMS if there were less than 2 tracks on an album that I wanted because AAC quality is too low for me. I would buy if there weren't any CD-singles available. I rip my CD's into FLAC (http://flac.sourceforge.net/)
I don't download movies as the quality is too low for me. I have, however, sent trailers that I could download to people. At least the movie peole have their heads on straight by allowing people to download their trailers.
I download anime that is fansubbed and not available in the states, or to demo a series. I have bought entire series ($$$$ of dollars) because I was able to download and watch enough to get into it. I buy them because I want the higher quality video and audio. The fansubbers' subs destroy what can be done by the CC subbing built into set-top DVD players.
The music, movie, and software industries are idiots for funding the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA, respectively. These *A's are just trying to keep themselves relevant. They are cartels. They should be illegal as they form oligopolies (price fixing, collusion). They are hurting their respective industries by not allowing it to slowly evolve. M/G/S studios can do their own advertising directly to the people and save some $$$$$$$$. All they need is to allow downloading of samples from their catalogs and people will spend their own bandwidth advertising stuff they like.
Anthony
Get out. Do it now. Unless your entire idea of music is Spice Girls and Britney Spears, you're missing out greatly. And if those ARE your idea of music, you're missing out even more.
I love Siouxsie. I have collected, over the years, pretty much everything she's recorded with either the banshees or the creatures. But none of them compare to going to a live event. Other bands, like Smashing Pumpkins/Machines/Zwan absolutely, positively need to be experienced live. Radiohead, White Stripes, Lydia Lunch, Emmylou harris - hell, even the (former) Spice Girls. If you like music, you need to get out and experience it live. Even music you think you don't like, or music you don't know if you'd like.
I wouldn't buy music from a major record label if I was paid to do so.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Last time I bought a CD at a B&M (oh so long ago, and it was actually at Target) it was $16.99. The general trend I noticed was that new CDs would sell for $12-14, while CDs that came out a few months ago would (all) be $16.99.
:)
The "story" about CD prices is that 1)the RIAA has been convicted of price fixing and 2)Pop music generally has one or two songs with 35 minutes of filler crap. Mix those two things with the percentage of that $16.99 that goes to (RIAA, not artist) profit and people get pissed.
That being said, I whole heartedly agree with the subject and first line of your post
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
as a result of the collusion/price fixing ruling awhile back?
Someday a Slashdot ID of 177180 will mean something.
Here's the reason.
Hypothetical: you purchase a popular mainstream CD at a store such as Best Buy.
You would pay about $12.99-$14.99 for this CD.
This CD almost certainly retails for either $17.98, $17.99, $18.98, $18.99, or $19.99.
Incidentally, Best Buy tends to make less that $0.75 per popular CD sold, and frequently less than $0.50 on the ones in their ad. They sell only items they believe they can make huge volume on, with the hopes of drawing you into their store so that they will buy their other products which have sane profit margins.
MSRP of $12.98 means a Best Buy price around $8.99 -$10.49
Additionally: cost is not $0.02/CD.
Cost works something like this:
Production: $0.03
Royalties to Musicians: $0.05
Royalties to Songwriter: $0.08
Retained by retail store (covers costs like distribution, plus profits) $3.00 - $4.00
And this does not include the cost of producing the very first CD, generally on the order of $10,000 - $100,000 (varies greatly depending on artist and what all is going on) Amortizing this across all copies sold (lets assume 500,000 -- a pretty good amount for one disc) means that cost is between $0.02 and $0.20
Note that the numbers for royalty per album sold were real numbers I got from folks inside the music industry, but that they are about a decade old. IIRC, they have increased slightly lately, so it might be $0.10 / $0.16 instead of $0.05 / $0.08.
Anyhow, the total minimum cost per disc is on the order of
$3.36 / disc.
I have left out many of the costs involved in the production, distribution, and marketing of music because I don't have any decent numbers, so I'd just be guessing.
Even if the other costs are forgotten, $3.36 / disc cost vs. $12.98 MSRP means a profit of:
286%
instead of:
435% for a $17.98 CD
In short, yes the music industry can afford this cut, and it was a good idea, but IT IS SIGNIFICANT
Like I said, expect to spend on the order of $8.99 - $10.49 per new CD you buy at the discount stores (from Universal anyway)
Expect others to follow suit.
In my opinion the "Best Price for an Album" -- as in, the price the CDs should retail for to maximize record label profits is $9.99.
This is because this allows price ranges in discount stores to be on the order of $7.00 - $7.99 and I think that this is the highest price that most people will be willing to spend and still buy every CD from most of the artists they like.
That's just my opinion though. I want to know, really, what do you all think the "Best Price for an Album is" remember, the idea for this number is to maximize RECORD LABEL profit (NOT sell the most music or decrease piracy the most, just make the label the most money)
What ever happened to the $9.99 sale price for new CD releases? I remember back in 1994 I could walk into a Circuit City (on a Friday in Tallahassee, FL) and get a new release for only $9.99 on sale.
And why is it that back in the 80's I could buy an album on cassette for around $7.99, but today I have to pay $18 for the same ammount of content on a CD? CDs are cheeper to manufacture than cassettes!
I'm sorry, but Universal is going to have to do better than $12.98 to get my hard earned money.
It is ironic that the top echelon of recording artists could not exist without an industry to support them. Strip away the managers and agents, stylists and coaches, from someone like Justin Timberlake and ask is it possible that he could still make a living from music? Probably not. Ani di Franco, on the other hand, has been making a comfortable income for years without the support of the business she's supposed to be in.
As Douglas Adams pointed out, many companies aren't in the business you think they're in. Fox News is, despite a million conspiracy theories to the contrary, simply in the business of delivering an audience to its advertisers. The ethics and actions of the "Big 5" corporations who control 90% of record sales make rather more sense if they are viewed, not as separate companies, but as one distributed bank.
As anyone with any experience of dealing with banks will know, they are monolithically slow to react to changes in the environment, and are populated with highly intelligent, but narrow-minded, solipsists. They're doing now what every one of us was warning them that they should be doing the instant MP3 was rolled out.
By way of related tangent, here is an article by Steve Albini about his experiences with one of the majors, and his advice to anyone thinking of getting involved. At the bottom of the page is a detailed breakdown of a typical deal in which the "industry" made $973,000 and each of the four band members made $4,031.25.
When the entire system is that fucked, the price of a CD is moot.
I've met people that don't buy things over the web. Because they are scared of their credit cards being hi-jacked. Or they don't have a credit card. Or they say something about wanting to "touch it and look at it" before they buy whatever "it" is. I know, you don't believe it. But there are many of these people out there.
Offer a discount of $2/CD on rock, pop, and hip-hop titles for those 24 or younger.
too many musicians think that they are artists. The reality is that the vast majority of popular music is performed by those that would be more aptly called artisans than artists. Picasso was an artist, the guy down the street painting lettering and cartoons on a billboard is an artisan.
but I'll never pay for recorded music again. I don't care how good it is, or how "little" they're charging for it. If it is impossible to get off of Kazaa, or IRC, or whatever new system is available in the future, I can live without it.
HELLO, PEOPLE you're paying for cheap, mass-produced advertising. They should be giving it away for free...
How do you prevent one of your friends from bringing along one of the artist's CDs and playing it over and over again in the car? By the time you get to the concert, you're sick of hearing them.
Why do people do that?
And no, "get new friends" is not an option. It took way too long to get friends in the first place.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
- the pleasure from standing in line, paying 75 bucks, being searched, and paying 7.50 for a glass of what some people have the gall to call beer.
- the joy of some yahoo whistling in your ear
- the added experience of other people singing your favorite song along with the artist.
Sorry, but I hate live performances. scratch that, I hate the other people at live performances. I mean, who think I went to a concert to here them sing?
don't get me started on those kids on my lawn...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The company, whose artists range from U2 to Reba McIntyre, will also cut wholesale prices on cassettes so its MSRP for top-line releases will be $8.98.
I still believe that older, somewhat obsolete, formats are a great deal for those on a budget. In fact, I purchased my last copy of Windows on 5.25" floppies. 300 of them. Sure, it took over 3 months to install, but at least I feel I got my dollars worth out of Microsoft. I don't like paying for intangible things like software, but 300 floppies.... thats something you can impress your girlfriend wi...
--please insert disk 27 for rest of comment--
Man, I've got to know exactly what context the quote in your sig was taken in?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
> I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
Artists probably won't care, as it has pretty much been the case for years that album prices do not have much of an impact on the income of an artist or group. The huge majority of profit (something like 90%, if I'm remembering correctly) from a CD goes to the recording company. Most artists will tend to make most of their profit from concert performances.
I used to think "fsck the record companies!" until I read an interesting interview with Ben Harper (sorry, no links, it was in print a few years back). He argued that record companies should continue to take in most of the profits from good record sales, because it is the record company that takes the risk to record, mix, produce, distribute, and market an album, and if that album sucks, who's gonna pay them back for their investment? Answer: nobody. Ben Harper's point was that record companies are constantly doing this, again and again, with band after band, so when the small minority of productions is actually "good" and people actually pay money for it, it makes sense for the record company to get most of the profit on that production. Sure, for the isolated incident it might seem unfair, but in the grand scheme the record company isn't raping and pillaging as much as everyone plays them to be.
I know there are a handful of artists here and there who do their own productions (Fugazi, Ani DiFranco) because record companies are "evil", but they don't get to do so for free. Replacing the role of a record company with your own label requires you to take on all of the responsibilities of making an album that were once done by other people.
I've never bought a music CD in my entire life! Thats right. I have about 2 CDs that came off magazine covers and thats it. (I dont give a shit what you think about stealing). I like to have all my music easily availiable - ie a click away, not a shuffle of disks away. The CD as a medium is going to die once everyone gets hooked on mass-storage mp3 players etc... And while im totally pro raw high quaility uncompressed audio, mp3 is going to win the battle like VHS over Beta & Laser Disk. There are only afew things i would like to listen to uncompressed that i would either copy or maybe buy if i really really wanted to, some music has very noticable compression artifacts and if your gonna be editing or sampling it in any way or using it in a video etc then you want uncompressed but otherwise im starting to live with compression aslong as its good. The record companies have figured this out and some CDs are starting to come with compressed files aswell i think? but this seems to be always windows media format?
Something i would like to see in shops (they already have similar things) is the ability to very cheaply make your own CD compilation but to be able to choose the format and compression setting (or have it raw). To dumb it down you could have pre-set options with an "advanced" screen on the terminal, and instead of just CD's you could make DVD's aswell. Once you had selected all the songs you wanted you could have them burnt and the (powerful) computer would compress them right then and there (or if thats too much it could just store the mp3s and forget compression options). If they did this right, they could make it worth-while for even people with fast net connections - it can be a hassle choosing the right file on kazaa and checking the quaility etc. with this system you would be guarenteed instant cheap music either raw or compressed at high quality. The question is, should they charge by the MB or per song?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
it is a great piece of work, btw.
