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RIAA's Nasty Easter Egg
Bruha writes "It appears the RIAA is being very low key about the fact that the five major labels think that 99 cents per song is too cheap, and are discussing a price hike that would increase the tariff to $1.25 up to $2.99 per song. I was a huge fan of the 99c per song, but if they think that they can raise the price on me just because I don't buy full CDs anymore, they've got another thing coming. Suggestion: make good CDs, and maybe I'll buy the whole thing."
That would put an eleven track cd at $33 depending on exactly how high they get the rate to be per song. As the article points out no online store is really make a profit as it is, if you increase the price of songs some stores will simply have to shutdown. By driving the price up I would bet they will make less money, as it will just make it more worthwhile for piracy. Someone might not mind paying $0.99 a song and have it instantly, but if you make it three times that many people will find other ways to get their music.
Are there only four songs on the album? I'll pay $.99. I won't pay $3. Listen up, RIAA.
If the market will bear $2.99 CD's then they have the right to sell at that price. Don't like it? Don't buy. Unfortunately for you, there are millions of people who WILL pay the price.
Of course this was going to happen.
If you thought it would last, you're either really stupid, really naive, or really really optomistic.
RIAA was fined for price fixing to make more money. They are all about money, not music or entertainment.
Putting the romance back into necromancer.
When you download you just get the tracks you like.
I think the music industry is afraid thier "bundling" days are over!
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
Thats why i don't buy them. You should be able to buy just the song you want, and you should be able to buy it direct from the artist. That way they could set their own prices.
Labels are like Microsoft, all about getting some more money...
Jeoin
Well, the RIAA, like every other cartel, just wants to charge what they think the market will bear. People don't pay $20 odd per CD anymore, or at least, they perceive the price to be too high.
So, after the initial offering, they'll try to gouge more money out from the consumers of online stores. Why don't you think that for some, $1.25 is still going to be worth the price ? If you don't like it, vote with your wallets and don't buy it.
What, you don't think CDs started at $20 a pop, did you ?
maybe this is an attempt to increase piracy thus they can sue more people?
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
don't know when a good thing is staring them in the face. Why not force their artists to sell ALL their songs ONLY for 99 cents a song? (Won't happen, but still.) Raising the prices of these songs will simply provide a similar reason to the original exodus to Kazaa/Napster. They're winning people away from filesharing, and if they go through with this they're sending them back.
I use itunes because my apartment blocks p2p traffic. However, I don't mind the price as I have purchased some songs that I have been wanting for a while, plus I never have to wait or search around for that song. I can deal with the limitations of itunes on what I can do with the purchased music. The only problem right now is selection. However, if at any time the price of a song goes higher than $.99, you can kiss my ass goodbye.
It's too much work to get a real band together that can produce 50 great songs in a career.
umm....didn't the RIAA just have to fess up a zillion $13 checks because they were found guilty of price fixing?
How is this different? (except that they have the balls to tell beforehand)
as well as being a quite possibly miserable business decision, if the alternative for the consumer is piracy. However, looking at any other industry, setting prices per song should be 3 or 4 times as expensive as the individual songs would be on a CD.
It makes no sense to sell a $15 or $20 CD's songs, of which there are between 10 and 20, for 99c each, simply because in that case, there is no incentive to buy the CD. Volume discounting makes perfect sense, andhaving a cheaper alternative if you buy per song is bad business for them, as much as you want to complain about it.
There is altogether too much whining about the RIAA deciding that it has a legitamite, legal rights to profits they generate through their research, promotion, and effort. While they may be robber barons, or jerks, they do have a right to protect themselves from the market that wants to pay nothing.
The Information may want to be free, but it also wants to be expensive, and it is clear that although the paradigm the RIAA works with is unfair, and failing, the fact that they are attempting to re-work it to be usable with technology is not a bad thing.
OK, now that I've said it, you can mod this post to hell. I have the Karma to burn. And no, I don't work for the RIAA, but I decided that I can live without illegal music, rather than steal it, or help out the RIAA.
I'm a concientious
> We con physically steal the music from stores.
Regardless of your opinion on the issue of copyright infringement or increased prices, stealing a piece of property is "wrong" (isn't it?).
When you or someone else voluntarily copies their music and gives it to others, they are not losing anything. If you steal a CD, somebody has lost their physical property, however worthless it may be (20 cent piece of plastic).
It's important to make this distinction, since too many people are trying to link the two together.
you can't apply commodity logic to art.
There is no way to get the music of signed artists except through the companies they have signed for. If it's just about lifestyle, and not the music, then fair enough. You can choose a different brand. But if it's about the music, then tough. They have a monopoly on that person's / group's music.
Ok, I think this story was posted before, but I want my rant so I am posting anyway...
Can anybody tell me exactly how this ISN'T price fixing? Eh? As far as I know, the whole iTunes thing is doing pretty well, and $0.99/song seems like a pretty fair price to me, considering how you just get a DRM'd file, no CD case or nice insert/booklet thing or whatever. This move just looks like the RIAA is some kind of cartel or something, who just try to keep prices as high as they can get away with because they have a stranglehold on the market... oh, oh, hang on, is that EXACTLY WHAT IT FRICKING WELL IS?
I'm truly sorry if there is some reason apart from lust for coinage that means they have to raise the price, like bandwidth has suddenly become more expensive, or the money generated does not leave the artist with enough money to live or something like that, but to this customer, it almost looks criminal.
Bastards, I'll laugh when you're dead, RIAA, and I'll never pay you a penny again.
--
Power to the Peaceful
There are, and people will always make music, (Whether they're paid to or not. It's art, remember) but they've got harder to find under wave after wave of re-released pop-idol cover moany dross.
