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After Brief Respite Music Industry Slump Deepens
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Sales picked up for the record labels late last year, but 2005 has been bleak. The Wall Street Journal ticks off evidence: 'During the crucial Thanksgiving week, for instance, the top 10 albums sold 40% fewer copies than the top 10 albums the same week in 2004. ... Sales of individual digital tracks on services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store have increased -- but not nearly enough to offset the slide in CD sales. According to an estimate from SoundScan, overall sales of recorded music are down about 4.5%, if one considers 10 individual tracks the equivalent of an album.' The WSJ also lists familiar reasons for the decline -- 'online piracy, CD burning, high prices and competition for consumer dollars from videogames and DVDs' -- while adding, 'Lately, people in the music industry have said the same basic issues have been intensified by the growing popularity of pricey gadgets like Apple's iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, as well as the rising prices for games that go with the new platform.'"
Get over it. Move on.
Get with the times..
I wonder if they ever thought about the Quality of the music they sell??
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Could it be that the music industry is just putting 40% less desirable music? When it comes to new CDs and artists, there hasn't been all that much growth over the past year.
While sales may be down to last year. itunes still provides a way for lazy people to legally download music, where if they had to go to a retail outlet would probably just resort to a P2P. So in fact itunes has increased profits regardless of amount. Don't mistake greed with reality
10 individual tracks sold in itunes cannot be equated to just a single CD album.
An average CD album will not contain more than two or three good tracks while the rest will be useless. When people buy individual tracks from itunes, they will only go for the better ones and the rest will just not sell. So instead of considering 10 tracks as being equivalent to a single album sale, WSJ should consider 2 or 3 tracks sold on itunes as being equivalent to a single album sale.
Yet no mention of people boycotting them? Surely this has dropped at least 1% or more. If you look at how it's spread, it seems like a slow rot. It started out 1-2% fall "from pirates", then got to nearish 5 and they started to sue people. Then in a year it seems to have doubled..
I suspect the boycotting may have a coule of percent in this, but they won't admit that. It's "obviously" evil pirates.
I like muppets.
This is the market correcting itself. As the stranglehold the labels have over the music market wanes, the proper balance between listeners, artists and labels will be struck. As it is now, the labels wield far too much power. They definitely play a valuable role, and deserve the chance to make a profit, but their current model depends on certain inefficiencies (where they can most significatly exert control) which no longer exist.
This process of seeking a more equitable equilibrium is too slow, but it's definitely going in the right direction.
The WSJ also lists familiar reasons for the decline -- 'online piracy, CD burning, high prices and competition for consumer dollars from videogames and DVDs'
And of course they (deliberately?) omit the #1 reason:
shit product
They'll still blame the #1 reason on piracy though.
Disposible income is extremely low, music just isn't that high on the priority list this year.
From the article:
This year, though, there's little Christmas cheer to go around. During the crucial Thanksgiving week, for instance, the top 10 albums sold 40% fewer copies than the top 10 albums the same week in 2004
All this means is the top 10 albums sold less this year than they did last year, that is not the same as a decline in CD sales or an industry slump.
If this year only 10 albums were available to buy, from anywhere, this years top 10 whould have had huge sales compared to last years top 10, but I'd be willing to bet there would definatly be less profits than last year.
Each year more and more CDs are put out and made available to the public. Surely the way to indicate a slump would be to release the total number of CDs sold in that week, or the total profits made by the music industry that week, and compare them.
For all we know, those same top 10 albums could have had record sales for every other week in the year, and now everyone in the world has a copy, the only people buying them are those that want 2 copies :o
It seems the music industry/RIAA has just employed some statistics experts to check the numbers and find anything that could be used to indicate a down turn, whether true or not.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
I don't know about everybody else, but I like the fact that the huge record companies are making less. Music isn't about making money to anybody who gets into it for the right reason. If these trends continue, we can expect less-corporate-MTV like atmosphere. Look back at the 90's with its anti-corporate grunge phase; I think we could use more of that! If anything, I would love it if these trends produced a culture with more independent music. Maybe the next Ashlee Simpson or Christina Augilara will be able to actually sing???