;)
But it hasn't lost value because music hasn't change.
compare what was being play in 1965 to 1985. then compare what is being played in 1985 to today.
the last 20 years of been pretty stagnent compared to the previous 20. (or so).
In the late 70s an early 80s punk I would talk to me friends about what music would be like for our kids. If we pushed music as expression as far as we did, then who knows what would be around. Nobody ever guessed it would be the same.
The good news is, my leather jacket with DK painted on the back is still hip...or at last as hip as it ever was.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I like how Universal cites artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Reba McIntyre, U2 and Nirvana as "examples" of their artists.
Unfortunately, half of those bands are dead and the other half aren't representative of Universal's normally dismal and talentless array of crap music by artists with names like: Boo & Gotti (with their hit single "Ain't In Man"), Big Tymers, Baby Bash "The Smokin' Nephew", Lil' Wayne, Playa, Thug City, Ric-a-che, and Mac 10.
I think it might be a better PR move if Universal announced they were going to start selling Courvoisier or enrolling their artists in a few English classes.
Brittneys stinking little pussy is full of cheese
Because, after all, not buying CDs means we'll sure show them!
Of course, they'll see that certain bands aren't selling and will drop them in favor of yet more studio-created band designed by focus groups, thereby killing off that which you're trying to save.
On the other hand, you could do the opposite and buy more of a certain band and style and show them that it sells.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Screw Universal and the rest of the RIAA members: unless they're indie buy used CDs and send the artist $2, go to a concert. Musicians don't make dick from CD sales - all production, promotion, legal, administrative, and other costs are charged against the artist. Once *all* of that is cleared, then they get paid a sliver of what's left over after their producer, manager, and entertainment lawyer snack. As an added injury, only in the music industry do artists not retain copyright to their works. Many musicians are now discovering piece-for-hire, you don't retain the copyright to your works. Concerts: this is where artists make their money, their bread and butter - it's certainly not from CD sales. They go on tour, license t-shirts, ball caps, posters, whatever. Make a chunk of concessions, etc. And now the music industry wants a piece of concerts too. Screw 'em. Screw them in both ears - buy indie. If there's non-indie tunes you dig on, visit your local CD Warehouse or hit eBay and buy albums used - then send the artist a couple of bucks.
No.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Universal Music cuts CD Prices
What's most interesting here is not the price of CD's, (which at $14.95CAD is about $11 US), but that they plan to offer Canadian downloads in October for 99 cents (Canadian) a song!
It's too early to say whether any of the other labels will participate, and what kind of restrictions are going to be put on the media. Still, it looks like the Canadian industry has taken a much more concilaitory approach to the problem of filesharing, by giving up on the price, and offering additional share of downloaded fees to artists as well - so at least they're trying to adress some of the complaints on this and other forums.
CD == better quality.
cassette == higher cost of manufacturing.
CD == much lower cost of manufacturing.
RIAA == giant psuedo monoloply, trying to screw the public one lawsuit at a time!
CD's more expensive then cassette's NOT EQUAL to common sense.
if ya don't like the CD price, do indeed buy the cassette
Buying music from an industry that sues their own customer base, attempts to bankrupt college students, attempts to scare regular everyday people, and wants to make INFRINGEMENT into a CRIMINAL offence!!! NOT EQUAL to common sense.
Boycott the industry into oblivion. Power to the people!
The problem is that they didn't make the price cut because of the price-fixing lawsuit, but because of piracy.
This is something that should've happened back when they were passing out twenties because they got caught - not now because people continue to steal from them.
And what happens if their possible-customers continue to steal music? Are they going to lower the price again?
Its called inflation.
The dollar in your hand right now is worth about half of what a dollar was worth in 1983.
CD's cost twice as much, houses cost three times as much, cars about twice as much...
You could get a decent family sedan for less than $10,000 in 1983. Now, about all you can get for that price is a Hyundai Accent.
I think its ok to say if inflation has been 100% over 20 years, it has been 50% over the past ten years... Perhaps some economist folks can enlighten me.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
In any given city, on any given night, there may be one or two $75 venues, and there will be dozens and dozens of venues with concerts under $10. The food and beverages at a small establishment won't be nearly as expensive as the stadium experience either. It all depends on the type of musician you listen to. If it's Top 40 then sadly, you're in for the stadium experience. But that's not real music anyways. It's a "vehicle" I'm told.
I remember back in the day when LPs (aka vinyl) were common, cool stuff was included by the cool bands. The four KISS solos done in the 70's each had poster that were a part a larger one (I had all four). My "Face Dances" album had a cool poster. A band I bought a couple of LPs by called the Feederz, had full jacket sized double sided sheet with cool anarchistic cartoons and sayings. This just a few of the cool things that would come with LPS.
I don't see any of this with today's CDs. Of course I do understand the spatial problems with packaging, but the media companies need to give people an incentive to buy the CD rather than a monetary one. Entice the people into buying the CD so they can get a T-shirt, poster, or something else from the artist. Folks are going to choose free over any price if they can get the same thing.
My sister recently had a pile of CD's stolen from her car and asked me for help replacing them. She wanted me to grab them over a P2P network (cable vs dialup). However, with used CD's frequently under $5, I just dropped the $40 and bought her some new ones. I've never really latched onto P2P as I have always just bought used instead.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
remember back at the begining of the first gulf War when the prices of CDs shot up almost 20 bucks from somewhere around $12-$15 and they said it was because of the war and oil shortages and bla bla bla, but "prices will go back down after the war!" Now, here we are 10 or so years later with a second gulf war under our belts, and the CD prices are finally going back down, but its not due to the war, or the oil, its due to online piracy. Go figure..... Now dont get me wrong. i am all for supporting the artists and techs who make the music, however i dont want to support companies that use the pretense of war to raise prices just to feed their greed.
Kids, never trust someone who isn't even bright enough to realize that the RIAA is not a for-profit entity.
Keep thinking you've changed something, HanzoSan. It's probably healthy to distract yourself from your long, long string of failures in life.
Does this mean their CDs at Costco will go up in price from $11.99 to $12.98? This is a smart price. $13 appears to be my threshold, I try to buy when they're on sale and I almost never buy a CD priced at more than $13. I stopped going to Tower Records when they changed their list price to $18.99, 'cause that meant even their sale prices sucked. Now that Tower store appears to have disappeared... maybe that's cause you could buy used CDs at Everday Music across the street for $8?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
well, number one, I listen to indy stuff so the prices usually are pretty cheap anyway. number two, when will they increase the quality of the actual media, that right there would get me to buy more, rather than copy it to a cdr (which is what I do now, I back up ALL my cd's because they scrath too easily)
Wow, somebody at Universal must have taken an introductory Economics course, learned about supply and demand curves, and realized you don't maximize your profits by continuously raising your price -- especially so on non-essential items like music!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
i agree! all the more reason to go to a live performance since it's slightly harder and more expensive to find SACD materials for many artists.
Lots of people like seeing live music. I am not one of them.
In my experience live music is brutally loud, in a crowded environment with all food and drink overpriced. No comment on ticket price, that is neither here nor there - that is what the market will bear (of course I guess the food and drink prices are too, but it is a monopoly then...)
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Slashed to $12.98.... whoopdiedo... How many songs do I get for that price? 1, 2, 3, 16?
If it's 16 and all of them are *cough* good *cough*, then that's about 80 cents per song... Too rich for my blood...
I will pay a MAXIMUM of 75 cents per song for something new which is younger than 6 months old...
I will pay between 25 and 50 cents per song for something older than 6 months old...
Anything more - and they can shove it up their asses...
By the by, has anyone noticed that the late nite tv ads have CD's priced about 80 cents per song already?
When you convince my employer to pay me my current salary but in US dollars instead of Cdn dollars, then I'll listen to comparisons about exchange rates. Sorry, but exchange rates don't count. You earn in local currency, you pay in local currency for the vast majority of products, especially those manufactured within the country (as CDs generally are).
It's possible that the price is being lowered to establish a new tier for 24 bit super audio CD's. Currently the new super disks are too expensive. Looks like what they want to do is...
1. $8.98 Cassettes for the lower class.
2. $12.98 16 bit PCM audio for the middle class.
3. $18.xx and up for the upper class.
This looks right. Most companies love to establish at least three price tiers.
At $12.98 a CD, the price is still too high. Basically, if the price of the actual product costs the company $1.00 to produce, then I would say they can triple that price when selling to the middle-man like a mall chain. Then the mall chain goes and triples that price. So we have...
$1.00->$2.99->$8.99
I would say that trying to go beyond tripling of the price is raping of the consumer, or price gouging. For older CD's like stuff from the 70's and 80's, you could just double the price. This would have me back in the music stores!
As it is, I don't buy any CD's anymore because even $12.98 is way too expensive. I can't take advantage of the sheer number of CD's arriving on the market because the barrier to entry is just too high.
Anybody with me?
+2
They're lower quality, and more inconvenient to use? I'm sure cassettes are only produced for compatibility reasons--some people just don't want to switch, or something. They make things tougher than just saying "we only offer CD's".
I find nothing wrong with cassettes being cheaper, even though I think CD's are still horribly overpriced (optimal, like someone said... maybe 5?)
However, obviously not too overpriced. I've spent the last week downloading/testing several albums (throughout the 90's) and will finally be purchasing copies in one big ~$200 buy. I haven't bought that many CD's since I left for college (more a time thing, than a downloading thing).
A sample?
* Mogwai - Young Team
* Mogwai - Happy Songs for happy people
* My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
* The Lucksmiths - Naturaliste
* Stars - Nightsongs
* Stars - Heart
* M83 - Dead Ghosts, Red Seas & Lost Cities
* Spiritualized - let down[? something like that]
* Steve Burns - Songs for Dust Mites
* Supergrass - Supergrass
* Postal Service - Give up
* Switchfoot - The Beautiful Letdown
* Fennesz - Endless Summer
that's all I remember off the top of my head. Just thought I'd share what I thought was some good music. Note: I'm not an indie snob, but there's are pretty much all indie. It's good stuff. Not sure about RIAA status. I get my recommendations from pitchforkmedia.com, then check them out on Kazaa. I listen to each album once, maybe twice, and then delete the folder, record whether I want to buy it. There's no way I'd have bought any of these CD's without Kazaa.
Woah, I just realized Jack Valenti is speaking at my campus tonight. I wonder what he'd think of this? Also, this is all online, so I don't think this new price change really would've helped me.
Wasn't it Universal that was going to copy protect all their CD's? So now we don't have to pay as much for something that is broken anyway?
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Yeah... knock off a couple of bucks off the price of a CD. That'll make me tollerate some minimum wage earning loser skoffing when I ask if they have a copy of my fav Dead Milkmen CD... and CD were supposed to be INDUSTRUCTABLE! Cant afford to feed 'em anymore.
The only way to force RIAA members to price properly is to make RIAA to compete with something big that is not RIAA. I guess the thread of P2P + upcoming and growing online music stores + customer's conviniece shifting from CD to MP3 format = that big competitor of RIAA.
