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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
They don't get $12.98, the stores do. They get a little less than that. I wonder what the new CDs will cost at Cheap-CDs, which sells CDs at near wholesale prices. That should give you a better idea of how much profit the record companies are making.
Explain 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?
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
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.
Best Buy can suck it.
Sometime during the late 90's I purchased a copy of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album for around $20.
Over the weekend, I was in Best Buy hell (waiting with a friend while he attempted to buy a 50" DLP HDTV without being forced into buying a $400 power strip...) and wandered over to the CD racks, having since lost the copy of The Wall which I'd bought half a decade ago.
They wanted... $33.
Fuck that -- if it were $15, I'd have considered just caving and buying the damned thing again (it's a double album, and a bloody good one at that).
If CDs were $3-$5 apiece (especially older ones), I'd have a huge legal collection. 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 which was doubtlessly produced for less than $3 and which cost me $20 when I legally bought it before.
This is a start, but come on, folks -- tapes used to be cheaper than this, and they cost much more to produce. I'll cheer when they're under $5 per album, and there are talks of shortening the length of copyright protection.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
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.