Slash-for-Thought
The labels are throwing crap at us. How much X-factor / Pop Idol rubbish are we actually expected to purchase?
Bring back Genesis! I'd buy 'the lamb lies down on broadway' on any media format they publish it on
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Funny, if I want to blow 20 bucks, I can go to a wide choice of bars and clubs with local acts, pay the cover and get a pair of beers and a couple of hours of entertainment with good company. I might even find a really good band that I never heard of before, and hell, I'd buy an album from them for a few bucks after their set was over.
.mp3, and maybe I'll buy something from them because I like to hear them.
If music is great, we don't need a leech-like promoter to tell us so. I'll hear them, or a friend will tell me, or a friend of a friend, they can send me an
I just hope in the music companies' death throes they don't drag down our laws with I.P. and DMCA any more than they already have.
A few notes from someone in the know:
Release schedule plays a huge role here and the Nov 2004 release schedule had some huge releases. Prior to Novemeber, YTD the industry wasn't lagging as far behind as where it will end up year end. Records are released in cycles, and just so happened that Nov 04 was a perfect storm of sorts. Taking a top 10 volume comps doesn't demonstrate the health of the business but that the release schedule was better in 2004.
As far as 10 track per albums, SoundScan is dead wrong in using this methodology. It should be weighted at 14 (FOURTEEN) tracks per album in an effort to more accurately represents CD SRP, afterall, the 10 is arbitrary and doesn't correlate to anything (not even digital SRP very well). In an addition, in terms of sales volume, 14 is more representative of actual tracks per album sold. Having said that, including tracks is a much more representative way of examining where the business is going. Those who argue about fewer tracks per album, it's irrelevant; the idea here is to simulate revenue with sales units.
Next, 2004 used the ISO weekly standards and is therefore a 53 week year. It looks like the extra week was removed to compare with '05 however, so hopefully '05 isn't too heavily penalized.
Worth noting: some record labels are doing MUCH MUCH MUCH better than others. Some accounts are doing MUCH MUCH better too... Target for instance has experienced profound growth.
The boycott argument is absurd... zero effect, and zero concern for it. It's laughable Further, as for content protection, while regarded by many labels as ineffective and short-sided (even stupid), it doesn't seem to have impacted point of sale in Sony's case. It definitely impacted their returns however.
The arguement regarding competition with video games and DVDs is absolutely true. Typical consumers have a finite amount of money to spend toward entertaiment each month. DVDs are even having trouble now. Declining retail space certainly has a role.
Despite what many think about "greedy record labels", the industry takes representing their artists very seriously. Further, they've have already undergone many levels of cost savings and will continue to do so. Artists are the #1 customer of any label, even above the retail accounts, and the consumers themselves. Maybe that's part of the problem, but nothing is going to change the desire to develop and represent artists above all else.
"Sales of horse drawn carriages have slumped. Horse drawn carriage manufacturers are worried about the increased use of horseless carriages and are hoping to pass legislation making it a requirement for everyone to have a horse infront of their carriage."
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
One observation I have made is that the number of people who buy albums is a lot smaller. A lot of people have told me that they don't buy CDs any more because they can just download the music. Young people just don't have a huge collection of CDs the way they used to in the 1990s (replacing the collection of records eveyone had in the 1970s through the 1980s).
I think there are a number of reasons for that. One of them is plain simple greed on the kid's part (Downloading instead of paying for a CD is a form of greed, just like ripping of the musicians is another form of greed). Another is that the record industry has always tried to keep the technology to copy music away from consumers. They won in the 1990s by effectively killing DAT, an early 1990s technology for putting CD-quality sound on a special audio tape that looked like a mini videotape. I still haven't forgiven the record comapnies for these actions causing me to pay $1200 instead of $300 for a DAT recorder for my home studio.
They lost in the 2000s because the technology could not be as eaily controlled as it was in the 1990s. First of all, your average person didn't know about nor cared about the repression of DAT technology, but everyone now has an opinion on Napster and file sharing. Second of all, software didn't require the capitol investment to make the way DAT recorders did; anyone could and many people did write file sharing programs before the record companies could react.