Seriously, what CDs are we listening to here? Sure, the top-40 CDs are single + filler... and it's our buying habits that have justified these economics.
Step a tiny bit off the beaten path and you'll find all sorts of well-known-but-not-huge-commercial-success artists with great albums, not tracks.
I was amazed that they ever used the flat-rate-pricing. Who would pay the same price for Picasso as some amatuer work (regardless of merit). Or in young lingo, the same price for a T-shirt by Abercromie or by K-Mart.
Probably redundant. Oh well...
I occasionally buy music from the iTunes store because it's cheaper and I don't have to get every track. If they hike it up to this new proposed price range, buying half the songs on a CD will practically cost as much as the whole disc would in a regular store. So what's the point of buying them online anymore? Convenience alone is not a big enough motivator for spending more money for lower quality audio that doesn't come with a physical backup copy.
If they raise prices this much they're not going to increase profit from online music sales, they're going to kill online music sales. Of course that's probably what they'd like anyway.
Okay.
To be consistent you must apply the same rules to every market, so you have no right bitching the next time OPEC decides to cap production to drive up oil prices.
What the market will bear, right?
What you and too many others here don't understand or realize is that it is NOT that easy.
Let's figure up the average for recording a full-length CD. If you get a deal cut for the studio time you might get 3 days at $1200, which would be $50 an hour. We'll assume that mixing is thrown into that figure to simplify matters. Toss in $500 or so for mastering, and it's time for artwork.
You could do it yourself, but more than likely you want to get someone to do it for you. For a quality CD layout with a multi-page booklet you're probably looking at $300, maybe more. We're up to $2000 and haven't even started duplication...
Which we'll do now. Printed CD, not stickers. Multi-page color booklet. Standard jewel cases. Figure $1200 total for 500 CD's (including extras. I got this figure from oasiscd.com).
$3200. That's a fucking FORTUNE to most people, let alone guys that spend 18 hours a day in a van moving from gig to gig hoping that the manager of the club they're playing tonight doesn't fuck them out of their money so they can eat and gas up the van.
It's not as easy as 'Just do it yourself' all the time. Most artists HAVE to have a label to forward them cash to produce recordings. End of story.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Unfortunatly this is win win for them:
Maybe, ya might just think, it is the sleasiness and questionable practices of these companies that drove people away from honest purchases? Somehow there is a lot less guilt when you steal from the theif. . . .Don't bet on it. I mean, um, actually, that's about the price they tried to put on singles. Guess what? These are singles. Hint: singles aren't selling real well right now...
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"When I hear stories of the RIAA talking about music sales going down due to file sharing, I get really tired about the other side of the story not being discussed.
:)
:)
I own nearly 200 CDs and have bought 4 in the last year or so. Why has my purchase rate dropped by 2/3 or so?
1) I'm already happy with what I have.
2) Changing perception of how much music is really worth to me -- not in terms of "because I can get it for free" but just in terms of its price relative to other things I want to do in my life. Looking through my already-existing collection I can look at each CD and go "Was that really worth $20?" I honestly feel like maybe 20% of it was worth it. Maybe that makes me a dumber buyer than most.
3) Second thoughts every time I'm in a CD shop and think about how the RIAA treats file traders. I understand that what's being done is illegal, but I don't agree with assuming that they've caused $90,000 in damage by sharing one song with 14 downloads in the last month.
4) Access to Internet radio which gives me far more of an opportunity to listen to the genres of music I enjoy with far, far, far less ads.
I understand that the popularity of Internet radio might change the ad ratio in the future, but while my choice in the FM radio is limited, my choices online are not.
5) Using my local library for movies, books, and music. I understand that some people don't live in a large city and can't take advantage of this, but those who are might want to give it a try. The city I live in allows me to reserve an item from any library in the greater metropolitain area and have it sent to the library closest to where I live. Returns work the same way.
The library might not have the CD of a random indie group you heard at a bar/club/rave last night, and some of the waits for a reservation can be long (think in terms of half a year for some items -- this is balanced out by the fact that you can book 50 things at a time) but they can help with some needs
--
I was considering buying music online but the sound quality and the idea that I didn't really have much more than an ephemeral/virtual "proof of purchase" were those that stopped me (with a CD, you can consider ownership of the physical item a proof of purchase in a sense). Adding a ludicrous price to the equation doesn't help.
Anyway, the market will sort itself out. It should be an interesting decade for music
The existance of copyright law prevents it from actually being a free market. As I'm sure has been pointed out several times, a single song is a unique commodity, there are not multiple sources. So sources cannot compete, and without competition, the price will not necessarily decrease to the minimal possible price the market can bear.
that cannot happen, the way they have XM radio set up currently.
Actually it can.... even on broadcast FM. Think Tivo for radio. You'd have a lot of persistent storage in your car stereo -- a 4 GB Flash drive would hold 1,000 songs' worth -- and a smart, low-power-drain receiver that would seek out and record the songs you've told it to listen for.
Skipping commercials and idiotic station-ID blurbs (buzz beep buzz Q102 FM ROCKZZZ!!!!11!! buzz buzz orchestra-hit beep buzz sound-of-toilet-flushing beep buzz) would be pretty easy, too. The receiver would be equipped with a long-term correlator that would basically say, "If I've heard this segment of audio within the last 24 hours, don't record it."