Less is more !
The problem is that getting several bands to come to my house and play the songs I like while skipping over the ones I dont takes a lot of room and money.
In the 80s, it was actually quite common for bands to come over to your house, if you were a kid. The way it worked was, if your dad always yelled at you and wouldn't let you listen to a particular hair band, the band would come over to your house, smash through the door, trash the place while performing their single, and horrify your dad by loudly playing their guitars inches from his face.
And I think there was at least one documented case of band members coming to life from a poster on a young fan's bedroom wall.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
What you are seeing is the normal life cycle of a monopoly. When the public gets mad the price goes down, for a while. Then the price goes back up. Usually even higher.
Consider the price of gas. Remember when you thought to yourself that if it went over a buck a gallon you'd stop driving and take a bus? People get upset, the price goes down, and then starts creeping up again.
If you have a capital market, ie not a monopoly, then the price stays down. There are what 7 major lables, and they cooperate on the price. It's a monopoly.
You can claim your tiny victories, but as soon as you buy one CD you've given the victory away. I buy maybe one cd a year (if that). (I don't fileshare either). Basically the whole system has turned me off, I now just play my own music, or listen to the radio.
I'm not willing to spend more than $12.99 for cd and $19.99 for DVD. I do buy a lot of the older movies on DVD which are priced between $9.99-$14.99. So if new cds go for $12.98 I expect to buy older cds for $6.49-$9.73. I doubt this would happen though, because of several reasons. The older movies on DVD tend to not have any special features and aren't remastered as well as the newer movies. The only old movies that are remastered are the hugely succesfull ones. With cds on the other hand, the older music is better than the newer music. Therefore, the newer music should probably sell for $6.50 while the older/better music sells for $12.98!
1) I absolutely love every song on the album and I want to support the musician any way I can , or
2) I can buy directly from the musician.
What would be really cool is if these musicians would just put a paypal icon-link on their website and I would gladly donate what I believe is a fair price for the music I yanked from NGs or BT.
-Ladd
Don't Panic.
Oh, wait...price wasn't the problem. Shitty music was.
Note to self:
Price was the insult added to injury.
Oddly enough, many employees think this as well, and I've known more than one person who turned down a small raise because they thought it would actually throw them "into the next tax bracket".
:)
Up here in the great cold north, higher tax brackets only apply to income ABOVE THAT BRACKET. It's not like the rest of your salary gets taxed higher because you got that $500 raise.
YMMV in other countries, of course
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
You know what? I agree with you, but I think that $3-$5 apiece is too much!
The lables need to make it $1-2 apiece, I think every one will agree that this is a much more reasonable price.
No, wait a minute. Lets change that to $0.1-0.98 apiece, lots of people will be willing buy CDs if they are in this price range.
Heck, lets make it $0.00! I think most people will be willing to pay this much for music, just think of all the albums people could buy at that price! That is plenty of cash to give back to the lables, cover the recording costs, and support the artists.
When we can benifit, we're smart enough to support that system rather than torpedo it.
My experience has been, that we try to make everybody else support the system for us, while we exploit it. I expect that when the pendulum swings, it goes to the other extreme - instead of overpriced, people aren't willing to pay at all. I know of many that is simply fed up with the music companies and wouldn't give them a dime, even if it was fair.
Besides, it's not as if music would die. I have no problems going to music festivals, concerts and supporting local bands. But if you ask me what's the fair price of an album, I'm thinking one where they make up for the USD 25 prices that have been here. Fair as in "We ripped you off as much as we could get away with, but because of your nasty P2P stealing we're can't sell it at the inflated prices we'd like" price reductions doesn't exactly inspire a great relationship...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Trolls start trolling each other?
Don't buy it. Make the fuckers sweat. They still need to be taught a lesson. When they've sacked all their IP lawyers and stopped harrassing kids with million-dollar lawsuits, then it's time to buy their products. Not before.
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him s
great. now they are only overpriced by $5.00
This space available.
Thank god! Finally... How long has it taken them to consider this idea? Now watch... This obviously won't be cause for the RIAA to say that CD sales will go up (provided the rest of the gang catches up), they'll just say their "sue and awe" campaign scared everyone off.
Insert Sig Here
I don't know about this in general.
Food I am going to need a new supply tomorrow, so I need the chain to deliver it and I won't destroy it.
With music I can't see myself needing a new supply tomorrow. I think I am willing to risk the delivery chain to be destroyed so I can have something for free.
And whom's to say what is a fair price?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
$12.95 is simply too fricking much. I used to pay $12.95 years ago when I used to buy CDs. I have plenty of disposable income to spend on CDs, but I will not open up my wallet for these oligarchical (sure I spelled that one wrong)goons unless they get a clue. Here it is assholes - here is the price that will make me fall in line and be a good little sheep-like consumer. $8 for brand spanking new CDs - 5 for old stuff. As for downloadable songs (with good tags and high quality VBR) $.15 to $.50 (and .50 only for high quality acts in pre-release).
Anything else is just a joke.
The sad thing is that they would probably be making money hand over fist at $8 a pop. Fricking losers!
And in 18th century france Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake" and lost her head for it. Bread prices similarly decreased. If France=Freedom, I want to live in freedom.
The 17th century was 1600-1699; since capitalism is usually attributed to Adam Smith, who lived from 1723-1790, it would be tricky for 17th century England to be post-capitalist.
too little too late
It is actually more like the boss who doesn't give you a raise because he knows it will push you into the next tax bracket.
"Evil." You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Weird Al's latest CD Poodle Hat, has videos on the CD. I can't imagine that you could pull that off with a cassette tape.
Ever heard of VHS? It's a video cassette that contains magnetic tape on which video, audio, and sync information are recorded.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sorry... If CD's cost the 5 dollars they should, I would buy them. That is if it wasn't just a 3 song wonder CD.
What the clerk says and what the law says are usually two different things. Go and read your local Sale of Goods Act.
BTW, Price Costco will take anything back if you complain and they are probably cheaper than most to begin with.
Oh well, what the hell...
Yes, and the average salary in Canada also happens to be lower by almost the same factor.
When they drop the prices down to about $10.00 per cd we'll talk, untill then i will continue sneaker sharing (borrowing then copying cds). I would also like to see prices vary according the number of minuits long or the number songs on the album. paying $15 for a thirty minuits long Weezer album pissed me the F**k off.
-=gabe2=- macbook dual 2.0
I used to own almost 1000 cds which I accumulated since high school. I sold all of them recently when I got a satellite radio. I did not keep any files or copies, though when I sold 100 at once e-bay pulled my sale and accused me of pirating.
I've not bought a CD since the RIAA started cracking down on downloaders.
I bought the most when, in 1999, I would download a song on Napster, like it, then go by the artist's CD.
Now I refuse to support a racketeering mob-style organization who prays upon customers buy suing them.
The interesting things will be to see (a) how long this lasts, (b) if CD sales actually go up in any worthwhile way, and (c) if the vast price-fixing conspiracy of RIAA slaves actually does get all of the CD prices down.
In another bit of randomness, does anyone else find this insulting? Aren't the record companies saying "Well, we screwed you for years, but it looks like you finally caught on, so we'll cave a little and it'll look like we're no longer screwing you"? Gee, thanks. Since you spent most of your trust on $6+ per CD, how about you expose the real cost, profit strucure, and royalty disbursement and we'll decided if we are or are not still being screwed.
Discuss.
"power corrupts. powerpoint corrupts absolutely." e. tufte
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. E. Tufte
Artists of any sort don't get enough credit. Un-creative people don't see any value in art. Being an artist is hard.
Un-creative people are usually too blinded by selfishness and greed too formulate a creative thought.
The persecution of real artists must end. Artists of all disciplines must hold out for the highest price.
-No free gigs.
-No speculative work.
-No corruption of a great work of art.
-No compromise.
And most importantly:
-No fear of the lesser man.
Only by pride in oneself and courageous action will the true artist stand his ground.
-Joe
There's something to be said for watching a master working their craft, that's difficult to experience from a recording.
A genius like Jimi Hendrix (there are many other examples) would re-interpret his songs each time he played them. That's worth seeing live!
Ironically, independent musicians usually have sell their CDs for next to nothing, because it gets them exposure. They usually have to beg radio stations to play their music at all, and they NEVER charge.
Independent musicians make their money from live performances. It's always been that way, at least since the patronage system died. Only popular, mainstream musician expect to make money of off what is basically promotional material.
Does anyone know what the typical record label contract says about funds mailed to 'the band'. I always thought it was possible that the label might have some rights there, and take a cut... unless you find away of mailing the band without being screened by thier label, which I've never seen a band be like 'mail us at home at 42 sunnydale drive...', it's always 'band', c/o xx record label, ny, ny
That's simply not true. As the original poster said, only the income above the high-bracket point is taxed at the high-bracket rate.
It astonishes me how many people believe this stupid myth.
Another stupid myth: the idea that a "tax write-off" is worth more than the loss you take to get it. If you lose $100, and your taxes go down by $40, guess what? You're still $60 worse off.
I became a great fan of India film scores when a friend of mine intro'd me to them a couple of years ago; and now I'm getting into some of the non-movie song artists too. The local Indo-Pak shops often have the CD's for $4 and tapes for under $3 (i.e. great music real cheap)
Are you serious? If you said that 100 years ago, you'd be considered completely nuts. Relatively speaking, it's only been very recently that we've been able to separate music from it's creators.
My Blog Sucks.
The reason I do not believe movies will get "napsterized" is because they are way ahead of the music companies in terms of common sense. Yesterday, I paid for Fifth Element and Dogma DVDs at Best Buy. Fifth Element had no features but Dogma is loaded with them. The extra content and commentary is the main reason I buy DVDs but more importantly is that they cost too low to make it practical for me not to favor them over downloading. I paid $20 for the two DVDs. By the time I searched and downloaded a copy that might be a quality copy, I've gone over $20 in time spent. Movie companies have done a GREAT job in lowering prices for older quality movies and providing a disincentive for piracy. It's about time record companies learn to do the same.
...not all new music coming out sucks to me, it's just that it seems exceedingly rare these days. And to show that I'm not totally old and shrivelled up, one of my favorite "new" bands (although they've been around for a few years more than most people know) is Bowling For Soup. Now granted, I am almost old enough to be their father, and they did originate from my old hometown so I can't deny I might have a bit of bias to support them... and indeed I used to go out and see them live when they were playing their first gigs back then, but I think their music is very good and it reminds me a lot of the punkish new wave rock stuff that I used to really dig when I was in college back in the early-mid '80's. Oh my god!!! I am old... Excuse me, I've got to go take my vitamins now.
Oh and finally get raped at the artist's stand for the CD and the low-quality T-shirt for $29.95 each.
Sounds like voluntary rape to me, if it's an RIAA artist. (ie, buy your RIAA CD elsewhere if you must and stop whining) And if it's not an RIAA artist, then that $29.95 * 2 is a fantastic way of funding the artist.