So, what now? Well, I don't think the wholesale downloading of music is the best thing for musicians. Thomas Dolby, on his web page, pointed out that he lost money touring--he made his money selling albums. Bottom lone: When more people download music, musicians have less motivation to make music; this will result in talented musicians working in other fields, and less quality music being made.
So, what is the answer? I think making every song available via iTunes will stabilize things; a lot of people feel uneasy downloading music without permission. I think there will be losses due to piracy, but I don't think these losses will kill the music industry--the video game industry is thriving, and they have had to deal with piracy since day one.
It's a complicated issue, with no easy answer. I don't think asking musicans to make music for free is the answer. I don't think saying that concerts should be musician's sole soure of income is the answer. I think paying a fair price for a song ($1) is the answer.
I guess this means the RIAA suits will have to settle for 40% smaller mansions and 40% smaller pools.
This will eventually trickle down to the artists themselves, many of whom will have to settle for 40% less jewerly and 40% fewer Maybachs.
They're, again, blaming "piracy" (on the high seas, Arrrr) for destroying record sales. But how many stockings are filled with "illegally" (not in Canada) downloaded MP3s? Would you consider giving a CD-R full of major record label "artist"'s music to some one as a Christmas gift? Nope, you wouldn't. Because that would be being a cheap ass, and besides, the real article is just a little bit nicer, what with a booklet and all of that marketing crap. So, blaming "piracy" on lower holiday-season sales DOES NOT COMPUTE. Really, they must get tired themselves of always blaming "piracy" (Ra-men).
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Well, my teenage son and his friends are copying my CD collection dating back to Buddy Holly (before my birth!) and are simply ignoring the current music offering. As a teen, I would not have been caught dead listening to my dad's ragtime music and I still can't stand 1920-1940s music. So it should be obvious - the current music suck baaaaadly.
It's the bands stupid...
Oh well, what the hell...
I don't think this is neccessarily a valid connection. These are(mostly) huge bands that have been around for a long time, which means that they a) are likely to charge a lot more per ticket than a newer band and b)appeal to an older audience which(arguably) is more willing to spend a lot of money for the occaisonal concert.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't regist
Perhaps the problem is that you keep buying average albums instead of above-average albums. I am constantly amazed when people on Slashdot point out how little they appreciate their music. I look at my own collection and I don't have a single album with a hit-rate that low. If I disliked the artist that much I wouldn't have bought the album or the single in the first place. I'll reserve my money for artists that I actually like.
... new music just sucks. What are people supposed to buy? Jessica Simpson? Ashley Simpson? Madonna's latest reinvention of herself?
The music industry just cannot find new and interesting and exciting music like they used to. Any musician they produce is so obviously controlled by marketers that they are just lame.
Even traditionally non-conformist ganres like punk and heavy metal have become lame creations of marketing executives. Example -- Pink.
So there is another thing the music industry could blame for their troubles -- the fact that their product sucks.
In fact modern music is so bad i am developing a growing appreciation for classical music.
This is exactly the problem the record companies are pointing at. The most important group (for them) does not buy music anymore: young people.
When we were younger we used to buy CD's (or records for that matter). We bought more than our parents. We still buy CD's, but less than we used to. This is known phenomenon: the older one becomes, the less music is bought.
Youngsters should buy more CD's than us older folk, according to pre internet expectations. That used to be the case. Nowadays, young people don't buy CD's anymore, they download. The older people's acquisitions still make up the tops of the charts.
The record companies obviously want to reverse this process. The above mention of horse carriages is spot on in that respect.
the pun is mightier than the sword
Broaden your horizons. I gave up on most pop music years ago. I started listening to Swing, classic Jazz, Opera, Folk, Qawwali, Klezmer, and anything else that was interesting. Much of it recorded before I was born. There is a lot of great music out there if you are willing to try something new.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I wonder when these guys are going to wake up and realize that all this meticulously homogenized top 40 crap is death to the industry.
That being said... the indie rock scene was GREAT this year. A lot of small local labels in my area did relatively well.