Something like this would have the potential to make radio not suck... which in this day and age would take nothing short of magic.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
And isn't this monopolistic behavior?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The question is, What can we do about it? I've got a list of starting suggestions:
- Do not share RIAA-0wn3d music on P2P networks. First of all, if it's all such bad music (as is endlessly stated to be the reason for falling CD sales), why are you sharing it? Second, even though you may have legitimate reasons for sharing it, doing so plays straight into the hands of the RIAA. If the amount of traffic on P2P networks suddenly plunges for a prolonged period of time and CD sales continue to slip, that's a pretty solid piece of evidence that P2P is not the problem. If people chant that they sell worthless pap and then go get it anyway, that sends a message that we DO want their music, we just don't want to pay. Listen to indie music and radio stations instead.
- Don't listen to ClearChannel because they broadcast the same music found on CD's, and increased viewership will again send the message that we DO want their music, we just don't want to pay; Wrong message
:(.
- Tell your friends and family! Saying this here is just preaching to the choir. Ranting and raving to Slashdot about what a bunch of anal raping bastards the RIAA and their congressional cronies are does not help.
The point here is that the RIAA is claiming that falling CD sales are caused by rampant, unpaid sharing of their music on the Internet. As long as the sharing continues, judges and congresspersons will continue to believe them. If the sharing stops and sales keep dropping, at least some officials will have to see through their argument.On a lighter note, This is what their easter egg makes me think of.
$.50 a track
Don't you think that's more than a little unrealistic? Fifty cents a track means a total cost of less than six dollars for most albums. You can pay more than that for a six-pack of decent beer, and it certainly won't last as long as a good album.
I've never understood what people's problem is with paying $10-15 per CD. I have at least a hundred that I bought ten years ago that I still like. How many products in that price range deliver that kind of long-term value, besides film and music?
If I were a professional musician, and my alleged "fans" would only pay fifty cents for their favourite track, I would pack up and quit because it would be so insulting. You can't even buy a soda pop from a vending machine for that little anymore.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Unfortunately for us this unfair monopoly has all of the advantages of time and law. With almost unlimited copyright extensions, the music industry holds almost every major song every written in it's iron fist.
True capitalism allows for unfettered and equal access to competition. This certainly is not the case here where they toy with pricing simply because NO ONE ELSE CAN!
The RIAA is the OPEC of music.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The "pirating" we are seeing is only popular because
...IT'S FREE
I was thinking of converting to paganism, but where the hell can you find sacrificial virgins these days?
Oh, yeah NPR, CBC and BBC via Real Streams, too..
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
First off, the summary:
Suggestion: make good CDs, and maybe I'll buy the whole thing.
I'm sick of pointing this out--kids today LOVE the music coming out. The fogies at Slashdot think that their niche opinion represent the majority. Today's computer users aren't downloading music because they don't like the whole albums--they're downloading because it's free and available.
Well, considering that the RIAA still hasn't figured out that the ridiculous prices CDs sell for is one of the major reasons why illegal filesharing became so popular in the first place, I'm somehow not surprised that they don't realize this point, either.
Same thing. Illegal piracy isn't popular because of "ridiculous prices." It's popular because it's convenient and everywhere, and it lets you rip off albums for free. They RAR up whole band discographies now and stick 'em up on eMule.
Slashdot wants you to believe that piracy is justified because CDs are overpriced (they're $12.99 at my store...that money covers a lot more than the pressing of the CD), that the RIAA is somehow bad for going after copyright infringers (which is exactly what Slashdotters were saying they should do when Napster was being sued), and that they somehow rip off artists even though artists willingly sign their contracts, shit on gold toilets, and never asked you for your "help" in ripping them off.
The anti-RIAA propoganda around this place is so annoying. Look at the headline--raising the price of downloads by a dollar is suddenly a "nasty easter egg." Slashdotters think their niche opinions represent the majority. You guys need to get off this site and see the rest of the world. ADMIT THE TRUTH--those millions of traders aren't using Kazaa to "sample" albums, they're not using it because they have some sort of righteous opposition to something called the "RIAA"--they're using Kazaa to download music without paying for it. People have yet to offer a valid legal or moral justification for ripping artists off.
But go ahead and post another anti-RIAA article, then after that another anti-Microsoft article. Recycle, repeat.
Nah, I doubt it. I remember seeing a sig somewhere once that said "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity" ;-)
The people posting about killing online music sales or proposing that the labels produce higher quality music are completely missing the point. The whole aregument is based on the lie that the record labels are about the production of music.
The record industry is about controlling how music and what music is able to make it to your ears. The fact that they want to raise the price so online music is a marginal service aimed only at the overmoneyed is an expression of this desire to control. Itunes, Napster, MusicMatch are now effectively record labels. The next step is for them to cut deals with the artists directly.
The last thing record companies want is anyone to interfere with their indenture of recording artists. For most musicians record contracts are proof that slavery was not abolished by lincoln. The latest gem from the record companies is just an acknowledgement that they are deaply worried that digital technologies are disrupting their traditional tactics of ripping off the consumer and artist alike.
The single truly annoying thing about this is how our elected officials from both parties have done absolutely nothing but protect the Labels right to be stupid.
$3200. That's a fucking FORTUNE to most people, let alone guys that spend 18 hours a day in a van moving from gig to gig hoping that the manager of the club they're playing tonight doesn't fuck them out of their money so they can eat and gas up the van.
Mod parent up.
Most independent musicians I know are lucky to make about $100 playing a show. When a couple of them went on tour a few years ago, they actually *lost* money the whole time, because it was so expensive to tour up and down the west coast. This wasn't living the rockstar lifestyle, either. They were throwing down sleeping bags on the side of the road at night because motels would have been too expensive.
Like it or not, being a major label band has its benefits. You don't see Evanescence getting kicked offstage after four songs because the club's sound guy is an asshole, or having to threaten physical violence to get more than 50% of the payment for the show they were "guaranteed."