[...a horror story about an RIAA contract...]
FYI, the guy (Magic Thread) who started the thread by saying he's never been and will never go to a concert listens to INDEPENDENT musicians. So all your "raping" contracts and RIAA evil-overlord stories don't apply.
I, for one, am very happy to see Universal taking this course of action. I have bought maybe 4 or 5 CDs in the past year, due to two reasons. One, there hasn't been much released in the past year that I have been all that interested in and two, the list price of nearly $20 kills any chance of an impulse buy. I haven't been getting my music from P2P, I've simply been going without. With over 1,000 CDs in my collection, I have not wanted for a lack of music.
Hopefully, as has been stated elsewhere here, this will start a trend to bring music prices back down to a more realistic level.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
..then there's nothing to buy, regardless of the price! Have you HEARD the crap that's piling up in music stores in the past few years?
I used to buy music (regardless of format) all the time because I love good music! These days, I buy about 1 a year. Not because I'm downloading GB's off the net, but because I can't find any good new releases anymore. This years CD is Human League - Secrets. An AWESOME album. WHY on earth music isn't made like this anymore I have NO idea. As far as I'm concerned, music died in 1990....and I still grieve.
What I do these days to fill the void is to browse through used record stores. I bought myself a good used turntable and set myself up to rip my own mp3s. Now I can still go shopping for music that I like, and find really amazing stuff that never made it on CD and digitize it and listen to it anywhere. What's more, I'm paying next to nothing for music that I love.
It's ironic how the current state of the music industry has not only got me to stop buying cds, but I'm still finding "new" music on a format that I once thought was long since dead.
www.brownsauce.org
I remember way back in the early 90s the music industry stating that CDs would be priced similarly to cassette tapes. I think the music industry should drop prices to $8.00 per CD to get my business and respect back.
...Universal is in talks to be purchased by NBC. NBC would own 80% of the post-merger company, and retain all control rights. Thus Universal is not fiscally responsible for any fallout of this price decrease... Kinda makes you think...
But what about all the money I and everyone else overpayed these bastards for the past 20 years? What we need is a nice class action suit to recoup all the money we spent on overpriced...
oh, wait....[looking at $5.00 check]
never mind.
grammar-lesson free since 1999. (rescinded - 2005)
I'll buy music from Universal when they cut all ties with the RIAA. I'm really not sorry; as long as any company is affiliated with that out-of-control entity, it won't get a dime of my business.
The RIAA lives by sucking life from those around it. If the music companies don't support it, eventually it will shrivel up and die, but even with their support it cannot right itself. It is obsolete, senile, and has already brought its own demise -- the challenge is for the music industry to find the courage to abandon the RIAA, and not to die with it.
We should encourage music companies to find this courage by electing not to purchase music from RIAA members. $12.95 / CD or $.99 / song -- it doesn't matter -- any money is still too much money feeding legal hyenas and RIAA witch hunts. Save your money for those products that will someday be released by a reformed industry free of the RIAA.
Remember, this isn't just about the record companies destroying themselves, it's about an arrogant and myopic vision eviscerating the entire industry for the fans, artists, and studios alike. If we are fortunate, this price cut represents the first tinge of panic by the Old Order -- expect other record companies to shortly cut prices as well. If they are lucky, and we are not, these price cuts will delay the industry's inevitable rebirth...but the record companies shouldn't expect this to address the underlying problems that will someday destroy them: arrogance, visionless leadership, and hate among fans towards the rabid institution the record companies support.
While there will be temporary hardship for those with interests in the old structure, the sooner the old system fails, the sooner a new one can be built. As I see it, by refusing their wares (yes, including downloading), I'm hastening the collapse, and hence the inevitable recovery of a reborn music industry. I'll save my money for the new record companies that will someday rise to dominance, without the RIAA, on the strength of a new vision for the industry.
You can do your part to help.
NOTE: See the RIAA's web site ( http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp ) for a helpful list of member labels & companies.
I'm sorry, but concerts are way overpriced.
Crappy seats in horrible venues with abominable acoustics; with Gestapo searches at the gate to make sure you don't smuggle in any decent food; (to insure you buy the crappy concession food at six times the reasonable price); don't dare to shift out of your chair during the performance or the ushers will "usher" you out the door.
I really want to go see some of the shows that come to our town, but man, they ask too much.
Example: "Yes" with the Honolulu Symphony $65 for all but the back row!
If not Yes, how about Steely Dan? $81, $71, $66. Remember, $66 gets you into the nosebleed club!
Those are only a couple of examples. I used to love concerts, but in recent years, they have just gotten too damned expensive.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those who forget the past are doomed
What $699 license fee? I already paid for Windows XP.
Once the new pricing hits stores (if it ever does) make sure to support this move by buying those pretty spinning discs of love.
Of course, I imagine it just means that most retailers will leave prices as is, and just raise their profit margin on CDs.
Call me when they reach $4.99.
I stopped pirating music a while ago, but could never afford the high CD prices so went off music, but I like music, and lately I've really been getting into music again, but mainly by borrowing friends CDs, I'd buy CDs myself but at my age, (17) making just above minimum wage for a few hours a week means one CD costs a weeks wages, I'll be glad to pay for CDs if it wasnt such a huge strain on my wallet.
I simply don't have a problem with pricing CDs as high as they like. Sure, you could argue that there are some monopolistic issues, but I don't think they're so great that it's anything the free market can't sort out.
I haven't had a problem with the high prices either since Kazaa and WinMX were released. But seriously, the free market didn't sort out the monopolistic issues in a timely fashion. If you'll recall, a recent class action lawsuit of the 7 largest music corporations resulted in a settlement for people who purchased cd's for the affected period. The lawsuit didn't make all those customers whole and a lot of people paid too high a price for cds for too long.
Part of the reason for the big press release is that this is what is known as price leadership in cartel economics. Although there isn't over collusion over cd prices, cartels can tacitly colluded through public actions such as releasing price schedules hoping that other cartel members will follow suit so there isn't any price competition. (Doesn't anyone find it odd that cds from so many different companies covering so many types of music are priced so similiarly?)
Any history of capitalism will start around the 1500s. Check it out yourself. Locke was on this shit at 1690 when he was publishing books such as "Some Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money." Reference: [here] But google it up, theres lots of info on capitalism before the poster child Adam Smith appeared.
"Old man yells at systemd"
This is improvement, but it's still not good enough. I can get a full two-disc DVD set (movie+bonus features) for around $13 - new. At Blockbuster, you can get (slightly) used DVD sets for $6-$10. I'm sorry, but a single CD, even with enhanced content, is still not as valuable as a 2 hour movie plus several hours of bonus footage. Heck, "The Matrix" included a soundtrack-only mix.
John in the Morning is the best radio program I've heard, and because of kexp's amazing streaming archive, you can listen to the show from earlier that morning, or even just skip ahead to the one song you wanted. Since they archive their playlists online as well, with the time the song was played, you can easily find it and give it a listen. If you find you don't like John's show, kexp has programs each week dedicated to almost any genre of music. Oh, and no commercials either!
I wouldn't care if CD prices dropped to $10, still too much.
How much were VCRs in 1985? And one of comparable quality now?
How much were CDs in 1985? And now?
The prices are friggin' insane. $8 is the most I'd spend for a CD. IMO, new they should be $5-$7.
I stopped buying in 2001 when Sony and Universal started sneaking copy-protected CDs into stores. Doesn't matter how long it lasted or how many copies were tainted. They threatened my OS and lost my trust.
Trust = sales. I sell my art (and no one else's) as downloads. Sometimes people ask for a freebie. I just say get it from a friend (it's not copy-protected) or buy it from me with guarantees and the latest tweaks. I get googled a lot, and people figure I'm OK, so they buy. I keep 96% of each sale, and spend about a third of that on publicity. Sales have doubled each of four years running and it's become a good living.
So let the big boys death-spiral their shiny plastic all they want. If they think this is all about price, then whoosh, they missed another train. People won't expose their credit cards to those they no longer trust.
Exactly what the subject says! :-)
I've got $12 that says the penalty for stealing bread involved massive arterial hemorrhage. Actually I don't have $12, but that's another topic. No wait, that's this topic. (Down with the record industry!)
Forget it guys. Just a few years ago, 90% of CDs were less than $11, and that was back when it cost more to produce those CDs, and when most groups still filled more than half the CD with music.
And back then, at those prices, you were STILL getting ripped off.
Now, things should be MUCH cheaper, and I'm not going to be greatful to them for lowering the prices that they raised. Next they'll raise CDs to $50 a piece for a few months, then they'll have a big price-drop to $25 and tell us how lucky we are. Screw 'em.
I WILL NOT BUY ANOTHER CD UNTIL THEY'VE DROPPED TO ABOUT $6
It's not an unreasonable request. DVDs are normally selling at $10, and they cost LOADS more than CDs to produce. I've enen bought a few DVDs for $7, so it's not unreasonable to expect $6 Cds. If they don't want to lower their prices to reasonable levels, then I'm not going to give them one single cent.
I know people like to say that people like me are going to be the end of music, but not only is that not true... I would rather see a complete end to all music, than have to be ripped-off, just to get a CD full of music. If it really has to go, because of moron RIAA monopolists, I'll be happy to wave it "goodbye".
I'm not there yet, but I'm beginning to get the same feeling about gasoline. If the prices go up just a little bit more, I would be happier to pay a load of money for an electric car, that can only go 50 miles a day (and have to seriously change my life to stay within that limit), than to shell out another cent to the gas monopolies that are seriously screwing the public.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
RIAA does suck but for promotion you absolutely cannot top the work done by record companies. Justin Timberlake can barely hold a note and the only instrument he can probably play is the flesh flute, but, thanks to outstanding marketing the record industry turned him and a few other pseudo singers into a bankable megastars for a time. They put together the posters, the artwork, the image, the stadium tours, the album, the promotional tie ins, everything. An Indy company might appreciate your desire to avoid writing a song that could help go with a "Happy Meal", but, then again, they'd never give you the fat check for doing it.
Most of us who are developers have no problem selling out our sense of code purity to make deadlines and cash a check, and I suspect that if we each thought that writing even the shareware version of the Office PaperClip could make us a buck, we would.
So let's at least cut the artist some slack and not be so critical of the music industry that we drive it out of existence. Support the right of the artist to sell out and cash in, and hopefully, they'll make music that recognizes our own god given right to do the same.
This is my sig.
but I'm in Vancouver. Thanks to a long lasting price war between A&B Sound (our local audio chain) and Future Shop (who also happened to start out West, I think) our CD prices are among the lowest in North America.
$14-15 CAD is pretty common for the new stuff.
Read the F******* article. is states, quote :
"In a press release Wednesday, Universal Music said it will reduce wholesale prices and implement a $12.98 manufacturer suggested retail price on virtually all of its top-line CDs in the U.S."