Perhaps if the record industry would have the balls to highlight stuff like this, they might actually make money.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Actually, green day is about 15 years old. I do not know Cheney, but the rest are from the 60's,70s i.e. my generation when I was a teen. Scarey.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You know something? That's not a bad idea! We should show them our appreciation. We could chip in and buy them some really nice vehicles. But... (MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)
First, we need to build in some special safeguards, yes we do. We need to weld the passenger doors shut, for starters. No, these cars are just for these music industry executives, no free rides for their friends. They probably already have their own cars anyway. We add in a fingerprint lock on the ignition so only one person can start it up, and that should have the angle of no unauthorized riders covered.
Next, let's look at authorized use. We wire a GPS system directly to the engine and the lock on the gas tank. That way we can make sure the car isn't used to drive on any of the wrong roads, or fill up at any of the wrong gas stations. How it's maintained and driven will have an effect on its lifespan, so we have to make sure they take appropriate cautions.
Because we're buying the cars for them, we get to pick the color. I heartily recommend turquoise, teal, periwinkle, lime green, or peach with mauve racing stripes. Music industry executives like distinctive colors, don't they?
It'll take some effort, but I'm sure we can produce (or at least buy and modify) a car for these music industry executives as satisfying to drive as their companies' music is satisfying to listen to.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
So now that the easy pickings are instead spending their money elsewhere, they have trapped themselves and are left with no market at all. All they have is a broken machine that depends on facts that are no longer true. So now they ought to reinvent the business, aiming toward a variety of quality acts that produce reasonable revenue at reasonable prices, but they can't get themselves to do it. What they had was so juicy that it's difficult to abandon. So like an addict they try to force it to continue to be, and won't stop until they hit rock bottom. At that point a new and functional model will emerge.
Face it ... you can't manufacture art. The music coming out of the pop-formula organ grinders hasn't been worth buying lately. Both my teenage daughters are telling me they prefer music from one or several decades ago, so it's not just my aging tastes.
If the music isn't any good, people won't buy it, and there will be a downturn in the music industry. Duh.
The most important component in any sound system is the human ear -- everything else is fluff. Get the content compatible with that element first, and there will be an upturn in the music industry. Whether they deserve it or not.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Well I guess they now know what the old saying "Don't bite that hand that feeds you" means.
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
I don't know about others, but one reason I'm buying less music than I used to, is because I absolutely refuse to buy a "CD" with copy protection on it.
Given that more and more CDs are being crippled by this, I find myself putting more and more of them back on the shop shelf.
As far as I'm concerned, the music industry is cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Sometime in the 60's, record album sales began to increase, as people realised that most of the songs on a popular group's albums were being released as singles (on the smaller 45 RPM records). I remember quite a bit of discussion in the industry about this, and the record companies began pushing the sales of whole albums on pop recordings. I believe previously, only a few types of music sold whole albums in any number. Classical music comes to mind.
Groups like the Beatles were particularly consistent in their output, and their albums sold a lot of copies, even without a lot of hits on them (many of the hits were only put on albums later on). The question I and my friends had back then was should we buy just the singles we liked, or the whole album. After a while, we learned that many of those albums were well worth the added cost.
I believe those days are now over. The CD's that are currently available just don't have enough good music on them. The available of singles through services like iTunes and others will erode what little popularity the CD has left.
The current music industry is based on a short-lived phenomenon (people buying whole albums/CD's) that peaked years ago. In a way, the industry realises this, and wants to make more money on each single, knowing the whole album will probably not sell enough copies to maintain profits. The market is going back to normal behavior, and this means the industry will be forced back into a 1950's model, when singles ruled, and radio (including now Internet) broadcasts the key tool to selling those singles. The artist as well as the customer have both changed too much in the last decade or so to maintain the old business model.
It's not about piracy, it's about the product and the customer, just like it's always been.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Maybe we've finally hit that point when everyone gets disgusted at the old stuff and goes on to create new genres? It happened following all major periods of music, and we're about due for it again now.
I'm shocked and a bit disgusted that there's no mention of the fact that we were paying $3+ a gallon for gas, healthcare costs continue to spiral, and employment is mediocre. The middle class is getting the shit squeezed out of it. This is the 'new good old days'. Who has an extra $30 to blow on a couple Black Eyed Peas CD's? Music is a luxury - you can't eat it or get to work on it. If you get it for free out the radio or by copying a friend's collection, fine. But this attitude of entitlement and head-scratching by record co's is bizarre and ridiculous.