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Good riddance. And you wouldn't be called a "professional musician" in that case, you'd be called a "recording artist" who depends on artificial-scarcity enforcement to make money as your first priority.
A real musician would be playing for the love of it and building human relationships with actual fans who would have no problem paying for fresh and scarce concerts, scarce physical merchandise, and CDs-as-a-patronage-thankyou.
You can't even buy a soda pop from a vending machine for that little anymore.
And if you could make an exact molecular copy of a can of Coke for next to nothing (and you soon will), would you feel bad that CocaCola (and WalMart, and the rest) are now being "ripped off"? CocaCola would have to reinvent themselves by having to work again ... by continually coming up with new recipes. Of course, they'd never be a giant sugar-water-advertising-&-distribution company again (just like the RIAA is going to have to downsize).
--
Power to the Peaceful
It's impossible to contribute to that need. The worst the parent pirate can do is fail to drop money on a CD or paid download. But there are myriad reasons why he might have done that. "Pirating" the song isn't a direct contribution to anything but his possession of a copy of it. There is no directly associated loss, because even if we move to a police state system where it's completely impossible to procure the music industry's recorded audio without paying, the pirate of today may simply eschew the product altogether.
Uh, the incease in prices is precisely consistent with the argument that many Slashdotters make, which is that an $18 CD contains only a few good tracks.
Some songs should cost $3 or $4, while others (the much-maligned filler tracks) should cost $0.30. The songs are not all of the same quality and are not demanded equally, and so the prices should not all be identical.
Amazing magic tricks
The really alluring thing about on-line music sales is that it offers the opportunity for a much, much larger portion of the music sales proceeds to go back to the artist - I can assure you that any musician would be absolutely thrilled to see even $.25 per track.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
``the ridiculous prices CDs sell for is one of the major reasons why illegal filesharing became so popular in the first place''
For me, it's more a convenience argument. I don't have to go out to the store, browse the collection, discover that they don't have what I'm looking for, go to another store, repeat. Or order CDs online, several at a time so I won't add 100% to the price for shipping charges, which requires me to assemble a list of albums that I want, and typically doesn't enable to me to try before I buy. Or consider if it's worth it to buy the whole 10 track album just for those few really good tracks. And then rip and encode so I can just play it without having to swap CDs.
Instead, I go to a site where I can listen to samples, then pay (if someone gives me something I like, I don't mind giving them something they like) and download the songs that I like, and start listening.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Sorry, this is one of the stupidest peices of crap I've heard in a long time. steal if you want. You can even call it passive resistance. please, however, don't try and pass off stealing as a duty. You have desires, as do I. I choose not to act on my desire to track you down and make the world one less person stupider, and you can resist your desire to steal, or listen to music you are morally opposed to.
Or is this about the free lunch that no-one wants to give you?
I'm a concientious
Capitalism is based on the free market.
If the five biggest labels think that $2.99 is a correct price, then it's a price fixing which contradicts the free market...
They must feel awfully confident that Digital Rights Management would work
Foolishly confident. I can prove that digital restrictions management does not prevent lawfully massaging a restricted phonorecord to the point where unlawful reproduction and distribution of the work over a P2P network is trivial. Given a PC authorized to play a DRM'd file and a second PC, both with sound cards, I can run an analog cable from one sound card to another and start Audacity on the second. This so-called analog hole introduces much less audible noise than the WMA encoder introduced.
Almost likewise with video; I can copy an audiovisual work from a VHS or DVD machine through a $30 video stabilizer to another VHS machine. But unlike video, audio remains at acceptable fidelity even after one trip through the analog hole.
Is how these people spout as if free market economic theory were the solution to all problems, yet appear to not understand a number of very basic things about it. For example, the simple fact that even according to the theory, free market economic theory ceases to function in the presence of a monopoly or cartel.
The RIAA is a classical textbook case of a cartel. The rules the music industry is operating by are no longer located in the chapter in the microeconomics textbook labelled "free market capitalism".
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That's not capitalism. Capitalism is where they charge $2.99, you don't like it, so you buy from SOMEBODY ELSE at a LOWER PRICE. That process continues until it's impossible to produce the song any cheaper.
They've been selling at 99c for ages. Now they are discussing a unilateral hike of 200%. That should be your first warning sign that capitalism is not working here! Where are the other online vendors selling the same songs at 50c? Or the same songs at 10c? If 10c is unrealistic (maybe it is but I suspect it isn't) then THE MARKET will find the actual sustainable pricepoint. The very second you hear that the RIAA is deciding the "sustainable" pricepoint instead of the market is the very same second you should have realised this is not capitalism. This is a cartel.
If capitalism was working then the prices would have dropped for music. That's how it works in every other industry. Company A makes steel bars for $1/bar at 10% profit. Company B thinks 5% profit is sufficient and sells bars for 99c/bar. Company A decreases their production costs (perhaps by innovating new techniques) and sells bars for 95c/bar. THAT is capitalism. It's using THE MARKET to drive innovation, reduce costs, self-regulate the quantity of production, while still producing the cheapest goods.
In the music industry the prices have gone up and up and up. Even faster than inflation. While production costs have gone down - a music studio and CD production facility can be built in your spare bedroom for under $10k these days, compared to $10s of millions only 2 decades ago - the CD prices have not dropped. Why? Because this isn't capitalism! Production costs are down, yet prices are up. Market is flooded with alternatives, yet prices are up. Look at the big picture. It's NOT CAPITALISM.
So if I want your credit card and social security numbers and you refuse to sell them to me at a price I deem reasonable, it's my duty to steal them from you?