Now, how expensive will they get in europe ? 28 EUR, to make up for the losses in the US ???
I was infatuated with one of my first girlfriends. Thing was, I had no idea how to be a boyfriend. I knew how to be a friend. I knew how to have sex. But I didn't know much more.
I didn't buy her any flowers, or enough gifts or whatever.
So one day she told me to go screw myself.
I got a clue, bought a dozen roses and wrote a long ass note.
Her reply?
Too little, too late.
I deplore similies and metaphors on Slashdot, but I read about Universal's new price strategy and it made me feel a lot like my old ex-girlfriend.
On that note I am willing to give Universal a perscription for buying my love back. I promise you it will be tough medicine.
1. Dissavow, Distance and cut any ties you have with the RIAA. Do it publicly.
2. Take the public position that you do not sue your patrons. Don't just use this position as a front either, if you have any such actions in the works then simply stop them. Don't take up any new actions.
3. Give up on right protected CD's. Trust me, trust slashdot, trust your patrons, it is a dead-end street.
4. Take digital media distribution DEAD SERIOUS. I'll throw in a couple clues for no charge here. For one, if you are careful and elegant (look at iTunes) you can do protected music files without pissing anyone off. And for two, and once again don't get all sloppy and greedy here, you don't need to take a huge price cut on the music. Take what you charge record stores, subtract fancy packaging, manufacturing and physical distribution from the cost and divide that number by seconds. I bet whatever number that gives you is pretty reasonable.
Unlike my ex-girlfriend there is still a way to buy back my love.
The value of a typical CD to me is somewhere between $5 and $10. It is simply too easy to download and burn a CD filled with good songs rather than drive to the store and buy the a CD with maybe 1 or 2 good songs. I feel no remorse about doing this because I know most of the money doesn't go to the artist, who I support directly by buying concert tickets. The rest (most) of the money goes to the record company who I do not think is involved in the creation of the art which is copied onto the CD which I think is where the true value lies...not in the medium, but in the content.
I have little to say to this decision than "too little, to late". I am reminded of the recent lawsuit of Kazaa vs. major record companies (Time-Warner, Virgin Records, etc). of Kazaa vs. major record companies (Time-Warner, Virgin Records, etc), alleging that these record labels conspired to increase the price of CDs. Results: "This settlement will put cash in teh hands of millions of consumers and music CDs in libraries and schools throught the country, and will ensure that the challenged distributor/retailer practices will not resume."
Full results of the article can be found here.
Well finally, lowering prices. That's a relief. But to 12.99? Who are they kidding? They're still hitting profit margins like popcorn at a movie theatre, and CDs are clearly above what any sensible consumer would consider a "fair" price. But they are clearly not lowering prices enough to "bring consumers back into stores."
Instead, they sic the RIAA on everyone, start spitting out scare tactics, threats, seizing bank accounts, etc, then there's the MPAA whining about Warez, then text messeging. Countless US citizens, many whom honestly pay for and purchase music legally and download some music (who clearly pump money into the music/entertainment industry as a whole), are getting tangled up and crippled just so others will be scared to do the same.
And what does it all boil down to?
The music entertainment is simply charging too much for second-rate products/servies (anyone see Gigli recently? I didn't think so). They are doing so because it has historically worked befor p2p alternatives (such as freenet) started showing up. Now, faced with fair prices, they panic and sue by the thousands, which isn't helping them long-term. Millions of people worldwide are getting soured by US entertainment industries, and the entire United States looks like one giant ass as far as other countries may see us (whatever happened to that free country thing we had going a couple hundred years ago?).
The Bottom Line
I absolutely, blatantly refuse to support music/entertainment industries while this chaos is going on. These lawsuits spitting back and forth do not represent the ideals that our country was founded upon. I for one, spit in the music industry. I blatantly refuse to support any industry that practices such childplay.
As for the artists I suppose there's little to do other than say tough beans, cause I'm not paying for any of your crap while it's mixed up with RIAA. Or is there? There are plenty of ways to make lots of money that stray far from CDs in retail stores. Put your mp3s up for free download, the fans will come. New services like iTunes are a great alternative to Records, or even better, record your own!!. I am in full support of music artists, and I always will be, and I will never stop pouring dollars into concerts, special events, etc.
If you are an artist or an end consumer, don't be pushed around by bully tactics. There is still plenty you can do to download your favorite music, support the artists, and still keep the RIAA out of your face. They may look tough now, but don't back down; they're only eating themselves.
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
In Italy of a CD 20EUR ($22).
Considering that the average person earns no more
than 1000 EUR/month it is really expensive.
You are dead wrong, and I had the pay stubs to prove it several years ago. A $2000 raise pushed me over a tax bracket, which led to me losing almost $100/mo in disposable income -- in other words my "raise" cost me about $1100/year.
Not that it mattered in the long run -- [i]thousands[/i] were laid off about six months later, myself included.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I really don't care whether it was the fault of tax brackets, UI contributions, CCP, or any of the other dozens of ways the Canadian government picks our pockets clean. The bottom line fact was I had less cash in pocket after the raise, regardless of which government department stole it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
$12.98?!!
How about $3.
That is about what they are worth. Anything higher than $5 is a monopoly rent.
Who are they kidding?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
As it is, I'd rather download the MP3s for songs I bought the right to listen to years ago than to spend $33 for physical media
However, buying the physical media is all you've ever done. Buying a copy on vinyl didn't give you the right to have a free copy on tape or CD so why should it give you the right to an MP3?
Regarding the defects in the media, when was the last time you heard of someone getting a new Ford free because their last one wore out even though they'd paid for the right to drive a Ford?
It's about time - CDs have been overpriced for years.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.
If they were lowering prices due to normal market forces rather than copyright violation, I'd feel a lot more comfortable. This may be a ploy to fight filesharing in Congress. Imagine the RIAA testifying to Congress about how filesharing has forced record companies to drastically cut CD prices in order to keep from going bankrupt (monetarily, not morally -- the latter happened years ago).
This is nor the free market at work -- and it never can be. Music companies are just conglomerated monopolies. Universal has the monopoly on recordings by Sheryl Crow, Elton John, No Doubt, Sting, U2, and many others. If you want the new CD from one of those artists, you can't choose between buying it from Universal, Capital, CBS, etc. So there is no competition to push down the price. If your favorite artist is Sheryl Crowe, you can just decide that, because her CDs are too expensive, that Billy Ray Cyrus is will be your new favorite, that his music will stir your emotions, make you want to get up and dance, and that his lyrics will resonate with you.
Sorry if I don't celebrate, but I see this as a storm cloud on the horizon.
Piracy is a tricky thing to analyze. It doesn't always mean disaster - and sometimes you can profit from it.
But in this case, the RIAA and the cartel know full well that they are fighting for their very survival. And they are going to lose.
Piracy is ultimately about money and convenience vs. the perceived inferiority or superiority of the pirated good.
If I grab X-Men 2 off of the Internet on opening night as an iffy VCD, I save a LOT of money vs. taking my wife and three kids to it the next day in the theatres. I pay for that savings by the inconvenience of having to download the movie, and the poor quality of the VCD.
We can all follow that line of reasoning.
But when it comes to music, the inconvenience just isn't there. I fire up Kazaa and boom - in 3 minutes or less, I have the song I wanted at a quite acceptable sampled rate and I'm done. I know some guys have posted here about inconvenience and bandwidth - but that's all crap. Its convenient, its fast, its reasonably high quality and once people get used to FREE, they don't go back to $$. Not without some other reason.
For a time, in the heyday of Napster, I think there was some collective guilt in the people who pirated music. And even if they were pirating, say, the new Offspring CD, they got into *music* as a past time and were willing to purchase music too. In the heydey of Napster, sales were UP.
Shutting down Napster was the worst thing they could ever have done. They lost control of a central distribution network and they lost the moral high ground all at the same time.
Suing individual users of Kazaa and Morpheus isn't a clever mastermind scheme. It is the act of desperate men who see no other alternative. They are now willing to try wildly provocative tactics not because they make sense or hold real promise, but because its they best they can come up with.
It isn't that the RIAA will fail; the plain fact is that the RIAA >>has already failed. Stalingrad is over - we are witnessing the slow inexorable march to Berlin.
Rolling back the price some weeks after widely publicized lawsuits is all part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to 1) create moral and ethical awareness and 2) promote a safer, more ethical alternative.
That's how this was analyzed in the boardroom.
The problem is: it's just too late for that. The technology is established. Like a hydra, P2P has regrown - and will continue to do so, no matter what they do.
Worse, the destruction of Napster, the publicity of the lawsuits against users of Morpheus, Kazaa and against various university networks have created an US vs. THEM mentality.
The only pitch men they have to combat piracy are the artists themselves. But the problem is that the artists with recognition are the ones who are already rich. Moral suasion does not work when the speaker is perceived as being extremely wealthy. The fans just CAN'T be moved to guilt with that sort of pitchman.
Show us a moderate artist on the financial edge? Maybe that fan might care, but as Courtney Love has already convinced a lot of us, most of the problems with artists not making enough $$ is the fault of the cartel that backs the RIAA.
So again, the customer has ready arguments to justify theft.
What are they going to do next? Get Madonna - one of the wealthiest entertainers in the world, to record some more "What the fuck do you think you are doing" samples?
Do you think any rational person would feel guilt about reducing the rate of growth of Madonna's already obscene wealth? (Really. What was she thinking. Bright gal from Detroit ought to know better. She's been a star too long).
So what's the solution for the RIAA?
There *is* no solution. It's just too late. This is one long "retrograde advance", a mighty swirl round the bowl as the industry slides down the crapper.
We are witnessing the write down of billions of $$ in share value. It is NEVER, EVER coming back.
.Robert
Lets hope this trend continues in Europe. I used to buy loads of CDs back in my salad days at university, mostly in 3 for 20 quid sales in HMV. But I'll be buggered if I'm paying the going rate for new albums in the UK. 15 quid is common place these days for a new release. I tried to buy a copy of David Gray's White Ladder last week for the wife... 17 quid in all the larger stores. So I cocked a snook at those bums and got it for 10 quid on amazon.
Of course, I'm also signed up to Emusic, which delivers me a couple of hundred legal albums a month for a mere tenner. Its not chart material, admittedly, but I've found more good stuff on there than in 10 years of thumbing through commerical artists in HMV.
At the current album prices, I see little reason to continue buying CDs alongside my Emusic downloads - much as I like the feel of something tangible in my hands. But a drop to 10 quid an album (say) might justify having the two buying methods coexisting again.
http://www.davetansley.com - you proba
In Vancouver, BC, anyways. Competition and something peculiar about the local market has always had CDs around $13-14 CDN new. Thats less than $10 US! Of course, I have moved to London, England, where I can now expect to pay 16 per CD ($24 US). And what a miracle, I am suddenly less inclined to buy music.
The music industry should take a big hint. Back in Vancouver I bought music because the original CD and added value of case & artwork made it worth buying instead of downloading. Here in the UK I cannot justify buying music anymore so instead I am back on my P2P network. Hmmm...