If I were they, I'd be hard at work pricing CD's for the Chinese and Indians, and making pop music for them. They're the future.
I find it amazing that the music industry has to blame piracy first and foremost as a cause of declining sales. It should be clear to anyone that if they are using payola to push records by J-lo and the Dixie Chicks is that these records suck.
The are facing the same problem that the American automobile industry did in the 70's. The are making a crappy product that nobody wants and are in denial. The are slow to adopt new business models that their customers want. Why release a 10-12 song CD when the artist can only write 1 or 2 good songs? They may claim file sharing as the main cause as it is the easiest to try and stop. It is very easy to have the feds and courts do the dirty work for them. It is much harder for them to stop the main cause of piracy, that of people selling knock-off products. Besides the mobs of several countries are involved in that business and it would mean getting their hands dirty in trying to stop it. It is easier to go after the consumers.
Most of the iPod owners I know, including myself, have stopped using file sharing services and now buy our music from the iTunes Music Store. I use iTunes podcasting feature more than anything else these days. It is more cutting edge than the music groups put out these days. The few tunes that I don't buy on iTunes are given away free by unsigned groups who want the airplay and have not signed a deal with the evil record companies.
As far as these artist claiming they did not know that their companies were doing the payola thing.....please, if you are that ignorant of where your money goes you should not be in the business. They knew payola was going on as spending money to get spins puts more money in their pockets in the long run.
"Once you have a large enough music collection, an album has to be either substantially better, or substantially different to be worth buying, and both qualities seem to be lacking these days."
Yes and no.
Music, unlike movies, can be listened to repeatedly, but there is a limit to how much you'll listen to a group regardless of how much you like them.
Lets say you like Led Zeppelin; no, not just like, I mean love them. You even buy a t-shirt with their emblem. And so you listen to their albums...all 10-ish of them. After a while, you'll be sick of them. I don't care if you get royalties from them, you won't hate them, you just won't be interesed enough to listen after a while (sort of like dating, I suppose).
You really need two things to keep this from happening:
1) A big music collection
2) Artist must be given enough time to develop
3) Artist must be "encouraged" to make more music
1 - The music industry can help itself out here by lowering the price of CD's. You can't build a music collection at $20 a pop.
2 - The music industry can help itself by investing more in bands that help them in the creative process. I don't mean meddling, I mean hiring a lot more producers and artist to mentor bands.
3 - If the Rolling Stones started today, they would have ended their career with about 10 albums tops. That wouldn't be enough for the long term for either the artist or the music label. Get more music out there for the fans. A lot of "marginal" bands put out an album every 18-24 months. You can't build a following for a catalog that way.
Maybe the blockbuster mentality of Hollywood is now rampant in the music industry, but it seems to me that there is no patience with most bands these days.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The Billboard 200 Album Chart shows us the current top 10 consists of:
1. Eminem: Curtain Call--The Hits
2. Lil' Wayne: Carter II
3. Korn: See You on the Other Side
4. Various Artists: Now 20
5. Carrie Underwood: Some Hearts
6. Kenny Chesney: The Road and the Radio
7. Nickelback: All the Right Reasons
8. Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi
9. Black Eyed Peas: Monkey Business
10. Enya: Amarantine
Who did what now?
I will no longer buy their "TOP TEN" I do not listen to AM or FM radio. I am more likely to listen to PRI, CBC or BBC. I own all my albums not one is pirated!
I like to listen to Bruce Cockburn which is only available as a hard CD used. Although last year he released a brilliant CD it certainly was not even in the shops. However go look on iTunes on Folk 101 there he is first entry.
Hastings and many more outlets are going mostly Used CD's.
So what use do we all have for the music industry any more? They have not adjusted to the new Paradymn so they will be replaced.
Vista, the single biggest argument for Desktop Linux! It doesn't "Just Work"(TM).
E-book readers are hard, run out of power, are either to bright in the dark or to dark in the sun. In short they are a hassle.
None of this applies to cd's. To a certain extent I do not even use cd's, they are the paperbag around my book. It is a container, and I empty the container into my pc from wich I then play the content.