Some music store out there needs to implement an algorithm that changes the price of a song based on demand in realtime in order to *maximize* profit. Hell, if I ran any e-shop of any type, I would do this. The business is happy because they are raking in as much dough as possible and the populace is happy because they are effectively setting the price. I'll be able to get all the old music I like for something like .10 a track while the common pop addict will pay $4 for the lastest Timberlake single.
Let your money speak for you. Buy music from independant, non-RIAA affiliated labels. Hurt the RIAA where it most counts, their labels bottom lines. Also, don't download pirated RIAA labelled music, then they have no choice BUT to rethink their greed, and change their treatment of their customer base, thats you, the customer, speaking with your dollars.
Your last paragraph shows how little you know about what it's like for touring bands.
First, not all labels are corporations. The OVERWHELMING majority of labels are simply people that are involved in the local scene that have a bit of money. To these dudes, putting $3000 on a credit card and paying it off sometime soon is feasible. They can afford to go long-term because they know they'll get their money back.
But for the bands? Most of the bands out there have a hard time even making their rent. They have to find new jobs when tours are over, then quit them as soon as the next tour starts up. Vans are usually borrowed, sometimes they're owned by one of the band members. Equipment is something you have to have before you even consider touring. That's something you get out of the way before you hit the road. But once you do, money is tight. Putting $3000 on a credit card is out of the question. For a lot of these guys, that's a year's worth of rent.
Two shows a week? Uh... no. If you want to do stupid shit like EAT and sleep someplace with a bed, you're doing five shows a week, MINIMUM. We're talking about traveling across the US, not England. Texas alone is bigger than most countries. Van mileage sucks, and gas isn't cheap. On a recent tour the band High on Fire drove from Houston to Austin to Fort Worth to Austin to San Antonio to (IIRC) New Orleans. That's about 2000 miles of driving in 7 days time. Also, good luck selling 10 CD's at a show. One to three per show is a much more realistic number. Maybe someone will buy a shirt too.
The fact of the matter is, it is NOT a realistic alternative for the majority of REAL, TOURING bands to completely fund themselves. Some can do it, most can't.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
The other night I saw an infomercial for an album featuring "boy bands" from the 1950s. I'm sure people like you were saying the same thing back then.
So multiple providers of the same product are colluding to increase prices?
These companies are not untouchable like OPEC. They do NOT control a resource that, if withheld, will ruin our nation within the week.
Send Mr. Ashcroft a complaint. Inform him that you would like the DOJ to look into this matter... what these corporations are doing is overtly criminal. Hell, tell your Congressman and Senators, your Mayor, Governor and the President. Get every level of every branch of your government on this fucker.
If you don't, it means you are too lazy, too disenfranchised or too apathetic to even alert the bureaucracy that _you_ pay for, that is charged with aggressively prosecuting such flagrantly abusive violations of Federal law. If you are indeed that stone-helpless, you have only yourself to blame and you _will_ continue to spend your life complaining about the saddle on your back.
On iTunes, it costs nearly $24 for Reubenstein's rendition of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. On the original CD, each 'variation' (a short musical segment in the whole work) is on its own track for easier seeking (as the work is about 20 minutes long). They are not separate songs, just different parts of an overall work. Some are only about 10 seconds in lenght, too.
The reason I don't buy music online (besides my 50 or so free tracks, thanks to Pepsi making it impossible to lose!) is I think $0.99 is too expensive for a track. It's just as bad as shelling out $17 for one at the music store. If they think people are going to buy tracks for $2.50, think again. But of course, the RIAA has never been in touch with consumers, so it's unlikely they'd start now...
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
OK, at first glance, this can't be true, why would prices go up, when costs go down?
But look at it from a historical perspective!
When CD's replaced vinyl, prices went up, since the cost of production in the early transition were higher.
But afterwards, production cost would be a lot less, and then prices would fall below vinyl.
But surprise surprise: prices only went up up up.
Now consider that with digital distribution, production costs once more will go down. Not only that, but even in the early transition period, costs are down. And not even factoring in distribution, reprinting costs, art-work, etc...
Well, considering the lessons learned from the CD experience, there's only one logical conclusion. The price MUST go up. And a lot.
Can't you see?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
I believe I've heard the labels were sued for doing this kind of thing with cd's.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Don't you think [fifty cents per rack] more than a little unrealistic? Fifty cents a track means a total cost of less than six dollars for most albums. You can pay more than that for a six-pack of decent beer, and it certainly won't last as long as a good album.
I have no idea the man-hours required to produce an album.
Basically, I guess it comes down to composition, rehearsal and playing costs, and production costs. Classical music probably costs a bit less given most of the works are already composed and perhaps, depending on the arrangement, royalty free, and then probably costs a bit more as a more performers -- in some cases whole orchestras, choruses, and opera singers -- are required.
But in either case, I suspect the total man-hours devoted to the album itself (and not promotion, gigs, etc.) probably compares to, or is less than, the man-hours required, on the part of author and editor and publishing house, to produce a novel.
Hardback novels are sold for something between twenty and forty dollars, but most of the novels I own are in softcover. These days, the cost of a softcover novel is about $7 or $8, or about half the cost of a CD.
As for comparing the two by hours of use, an average album probably gets a single play of an hour at most, an average novel a single read of three to six hours.
Admittedly, a really good album probably gets played more hours than a really good novel gets read and re-read, although some of my favorite albums I've re-read more times than I can recall.
Perhaps the record companies could emulate the book publishers, and publish mp3 downloads like softcover books: a year after the "hardcopy" CD has been published? Let those anxious to get the trendy music immediately pay a premium, and let squares like me buy from a cheaper online back-catalogue?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Independent artists exist, many of them, but few are rich. It's hard to get really rich when you don't have a massive support organization making lots of money.