Nuff said.
La de fucking da... if Fugazi routinely gets their CDs available at the local department store for $10 a pop and has been doing so for years, I fail to see why I should be impressed that one of the big five is "drastically" cutting prices back, whilst blaming it soley on "rampant" piracy (because the economy couldn't be a factor). Not to mention that I still haven't seen a dime in repayment for their earlier price-fixing scheme.
"Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball."
Yeah...it's great...Except that they're trying to sue hundreds of people who might otherwise be considered customers, and they're trying to hack them on the side.
I think this news is a pathetic attempt to distract attention away from "hey! We're suing a bunch of high school kids for hundreds of thousands of dollars!". You might think differently, but it's timing just yells "distraction!!!".
It's been a long time.
THey think is just about price. Its not. Its about price we are willing to pay for the music. As most music today is crap we are only willing to apy a pittance for it. Its the reverse of the pay peanuts saying.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Maybe some bright boy in the RIAA (diariaa?) figured out that if you take the life savings from all your customers and throw them in prison for using your product, they won't have a lot of money to buy your product.
Uh... if I had a totally amoral attitude towards this, I'd go for getting the life savings of each of my 'customers' (every CD buyer) over selling them a few CDs each year.
Yeah, I know that's bad news from a long-term/large-scale perspective, but since when did lawyers etc think that way?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Boost demand for [original] Coke by producing an inferior product branded "New Coke", then switching back to the original formula when consumers complained.
Take Coke off of the market for long enough that people wouldn't notice the switch from sugar to high fructose corn syrup. "New Coke" was rumored to be simply a distraction from the real goal of moving to a cheaper sweetener. However, this was actually started years before New Coke arrived.
;-)
However, the truth is that New Coke was generally preferred over Coke in blind taste tests, but Coca-Cola didn't anticipate everyone's knee-jerk reactions -- most consumers hated New Coke without ever having tasted it.
If you're really interested, check out snopes.com -- they do a much better job than I could.
Snopes.com rocks
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
It's about time this happened. If they will follow this up by promoting talented musicians instead of models who can look good in a million-dollar music video, the recording industry could really swing back.
Hopefully other record companies will follow suit and a free market can work it all out without getting the government even more involved.
I'm thinking it's less likely they are listening to consumers, and more likely this is a way of "proving" file sharers are just a bunch of "greedy pirates" that want something for nothing. Just wait and see I guess but I wouldn't be surprised if a month later they return the prices to normal and start screaming that people still traded music, and that they are just evil and it had nothing to do with the normal $25 (CDN) they charge per CD. All it will take is one person to download a song ..
It's one of those human-nature questions.
In many cases, a concert is just *better*.
Partly due to the nature of recordings... I've yet to hear a concert recording that didn't sound like ass. To get good audio onto a CD, you need a strictly controlled environment, otherwise it sounds like shite.
A concert is anything BUT a strictly controlled environment.
Admittedly, in some cases you can get a lot of the "concert experience" from a concert recording. (I believe there's a "live" version of TMBG's The Sun Is Hot, which is SO much better than the normal recorded version. TSIH utterly sucks on their regular recordings, but in concert it's one of their best songs.)
Plus some bands (TMBG included) perform their songs somewhat different each time. (Including even changes in instrumentation depending on if they have one of their instrumentalists absent.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've heard that some bands suck in concert.
On the other hand, if you like either of the following two artists (there are, of course, many more, but these are ones I have personal experience with)
Dave Matthews Band - You will hear some MEAN tenor sax improv solos that are simply fscking amazing. I honestly don't listen to DMB recordings that much, but I saw them at the Tibetan Freedom Concert 4-5 years ago and they were *simply amazing*, by far one of the best performers. (I've heard R.E.M. is good live too, but I missed them thanks to a lightning strike cancelling the last half of the Saturday portion of the concert.)
They Might Be Giants - Going to a concert is worth hearing the live version of "The Sun Is Hot" alone. And the rest of their show is great too.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Ten bucks ... provided there's no copy protection. I want to be able to listen to it in my car or rip the music @ 160kbps for my iPod if I choose to.
... provided it's not a fluff "album" with just one good track. I might on occasion have bad enough taste to like a song even if the 'artist' is some kind of prefab one-hit wonder propped up on studio sound, but if the artist really only HAS one song, I don't wanna pay for 9 other padding tracks squeezed out no good reason. In this case, sell me instead a compilation album of only good and new stuff, for ten bucks, or a single with a few good remixes, for about buck-fifty.
... provided it's stuff I've already checked out on Kazaa and listend to on my iPod for a couple of weeks and determined it was all good.
... live music on mp3 with hissing hi-hats and alien sizzling crowd noises can be really dull.
Ten bucks
Ten bucks
I think it'll be a while before I set foot in a record store again.
I'd really like to get back into listening to uncompressed music again sometime. MP3 is just a matter of convenience and freedom; its sound quality has always been just a compromise. On a nice sound system or a good set of cans you can really hear the compression
I like the Super Audio sound quality but I'm not buying into that proprietary platform. Sony DRM is just too nasty to deal with...
Hmmm... Doubt it will help much. Why buy the cow when the milk is free?
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
BBC article
A recent survey by research firm Odyssey suggested that the drop in sales was partly due to high prices.
Some 53% of adults said they had stopped buying music because it was too expensive, the survey found.
Odyssey managing director Sean Baenen said: "This is something that the industry has failed to address.
"You could make downloading music go away tomorrow and the industry would still face challenges."
Once upon a time, cigarette prices in Ontario were around $7.00 a pack, and gray and black market smokes were coming in from the reservations and the states to such an extent that the government was quite concerned. (there were these things called "dks" which were supposed to smoke like Dumaurier King Size...)
So, they cut the prices down to around $4.00 or so, and killed the black market.
And with the black market dead, then they snuck the prices back up to where they are now - around $8.00.
So, who wants to bet that in five years CD prices are back where they are now, or higher?
- ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
Ok, so Universal is lowering the SRP to $12.99 -- call it $13.00, since that 99-cent marketing crap annoys me. That basically admits that the they're selling was extremely overpriced before the cuts. And unless they've made some fundamental changes and improvements to their infrastructure, that would facilitate the level of cost savings that could justify such a mammoth price cut, I don't think anything's changed. Their manufacturing prices are still microscopic, the artists still receive a pittance for the music they produce, and Universal still spends way more than it should be on middlemen and marketing (aka pop artist development).
No, I still think CDs are still a rip-off, even at $13 a pop. At $13, CDs are the same price as they would be if every CDs was covered by the terms of the pending CD settlement. Besides, CDs are still being churned out with DRM that (unreasonably, I feel) restricts how I use the goods I have legally purchased. And there's been no headway made in addressing what rights, if any, the RIAA believes users have when they purchase music. Right now, it seems as though each CD is a "license" to use the music in a very restricted fashion, at a very unattractive price. So why should I have any more reason to buy music now than when I did before?
I recently sold back my entire CD collection to Wherehouse Music for ~$150 store credit, picked up a bunch of DVDs instead. For the money, I get a lot more enjoyment out of movies than I do mainstream-label music, and without the hassle that comes along with it. And most of the good stuff I've heard as of late anyway is off of indie labels, when I'm hanging out with my friends. Anything else I want, I can get from KaZaA; I mean, if I'm going to be treated like a criminal for the way I use my purchased music, why not behave like a criminal regardless?
I don't know why music publishers waste money pressing a godzillion CDs that will take up warehouse space and may never be sold when they could authorize Retailers to burn CDs on the premises.
- There's negligible distribution cost
- It's easier to react to fickle consumer demand
- There's no need to have a bargain bin to free up warehouse space - although artists who've fallen out of vogue may choose to lower their CD rates.
- End users may have the option of buying mix CDs
-
It's a lot easier to impose DRM on a partner than on a end-user.
Granted, they would also need a way to provide the liner notes, but that could be an after market service provided by the label or by the artist directly.90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
I have wanted to do this for a long time, but how do you do it? Even if you could find an address of the band, how do you know it is real, and how do you know who is getting the money?
I think some popular artist needs to set up a mailing address for this. Come out and instead of saying "stop stealing our music", they say "hey, if you downloaded our music, send us a couple of bucks". They would need some "official" way to track these additional album sales, because that is part of their business. Of course, the record company wouldn't like this one bit, but I think THAT is part of the point.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
As I sit here in Manchester, UK (Thats Europe to anyone who's wondering) and observe its declaration that I am resident in the good ol' US of A I can't shake a sneaking suspicion that it may not be quite so easy to tell where someone is as they'd like you to think.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
The reason the RIAA has been able to so easily track and file lawsuits against file sharers is because they simply scan Kazaa like everyone else. But I wonder if there isn't a way to get around that by incorporating the flash mob idea into file-sharing networks. The formation of the network is random, and private. Legally then the RIAA would have to go through the courts, make allegations, convince law enforcement to dedicate scarce resources to a surveillance operation, and then try to get evidence that will stand up in a court of law. Being a randomly and spontaneously formed network, it would be exceedingly difficult to do this. Then multiply by, oh, 60 million and you're talking about the death of the RIAA.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
This is so dumb of them. (this is my honest opinion.) Instead of slashing the prices they should have done it in a different way. They should have renegotiated contracts with their musicians and advertised the hell out of a fact that now all artists are getting more money.
Yes, they should have started paying their artists more! They should be paying their artists more anyway. So if they left the CD at 14 bucks and then advertised the hell out of a fact that now artists are getting like 3 dollars from every disc they would have done themselves a better service. The CDs would have appeared to be less expensive and the artists would be happier and more supportive of the labels (of-course they really should be more supportive of the general public who has brought these changes around.)
I still believe that 'sharing' of music over the web with thousands, millions is against the copyright holder and thus is illegal (I also believe it is immoral) but I also believe that the labels should be moving their asses and doing something constructive instead of blaming the consumer too much.
You can't handle the truth.
When I worked at a pizza place back in '86, I had a similar experience. (OK, so it isn't 17th century UK, but it's the best I've got). We allowed free refills on drinks. Not many people took advantage of it. They would have to bring up their glass and ask us to refill it, since the machine was behind the counter. I guess people didn't want to ask for something for free. So they changed the policy, and all refills were 25 cents, if it was a glass or a pitcher. What a deal! People were getting refills all the time. Considering that a pitcher of soda cost us a few cents, it was no big deal. But it improved business.
It will work with CDs too. I wonder if the "new release" price will go down too. I hate the fact that if you want to get a CD for $13, you have to get it when it is new. After it has been out a while, they jack the price up. Look for anything older than 6 months, and the price will be around $18. The only reason I have gotten any CDs recently is because someone gave me a gift card for Best Buy, so I picked up a few CDs. Man, that new Metallica is crap. Luckily I found some old Clutch in the bins.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Good thing I used some social engineering to find out your real location
A great way to get around the fluff albums with the one or two good songs is for the stores to replace (or augment) their CD section with a handful of CDRW terminals. Running some sort of Linux of course...
