Requiem For The Record Store

Rick Zeman writes "The Washington Post has an article (minimal registration required) in which record stores ('Daddy, what's a record?') are preparing for their own demises. They attribute this to the big box stores (Best Buy, etc), online retailers (Amazon, etc) and, you guessed it, downloading, both illegal and legal. 'The fat lady is warming up, but she's not exactly singing,' says one retailer, knowing that he still has a few more years until his business is totally moribund." Get it while it's hot -- soon, the Washington Post is switching to a more annoying registration system.

Comments

Re:Why don't they do the obvious?

[tealover]

Unfortunately for the record stores, they are nothing more than the middleman. They do not own the music they sell, they merely own the discs the music is pressed on.

This means they do not have th freedom to experiment in the manner you suggested. They need approval from the various music companies that are loathe to try anything new that does not involve legislation or lobbying. Getting all music companies to agree on any given plan is very difficult.

RTFA

[The Wicked Priest]

One of the troubled chains mentioned in the article tried to do exactly that. But they were stymied by the record companies.