For the money the RIAA spends on one artist, we could fund 1,000 independent artists who would almost certianly make better music. And each of them would make 1/1,000th the total profit.
In fact, those artists are out there, and you've never heard of them. Yeah, you've probably heard of the ones local to your house, but you've never heard this great band in Minneapolis who... the point is, we're talking about the RIAA because you've heard of the RIAA, and the artists the RIAA supports.
There are some resources that are scarce. Not the artists, who are essentially free (if it's not your band it'll be any of ten thousand other bands) but the TV and radio airtime (for both ads and for the music itself), for billboards, for promotional tours. Even the front page of iTunes is a limited commodity. The commodities are limited and they help sell records. Which means that who spends the money, makes the money. That's the RIAA. Those things allow a few bands to get really rich, and a few executives to get really rich.
Who wants to hear it? Well, a lot of people, apparently. Not me, and not you, but an awful, awful lot of other people. So many, in fact, that the RIAA simply doesn't give a rat's ass what you want from music.
Nor do they care much about the independent artists. Let 'em produce, and let them collectively make 1% of the total money spent on music. If you don't think to look for them on iTunes, you don't buy their music. Simple as that.
$3200. That's a fucking FORTUNE to most people
Holy fuck! I make that much in two weeks, and so do many of the people who read slashdot... Breakeven on those 500 CDs would be something like $6.40. Charge $10 each and that's $1,800 profit, easy. I, and many people like me, would'd be more than willing to pay $3,200 for production costs on a band that we like if we got an even 50/50 split of the profits... (Aw heck, how about a 95/5 split and you are still better off than going with a recording label!)
Suggestion: make good CDs, and maybe I'll buy the whole thing.
/. to suggest actually following the law. The admins see some inciteful dribble from some psycho flannel wearing nerdboy and post it as a headline like it's some late breaking issue; followed by 1000 posts from dumb people who either can't think for themselves or are trolling to get karma. What gets accomplished? Not much except a few geeks get a warm feeling down there while justifying piracy.
Bruha needs to get off his little soap box and realize the world isn't all about him. If you don't like the prices, don't buy. That does not give you license to steal the property of others.
I know, I know.. It's so unpopular on
Just because it's popular, does not make it cool. For example: Brittany Spears
charging by length would encourage artists to make their songs longer for no good reason. "you don't have to buy it" - no, but it's a capitalistic world: the large majority of artists will do it to some extent.
I hate to be one of those "it was better when..." kind of people but...
No one puts a quality ALBUM (or CD) out anymore. Can anyone think of anything that come close in quality to the Who's "Who's Next" album? If there was something being put out of this quality I would buy it.
i think it's YOU who missed MY point.
they don't want to *just* control distribution of their music.
they want to control distribution of ALL music.
they want to control all possible distribution methods.
as long as they want to take over independent music, i will 'take over' their music by downloading it. as long as they feel it's right to screw over the actual artists, while parroting "save the starving artists", i will do as i wish.
All your argument is is that there are good substitutes for Britney's music. However, most your mentioned substitutes fall into monopolies controlled by other RIAA members. The problem is, when you have a collection of monopolies (copyrighted goods, by definition, are a temporary monopoly granted to the author; each RIAA member, then, is a multi-monpolist) an oligarchy forms. And the RIAA representing all these various companies together make a cartel. The problem is, cartels price fixing is clearly illegal, since all RIAA members charging the same price upon distributors is obviously a conspiracy to restraint trade/commerce (people have fixed income, therefore there will be logically less online music bought) . And you'll notice that book publishers, on the other hand, wouldn't all raise their books prices at the same time unless there was some good reason (like there was a writers strike, or the ink crop (do they still use ink from plants?) had a drought that limits yields) because, as you mentioned, there are substitute goods available for most books which would mean any single publisher upping the price would likely me less profits. Do you think the DOJ is going to do anything about all the RIAA members, though?
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Choose from over 500,000 songs from all genres of music.
Right, it's not my favorite artists or songs I'm looking for, it's my favoritie genre.
Collect your favorite tracks and tune into your own playlists.
Okay. Computers are neat, huh?
Download music on up to 3 PCs--for online and offline listening.
So the parent who wanted to listen to music in their car now has to find a pc with a car radio form factor?
Get more tracks for less when you buy in bulk through Napster's Track Packs.
The parent was asking for a flat rate for as much music as they wanted, not a reduced bulk rate.
Plug into over 50 different commercial-free stations that are customized to your favorite genres.
What is it with this genre thing? I don't like musical genres, I like music that I like.
Set up and save tracks to your own playlists and share them with others.
Okay. Computers are neat- wait a minute this is almost just like a previous bullet point!
Build your own custom radio station.
Would this radio station almost have the funtionality of saving my own playlists and sharing them with others?
and more...
Let me guess- we can download music? Off the internet? And then the music files are in the computer?
The Register article says "The Wall Street Journal reports that the major five labels think that 99 cents per song is too cheap, and are discussing a price hike that would increase the tariff to $1.25 up to $2.99 per song."
Huh?! Are they discussing it jointly or separately within each record company? If the former is the case, that's illegal price fixing in the US. Does anyone have the original WSJ article at hand to see what it really says? Or am I missing something fundamental here?
"How many products in that price range deliver that kind of long-term value, besides film and music?"
Ever heard of a "book?"
+++ATH0
I'm a huge fan of the iTunes music store.. So huge, in fact, that I'm actually PURCHASING music through this outstanding service and bought myself a 20 gig ipod. My inclination is hardly to convince the world to pay for their music vs. downloading them ilegally; rather it's because I happen to like paying only $10 for an album. I'm a bargain hunter.