You could search for the songs you want, add them to your disc(s), then it would ask if you want them in MP3 or CD Audio format. It would then tell you how much it is going to cost, you pay right there at the terminal, wait for the CD(s) to burn, and leave with your CDs full of music that you actually want to listen to.
--- Nothing is secure.
And this is a good thing?
Seriously, if the record companies would promote "true" artists (i.e., those that could actually write, produce and sing quality material) instead of wasting millions developing and promoting folks like Timberlake simply because they're "pretty", everyone would be happier.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
CDBaby only takes a 9% cut.
"Forcing" bands to sign with these types of services would be a good thing for artists and their music. Why does this idea escape so many? The members of the RIAA are simply getting rich due to their stranglehold, nothing more. We simply aim to end it, not hurt the music or the artist. In fact, the result would be to help the latter.
Get rid of them, and the want for music still remains, it doesn't "disappear". So, how will we get it? From places like CDBaby and iTunes Music Store, and by forcing CD stores to carry a wider variety of small label bands due to newly created demand. With the members of the RIAA gone, their forced radio play will undoubtedly disappear too. I would love to hear some Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, or Sonic Youth on the radio. Sure beats the crap out of what they're playing now, that's for fucking sure, for nothing more than variety alone. I swear, if I hear another 3.5 minutes of formulated crap I'm going to... nevermind.
No, not buying an RIAA member CD helps music and the artist in my opinion.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Visit harlem wearing a sign that says "Nigger does not mean black".
Thanks!
I bought CDs in Japan. USED CDs went for $15-$20. New were $30+. I've bought Japanese CDs that cost close to $40. Think WE have it bad?
I'm told that it's similar in Belgium (if not all of Europe) - that CDs and DVDs are ridiculously expensive. To the point that most people can't afford to buy ANY of them. Or have much better things to do with their money.
... "I read part of it all the way through." -- Movie Mogul Sam Goldwyn (and some slashdot readers)
I wonder if that cut is coming from their profit or the artist. Frankly, they should be under $10 in my opinion. This is only cutting piracy from without. What about artist? I hope they don't take the hit.
The main reason why I haven't bought a CD in ages is because they're all copy-protected these days. :(
; ) i can buy a CD for about $3.5 (Argentina) ... it's about a dolar at the actual change ...!
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The problem is, so many rock albums have only a few good songs on them. The more money I need to spend on an album, the more time I spend listening to it before buying it. If I listen to it too long, I generally end up not buying it at all because the music isn't good enough. A $5 price would be low enough that I would be willing to take a risk without the research.
There are 3 exceptions to the $5/CD rule:
Classical - it takes to long to listen to a classical album, so I buy these after reading reviews. A well-reviewed album could cost $12, but I would still buy it. (I don't trust rock reviews)
Local bands - CDs sold at concerts - In this case, I am not buying the music, I'm supporting the band. I'm willing to pay about $10 to support a band I like.
Trusted national bands - Radiohead, good Jazz/Blues - I would be willing to spend $8 or so. Since I know that I like their music, I don't worry as much before purchase.
Incidentally, in the last 2 years I have only bought:
a) local bands
b) used CDs at the $8 price
Should be something for everyone!
U.S. LABELS
Geffen Records
Interscope Geffen A&M
Island Def Jam Music Group
Lost Highway Records
MCA Nashville
Mercury Nashville
Motown Records
Universal Classics
Universal Records
Universal Music Enterprises
Universal Music Latino
Universal South
Verve Music Group
OUTSIDE U.S. LABELS
Britannia Music Club (UK)
Classics & Jazz (Germany)
Decca Music Group
Def Jam (Germany)
Def Jam (UK)
Deutsche Grammophon Records
Island Records Group (UK)
Island/Zeitgeist (Germany)
Jazz Echo (Germany)
Jazz Land Records (Norway)
Mercury (UK)
Motor (Germany)
Polydor (Germany)
Polydor (UK)
Stockholm Records (Sweden)
UMTV (UK)
Universal Australia
Universal Brazil
Universal Canada
Universal Colombia
Universal Czech Rep
Universal Finland
Universal Germany
Universal Hong Kong
Universal Hungary
Universal Italy
Universal Japan
Universal Mexico
Universal Music Publishing Group
Universal Netherlands
Universal Norway
Universal Poland
Universal Russia
Universal Spain
Universal Switzerland
Universal Turkey
Urban Records (Germany)
Subtle use of word choice reveals how these execs really think of the consumers. He didn't say "entice" or "lure," no, he said "drive." Like you'd do to a herd of cattle.
The cow would be the artist. The milk would be the music. Better question would be why buy the milk at the grocery store when you can get a friend to lift a jug for you.
What is your Slash Rating?
A kiosk in all music stores, it can be a certain music label's kiosk even, where you select the songs you want, it burns them to CD, puts a neat label on them, packages it, spits it out, and charges your card $10. Very simple. They get what they want and we get what we want. I will gladly pay that for a disc full of all quality songs as opposed to a CD with one hit and 9 stinkers.
I was going to download the latest Donnas CD until I
happened upon it in Target for $9.99. I said to myself
"For that price I'm buying it."
It's all about value.
The CD kicks ass, BTW.
If you only generate 850 CD sales at $5 each, then you're probably not very good, and thus shouldn't expect to make anything at all. You should be satisfied that your hobby isn't a huge money pit like most people.
OTOH, if you've already sold 1000 copies of your album at $15 each, then I bet you would sell 5000 copies easily at $5 each. Perhaps even 10000 copies. Probably anyone who sees and enjoys your show at a club would buy it. If you play in front of a crowd of 500 people and can't sell 100 CDs at $5 each, then either everyone already has your album, or you suck. Someone who buys the first album is also much more likely to buy whatever you put out next. It's like having your business card sitting in their CD rack.
Perhaps you should try cutting down your freebies to just the local stations that are likely to play your music. Try to grow a fan base rather than bursting onto the scene.
I'm interested in where the $2500 for 1000 CDs comes from. Discmakers.com (your reference) has a price for 1000 CDs in jewel cases as $1590. Or in cardboard jackets for $990. Maybe you should buy a run of each, and mail out the cardboard jacketed ones as the freebies (cheaper mailing cost too, around $1). Offer both versions for sale side by side at a $1-2 difference.
Personal note:
I checked out your site, and the MP3 previews of songs you have up. I like the music, but your vocalist doesn't match up very well with your musical style. The vocals feel passive, while the music is more edgy. The real turnoff though, is that to buy your album would cost me $19 shipped. Having another company handling all of your sales adds another markup layer to your distribution. You should be able to take money directly, and ship them yourself. Shipping a CD should cost no more than $2. You can bubble wrap it, toss it in a 6x9 envelope and leave it for the mailman for $1.50 (first class), or send it with delivery confirmation for about $2. Or ship it in a cardboard mailer via media mail for about the same $2. Add 50 cents to cover the transaction costs. Move your sales to something more friendly to small sellers, like yahoo's sales area, or Ebay stores. Put links on your site so that people can just Paypal the money to you directly. But for god's sake, drop that $15 price! There's hundreds of artists with millions of dollars in ad revenue trying to sell their CDs for LESS than that. The mp3 previews are a great start, but a no-name band needs to be able to put a CD in my hands for about $8 for me to consider it.
Lowering prices is a good step. But are they audio CDs, or are they silvery copy-restricted discs?
When my choices are to warez songs but with questionable sound quality, buy the album on Apple's iTMS at only medium-quality encoding (for $9.99 an album), or buy a $12 original CD and be able to encode at whatever bit rate suits my fancy, I'd buy the CD.
The problem is, so many rock albums have only a few good songs on them.
Just out of curiosity, what rock albums are you speaking of? Recently I've heard/purchased: the new radiohead, hot hot heat, elefant, super furry animals, interpol, etc. I pretty much have liked all the songs... maybe I'm just easy to please though.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
If you impose a sacrifice on the artist in order to put the big record labels out of business or not support them, there exists at least a theoretical, possible beneficial outcome. What is accomplished by me not listening to the music, aside from depriving me of listening to the music? And how does my not listening to the music (thus also not buying it), not have identical consequences as me downloading the music and not paying for it, aside from the fact that I have the benefit of listening to the music, when in either case I'm not giving either the artist or the label any money?
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
...is that the DVD version of The Wall is available for under $20. You can probably even find it at Best Buy for less than the price of the CD.
CD - 44kHz 16 bit audio, soundtrack only, $33.
DVD - 96kHz 24 bit audio, entire movie, $20.
Now that's what I call overpricing.
Don't bother to buy soundtrack albums for movies like Yellow Submarine, Koyaanisqatsi, Stop Making Sense or The Wall. That's a sucker's game. You can buy the DVD for less, rip the audio, and burn your own CD.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I have to commend you on your list. Most everything is good. I haven't heard that particular Lucksmiths album (I only have 2), but they are really good, see them live if you get the oppertunity. I saw them open up for Lady Bug Transistor and they made a fan for life. That Postal Service album is just amazing. It makes me feel really happy to listen to it, and if you like it, you should check out Death Cab for Cutie. That My Bloody Valentine album suprised me a bit. An oldy but a very good album. I'm a big fan of that 'shoegazing' style of music. Do you also like Jesus and Mary Chain? If so, you should also check out the Black Rebel Motorcylce Club. If you're looking for other great stuff try: the two newest flaming lips albums, the new super furry animals, and the new blur record.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
You do have to pay that much for a CD, not a new one. But go look for an older CD by a band you like. Offhand I know that all of metallica's old CD's are in the $25 CAN price range, as are old CD's by rush(if you can find the damn things)
The only difference seems to be is that canadians get big break when the albums first come out. And then the price seems to level out.
my requirement:
5 bucks for a cd and half goes directly to the artist.
else I won't be buying shinydiscs for a long long time..
they think they can throw a few dollars at us and all will be well. [tweetie-bird-voice]they don't know us vewwy well, do they?[/tweetie-bird-voice]
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Most of what you say is true IF you want to see Top 40 artists (ie, the type that can fill an outdoor stadium or a big arena).
If your taste lean to the independent side of music (as the original poster's does, Magic Thread), then many of those reasons to stay away from concerts go away. Try one in a smaller venue that's cheaper, more intimate, where the crowd isn't overwhelming, where the band can't get away with NOT looking you in the eye, and where summer and winter don't matter.
Not true! Rush's entire back catalog has been re-mastered and released from $12-13 each. You can get them for $10 each at the HMV in downtown Toronto.
What you're experiencing is a cost premium for albums that aren't being produced anymore. But they often get released again, especially around the time an artist is being promoted for a new album like Rush is/was for Vapour Trails.
_nfotxn
I happen to have a client who is a Producer/Distributor for local bands in the Minnesota, USA area.. His production costs per CD for volume (including audio engineering, packaging, jewel case and shrink-wrap) are significantly less than even the cheapest sold in stores..