It was bad enough that the RIAA shunned legal digital downloads long enough for the pirates to take over the industry. Add to that their decision to continually fight a customer-driven demand for a more flexible (and cheaper) medium of distribution.. Now just when something out there is working, they want to jack the price up to a level that will send all of those wouldbe legal customers back to the P2P world using anonymousnetworks.
The RIAA needs to wake up and recognize their issues here.. Their customers want a more flexible delivery mechanism, they want to pay less, and need the flexibility they currently have with a CD. Apple accomplished much of this with their product, which the RIAA will subsequently destroy with their greedy price increases.
Let's face it - in business customers drive the industry. When Americans stopped buying domestics, the industry responded with better products that met customer needs. When New Coke flopped, Coca Cola wisely switched back to the old formula.
The RIAA and its member companies had an opportunity in 1997 when illegal MP3's first surfaced to nip this problem. The early adopters were trading heavily on the IRC network, which led the rise of Napster and later Kazaa. These networks suceeded because it was just so darn tough for file traders to find the songs they were looking for. Had the RIAA member companies set up a site at any point between 1997 and 2000 (even without digital rights management), they could have easily circumvented the rise of these illegal networks. CD's themselves were insecure enough to create this massive proliferation in the first place!!
Fight them. Write to them and tell them what a stupid decision this is.
www.lonseidman.com
Equally true is the fact that they have no right to expect us to buy music if they do not meet the customer's expectations of how it exists, the quality, how it is distributed and the cost.
The customer is always right. Until the labels make something we want to buy, we don't owe them a goddamn thing.
The real question is whether media companies care one little bit about online sales. I don't think they do. And if iTunes and the rest fail miserably they will be overjoyed, because then we'll have to go back to $15 a pop for CDs. Nor are they above giving the online music distribution folks a little push, to help them over the cliff. I mean, do you really think they LIKE having a company like Apple distributing their content for them? The pocket change iTunes generates for them is secondary to these people: they want to return the the days of absolute, unquestioned, iron-fisted control of distribution, and they won't rest until they get it back.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If you remember back a whole 14 to 18 months ago, the starting price for downloaded music was $2.49. The had already done all the colluding and price-fixing, had it all buttoned up.
Then Apple came along and screwed it all up.
The labels are just trying to get the price back to where they wanted it in the first place.
Good riddance. And you wouldn't be called a "professional musician" in that case, you'd be called a "recording artist" who depends on artificial-scarcity enforcement to make money as your first priority.
.50 or free. You know, to "show the RIAA who's boss." Because that makes it all right...
...
No, he'd just be a disappointed artist who has realized that morons like you have gotten so used to the convenience of piracy, they expect everything to either be free, or less than a dollar, and so he'll never make a living fulfilling his dream. Doing club shows all year doesn't get you by, sorry. I guess you didn't know being a "professional musician" means music is your profession, which means you get paid for it.
Very quickly, it's getting harder and harder to make money on anything in this world. I've seen whole medical textbooks ripped and put online before. Audiobooks, entire discographies, etc. The things you'll find being thrown around on P2P networks are incredible. Nobody cares about the consequences anymore. What happens when nobody can sell anything anymore? Why do people ignore the inevitable result of this?
A real musician would be playing for the love of it and building human relationships with actual fans who would have no problem paying for fresh and scarce concerts, scarce physical merchandise, and CDs-as-a-patronage-thankyou.
GIVE ME A BREAK. No, better, FUCK YOU. A "real musician" has to eat, because they make their living making music. That's their choice in this life. A "real musician" has the right to be successful from their music. You, sir, are not a musician. You're just another Slashdotter going with the groupthink--another consumer who comes on and replies to anti-RIAA propoganda put forth by OSDN-owned Slashdot. You have no right lecturing people on what a musician should be caring about. I'm a musician myself, and your attitude pisses me off. If Slashdot were made up of musicians, the entire opinion of this website would change. Your opinion is just a result of the justification going on in your head over how piracy has made people expect things for free or for extremely cheap.
By your logic:
* John Carmack is not a "real programmer" because he should only care about hacking out cool engines and building relationships with content creators and game players, blah blah blah, and be happy when people bother taking the time out of their day to bother paying him, out of the goodness of their little golden hearts.
* Peter Jackson is not a "real filmmaker" because he should only care about making epic trilogies to build "human relationships" with the Tolkien fans who take the time out of their day to bother paying him for the things he made, out of the goodness of their little golden hearts.
* Nobody should be upset over anyone not being willing to pay enough to cover expenses. Instead, everyone should be on their hands and knees, grateful and kissing the asses of those who dare--*gasp*--pay fully for shit instead of demanding it be
And if you could make an exact molecular copy of a can of Coke for next to nothing (and you soon will), would you feel bad that CocaCola (and WalMart, and the rest) are now being "ripped off"? CocaCola would have to reinvent themselves by having to work again
"work again?" They're not working now? I could have sworn they made soda that a large majority of the world drinks and enjoys. Yes, my friend, accept global capitalism and deal with it.
by continually coming up with new recipes. Of course, they'd never be a giant sugar-water-advertising-&-distribution company again (just like the RIAA is going to have to downsize).
Your attitude has to be the most pompous and misinformed I've read in a long time. "You're not a real musician if you expect to be compensated for your career choice!" Fuck off, and whatever job you do, I hope you get paid for it so you can make a living. You should
I guess I may be dumb (probably not even up for discussion) but I have never really understood the need for the RIAA in the first place. Artist records music... record company produces CD... product is distributed... consumer purchases music. Why do we need a big monolithic organization involved that messes up everything for everybody?
The RIAA is just a lobbying group for a collection of major record labels. As for why an artist would need a record label to succeed--go out and try to be as successful as, say, Metallica without a record label promoting and advertising you and making you available.
Contrary to Slashdot's niche opinions, the Internet hasn't made it easy to promote yourself as an artist. People don't like net ads, remember? People like tangibles like posters and singles and so forth.
I recently received a check for $13 from RIAA, as settlement for their CD price fixing.
I guess I will be able to expect a much higher check in the future.
Oh, come on. Because musicians don't have to eat?
Then why is it OK for a programmer to charge money for his program? He should be doing it for the LOVE of programming and the open source movement.>
You are not compelled to do anything.
Try a little experiment on yourself:
1. Go dig out the last full album you downloaded free from the Internet.
2. Decide for yourself how much the CD would cost you to buy using the normal CD retailer you would use.
3. Now start reducing the price of that CD by dollar/pound/Euro/other currency amounts until you get to a price where you would have bought that CD legitimately.
4. If you hit a price that isn't zero (in your local currency), then the price of the CD, in your opinion, is too high.
5. If you hit zero, then you would not have bought the CD anyway.
6. Now look at your PC. Imagine a friend of yours stole your PC, you found out and when you challenged your friend, he said he stole it because he didn't want to pay for a PC - because they are too expensive. Would you consider that justified?
I'm not playing the "holier than thou" card, believe me, but this illustrates a perceptional idea.
Firstly, everyone will have a different view of what is a fair price to pay for that CD. It'll be based primarily on how much they like the artist and how much disposable income they have. So what is the fair price for a CD?
Secondly, certain people will download music freely no matter what the cost of a CD is. This is because of convenience or because they don't want to part with their hard-earned money. They do it just because it's there.
Thirdly, theft is theft, no matter what justification you create for it. Just because you want something does not mean you are entitled to simply take it. To say you are compelled to do something implies that some external force is causing you to do it - I'm sorry, it's completely your choice.
I'm not, in any way, supporting the record companies. The industry is plagued with monopolistic practices and price fixing. The quality of modern music is dire, invariably plastic tunes churned out by pretty, but talentless, girl and boy bands.
But, I do not steal music. I actually go one better - I don't buy it or listen to it.
And if there are enough people like me, then record company execs will need to sit up and take notice.
Remember, you always have a choice...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The two people who replied are just about as nearsighted as you are (ouch, that sounded harsher than it should). The RIAA member companies (who are really the ones you have a gripe with, not the RIAA itself) are the remnants of a historical necessity.
In 2004, any group of doofuses with a Macintosh and a microphone can burn a CD. In 1954, it took rather expensive equipment to make records. So the people who could afford record cutters got power. Then they grouped together, and consolidated their power. They spent the decades developing monstrous back catalogs, buying the rights to songs and distribution. Jump to today. If a radio station or record store wants a song by one group, they have to carry a certain number of CDs from the publisher. Or, if not forced, they'll get a discount for bulk purchases/plays. Or, the publisher has enough money to 'influence' the habits of program managers and others.
Summary: publishers used to have a valid reason to exist. They used that valid reason to leverage the situation, and hold onto it even today, when they have outlived their usefulness. They serve no purpose today, but have set up the rules of the game to extend their dominion for at least a little while longer.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
And that would work out just fine, if we "real musicians" didn't need to, oh, I don't know... EAT.
Why are people so quick to judge the value of something on its availability? When you do that, you devalue not only the effort and energy gone into creating it in the first place, but any personal connection you have with the work, as well.
Seriously, could you be any more short-sighted? The scarcity of creative work is not artificial. It is all too real. The media on which that creativity resides (be it compact disc, paper, or data file) may no longer be scarce, true, but creating appealing, relevant, and/or lasting art is a difficult task, and it is insulting that you would insinuate otherwise -- Your argument is equivalent to saying, "Time to get a real job." I feel for the programmer who complains that everyone thinks his job is easy just because he sits at a computer all day.
Music Industry Bigwigs aside, artists do need to make a living from their work if they are to continue to devote their full efforts to it. And it is that devotion that provides the public with writing, music, and artwork that, as far as I'm concerned, makes life worth living. If you aren't willing to pay for good art, then you don't deserve good art. What you deserve is the rapidly declining, homogenized music industry you already have. If you think you deserve better, perhaps you should consider putting your money where your mouth is.
I don't support the RIAA in any way, as I find their actions in the legal arena contemptible. I buy used CDs so as not to directly line their pockets, and I advocate file sharing of RIAA-distributed music as civil protest against their legal tactics. But if/when the RIAA dies, will you really have enough respect for the remaining artists to actually pay for the work they do for you? Or will you continue to claim they should do it as a labor of love?
It's becoming clear that the main reason artists haven't rebelled against the RIAA is simply because they realize that the consumer public is even less likely to give them a fair shake. Without the "enforcement of artificial scarcity," a creator depends on the conscience of the public, on the audience's willingness to provide payment for services rendered despite a lack of enforcement. Would you be willing to place your livelihood into the hands of the consumer public on faith? After seeing how people rationalize NOT paying for music here, I would not.
Granted, enforcing artificial scarcity is not a workable long-term solution. But it is those who pay for the music they love who will be rewarded with... well, with music they love. Simple economics -- you get what you pay for. If you don't want to pay for good music, then sit back and enjoy Ms. Britney Spears with the rest of the less discriminating public. Because that narrow selection of music marketed to the lowest common denominator is the only thing that will survive off the pittance offered by those who don't value music enough to pay for it.
The bottom line is, real fans pay for the music they love. I do, as do others who want to see the works they love flourish and continue. Do you?