I'm talking under $2/cd. Now I can't make a claim that production/printing/packaging/distribution costs are the same between a local shop, and say universal/emi or any of the other big 5, they are not - however in terms of pure production capacity, we should all know that as volume increases, costs decrease.
Where is the dramatic increase in price taking place?
In the sale of those CD to stores, the distribution throughout the retailers, and the EXTREME mark-up generously provided by your local "record" store..
Why dosn't something like "CD Warehouse" have huge store-front displays and nationwide TV advertising campaigns? Because they don't mark-up prices like your Virgin mega-stores, or Musiclands.
This mark-up can be verified by anyone who happens to work for a music store who is in charge of purchasing. I don't have any figures to throw at you, and it's been some time since I worked for a music retailer but that doesn't mean I don't remember why I left that job - watching CD's purchased for $8 being re-sold at $20 or more was a scam I was not going to stay a part of.
If the argument is "you are hurting the artists by not purchasing the music", I think everyone will agree that trying to force customers into sales is like kicking a dead horse and expecting a derby winner to respond. It's a dead horse people, find another horse and move on. Record execs can afford to pay their artists more by giving up their 6 figure bonuses, their houses around the world, and the sick amounts of money pumped into the glam factor for pop-tarts like Justin Timberpond, Britney Pickle-Spears, and any of the other glam-pop wanna-be rockers who are so effortlessly pedastled for the talents of their production crews, and quality of octave manipulation software.
Wisest is he who knows he does not know.
fond memories of the Dead Kennedys... timeless classics like "holiday in Cambodia," "California Uber Alles," and "Nazi punks f*ck off"...
Jello Biafra is/was quite a character... thanks for bringing back those skate-punk memories (back when Tony Hawk was the same age as the rest of us, and not doing Apple commercials).
Boy, seems like such a long time ago...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I might be wrong, but don't the record companies recoup their money spent on the artist before the artist even sees a dime of it? Some times with interest? If that is the case please don't act like the record companies are helping out the artsits. And helping a few of the 'current hot' cliche is only helping those few. Look at all the other artists that aren't getting any promotion.
They say that 8 of 10 artists lose money, 1 breaks even, and 1 makes the money to support the rest. So by that assumption you'd think that at least 2 of 10 (1 of 5) artists get some decent promotion. How many bands/artists are signed by the RIAA? A thousand, maybe just hundreds, I'd think? But it's laughable to think that 1 out of 5 artists gets decent promotion.
Actually, thinking about it, what does one consider promotion? Magazine ads? Posters? Commercials? Signings? That's it, right? Surely they can't legally call payola-ed airtime "promotion", can they? Do they just count up the value of the tickets/swag they give away?
Jeffool.
...how they can sell a DVD containing full video, audio (Dolby Digital, DTS, etc.), and a ton of "extras" for as low as $10-$15 and yet the (stereo) soundtrack costs between $15 and $20.
This cut is a good start, though.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
"I'd pay $12 for a CD, but not the $18 they charge now!"
"I'd pay $10 for a CD, but not the $12 they charge now!"
"I'd pay $5 for a CD, but not the $10 they charge now!"
"I'd pay $1 for a CD, but not the $5 they charge now!"
"If I could pay $1 per song and get them a la carte, I'd be glad to pay, but not $5 for a shitty single!"
"If I could pay 50 cents per song, I'd be glad to pay, but not a dollar for one song!"
"If I could pay 10 cents per song, I'd do it, but not 50 cents like they want now!"
Do you guys even understand how pricing on products work? No, of course not, you're just a bunch of whiney self-righteous fuckheads who like to bitch about shit you don't understand while simultaneously enjoying some undeserved intellectual superiority complex. And when somebody points it out you get defensive and make fun of how they spell things.
Face it. You're a bunch of lying assholes who want everything for free and will justify it through a dork moral authority. "We're actually HELPING the artists!" You don't give a shit about these people. You want free music.
What do musicians think of this? Here's one musician's perspective.
when people started complaining about CD prices (mid-90s?), the correct response from the music industry would have been to cut music prices. Sales would boost, and musician revenues would go up with them.
when music fans were given a new way to get music much cheaper, more customizably, and more conveniently than through the already overpriced stores, the correct response for music companies again, would have been to have lowered CD prices. but they refused to act competitively. yet again, musicians' potential pay went down.
when the economic bubble burst, and america was launched into depression, the correct response should have been to lower CD prices. people have less money now, and since the value of CD's hasn't gone up, you have to lower the price to fit your customers' budgets. CD prices stayed the same though, and musicians lost more income potential income.
when DVD prices were lowered to be the same as CD prices, the correct response should have been to lower CD prices again. DVD's offer much more value for your dollar, after all. CD's have to compete! apparently not, prices stayed the same, and musicians lost out yet again.
now the record industry is suing as many music lovers as they can to prove the point that the extra value in CD's is insurance against lawsuit. they're adding value to the CDs, and trying to add cost (potential for lawsuit) to downloads. but by now, there are alternatives. we can buy from apple.com, or buymusic.com, or any of the other similar sites. again, the appropriate response according to traditional economics is to cut CD prices so that the traditional industry can compete. this would have to be a drastic cut, because they're fighting uphill against convenience and fashion. but no, still they didn't cut the prices.
bear in mind that through all of this, CD sales continued to increase. More and more people were getting access to a wider variety of CDs. More and more people were getting CD players in the first place. CD's were fashionable. So even DESPITE all this terrible management, the Recording Industry saw some great profits. Even now, with everything against them, no one is cutting a loss here. They were riding on some serious momentum.
and now, FINALLY - we're seeing some price cuts. watch for CD sales to rise... a bit musicians' incomes will appreciate the boost, this is much better than the tactics the industry has been using. at least in the short term, this is good for musicians.
but it's much too little too late. the music industry lost customers to the black market by failing to respond appropriately in at least those 5 examples above. getting those CD sales back up is impossible now that so many people have found alternatives. what the industry SHOULD be doing now is setting up as many services like buymusic.com and apple.com as they can, and pumping dollars into this new method of distribution. make this as effective a distribution tactic as possible, and THEN the industry will have a chance at recovery. THEN the musicians will start to see the benefits.
so.... what do musicians think of this? well THIS particular musician thinks that this is great in the short run, but just another dumb move in the long run.
**** You never REALLY learn to swear until you own a computer. ****
They've pissed off so many people, me included. Many people, including me, are never buying CDs again because of their legal tactics, manipulation of the government, and overall bad quality of music they have been producing in recent years.
Only the the age/time warp of my own mind...
What I was referring to is the now-large age differential between Tony and the average teenage punk-skater.
Back when I and my friends were teenage punk skaters, Tony was at least of a similar age... I don't know how the young punk skaters of today relate to a guy old enough to be their dad.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something that could be m
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something that could be m
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something that could b
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something that coul
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something that c
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something tha
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something th
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something th
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him something
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him some
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him someth
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him someth
I think CD's should be Proratered.The cost of the CD should reflect the contents of the CD.
/. would agree with this!!!
My girlfriend just bought an Evanescence album and it only had about 45 minutes worth of songs on it.
Say the price of a full 74 minute CD was $29.95 (Aud) then the price of the Evanescence album should be proratered to $18.21(Aud)
I'm sure some people out there on
The MTV syndrome has killed music. The payola has killed music. Not only are the CDs too expensive, the record companies aren't offering anything worth paying for.
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him somet
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nicknamed him somet
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. - Epictetus
We have a chance here to show the labels that they are not the boss. But to do so would take an across the board boycott of all of the labels for 6 months. People could still by new cds they could decide that they are buying indie for 6 months. That is enough time to signifigantly hurt their bottom line, and they would be forced by shareholders to do something to remedy the money hemmorrhage. Question is can we all stick together for 6 months.
From posting:
"Universal Music Group's
plans to [0]slash their CD prices to $12.98 SRP"
Yet on RIAA's site (http://www.riaa.com/news/marketingdata/cost.asp) they say:
"If CD prices had risen at the same rate as consumer prices over this period, the average retail price of a CD in 1996 would have been $33.86 instead of $12.75"
Gee...didn't the DOT-COM crash happen because people were stupidly spending money on technology that wasn't necessary? Don't know about you guys but Michael Jackson sounds the same to me on FM today as he did 15 years ago. Not my problem if he wants to use more expensive equipment for his recordings.
Maybe they should do multilevel/quality products? A kind of 'no-name/no-frills' label for these artists? I'm willing to bet you'd see the $5.99 CDs go a heck of a lot faster than any $13 ones!
I haven't bought any radiohead recently, although I want to. I just can't bring myself to by RIAA stuff. At some point, I guess I'll try to pick the albums up at a used cd store.
However, I _do_ sometimes buy RIAA cds for my girlfriend because, well, it's in my best interest to make her happy. She got the interpol cd recently, and it's got a fair number of good songs on it. Other good albums that I can think of--
Band: Crooked Fingers; Album: Red Devil Dawn, seems similar to Bruce Springsteen
Band: OK, Go; Album: I don't know the ablum name, reminds me of the Push Kings first album
Band: Magnetic Fields; Album: 69 Loves Songs - great date gift/music
I like a lot of the White Stripes recent singles that I've heard.
There are 2 bands that look pretty good on CDBaby.com - Three Day Threshhold, and Eels. I haven't bought their albums yet, but I like the music.
If you like Interpol, you might like Iggy Pop - Lust for Life. I haven't heard any other Iggy Pop albums, and apparently that album was written by David Bowie, so I don't know much about Iggy's other stuff. The first 4 songs on Lust for Life seem to me to be some of the greatest rock songs ever. The last few songs, I never listen to, so it's a great 1/2 album. Worth finding a used/cheap copy.
Blues - Howlin' Wolf - The Real Folk Blues
Jazz - Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um
I need to find out about these "Hot Hot Heat", "Elefant" and "Super Furry Animals" of which you speak.
I got a CD from a kid on my dorm floor last year of his punk-ish band. He only charged $5 and this was a nice printed CD in a jewel case. I don't even think it was a gold CD.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Interesting. Because a couple years ago, they were nigh on impossible to find. I hope when they remastered them they didn't boost the levels too high resulting in mad amounts of clipping like they did to vapor trails.
Simmer down there Lennon. The Record industry still makes a profit off of iTMS-sold songs, so for your purposes it is not an alternative. In fact, you're only real option is to download and potentially hurt the artists or to listen exclusively to small-label or unsigned bands/artists. Oh, and then there is Phish, but I have a feeling that they aren't really up your alley.
Why not simply, DON'T BUY CRAPPY MUSIC/MOVIES? Don't buy them. Don't buy the soundtrack to a crappy movie. Don't request that "one good song" on the radio. Don't encourage them. Don't download them either. When the RIAA has nobody left to blame but their own damned selves, then they will change the game. If you don't want it, you don't have to buy it. Remember that.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!