Book more closely resemebles a portable media player. And just like a book is great because I can easily take it with me a pmp is great because I can take it with me.
I agree with the rest you say. But comparing book sales with music sales just doesn't fly.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think that the decline in music sales is down to a number of small effects that on their own seem harmless but combined have led to this massive fall in sales.
This is going to be a long ramble so bear with me.
A number of factors have combined to make us listen to music in a different way and thus reduce the attractivness of buying cd's in your average limited selection store.
People used to play records (for the kids REALLY big black cd's like objects) and because of hardware limitations the music was usually played from the beginning of the album to the end. You needed an advanced record player if you wanted to play albums back to back (playing A and then B side without getting up was extremely difficult).
If you just wanted to listen to a wide selection of music you either had to record your favorite music to tape and then play the tape (wich until quit recently still forced you to listen in the same order over and over) so the radio was the only way to get a wide selection of music without you after a while being able to predict wich song comes next.
Now with CD-changers or worse mp3 players people can listen to a large selection of their own choosing with still enough randomness in it that it doesn't get to repetetive. My own collection of mp3's is big enough to last a week without repeating. You can now play your entire collection at random or any order you desire without being limited by hardware.
MTV doesn't play music anymore. Neither does the radio. Oh they get the occasional "promotional sound clip of the week we repeat every hour" in and when the D.J. needs to take bathroom break but mostly it is commercials. Dutch tv has no music program anymore like Countdown or Top of the Pops. Simply put, the programs that used to introduce us to a selection of new music have disappeared. There are alternatives available but they are often to alternative to be accepted on the workfloor. You need something middle of the road, not to extreem not to mundane to play during the 9 hours you are at work.
With the decline in radio a lot of people seem to have decided that an mp3 player is a better way to get a bit of background music. Hookup an mp3 player to the company soundsystem is lot easier then everyone bringing tapes to work. We listen to less and less radio. But if you listen to your own music you will not hear a new artist you might want to buy.
The walkman still suffered from giving you a very limited music selection in a pre-arranged format. A decent Mp3 player can easily hold a day worth of music. I am sometimes shocked to find that I haven't added a new album in months. This is different from my minidisc player where I would buy new minidiscs now and then or at least regurly record a new collection. I got 20gb of mp3's on my player and frankly I so far don't get bored with it.
Finanlly regonized by the music bizz the simple fact that the money that used to buy L.P.'s (other word for the big black cd like things kids) now goes to games and dvd's and my mobile phone etc etc.
Of course some people will like the "new" music and some young people have a violent reaction to oldy music BUT the simple fact remains that the newer bands do not have the selling power of the oldies. Just google for top album sales and you will find that the top hasn't changed in years. Worse the newbies that do make an appearance lower down are all of the oldie sort (Shania Twain is hardly pushing the envelope). Or simply put Gan
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think it has more to do with folks realizing that you don't have to pay 14.99 for a CD that maybe has 2-3 good songs (for a good CD) on it, when you can get those say 3 songs for 2.98 from iTunes.
It doesn't take a rocket scientists to realize that CDs have too much filler music, for most releases. Why pay for crap, when you can get what you like.
Even if said album has 10 songs on it, and you love all 10, that's 9.90 for 10 songs, as oppossed to 14.99.
Do the math.
Record companies are basically organized crime:
* they price fixed for years in the past and occasionally they get their hands slapped with a small fine (never criminal action). This price fixing business model is illegal.
* They install root kits on customers computers which open the customers computers up to installation of additional software and viruses without their consent. This software also destabilizes the customers PC, and it consumes memory and CPU time forever, even if they are no longer using the product.
* They buy legislators and pay them to pass bills trying to legalize their illegal business plans.
* They sue their own customers, without even knowing or caring if the person they sue has broken a law. Who is going to continue patronizing companies that sue their customers???
* Their overpriced products are not governed by the laws of supply and demand. Hence, sales go down but the product does not go down in price to increase sales. What other private, non-utility industry can have a legislatively supported business plan that does not respond to the laws of supply and demand? Still, they make huge profits even when sales go down. They think that by buying more legislators, eventually they will win. They fail to learn from Microsoft's mistakes. Just because you are a monopoly it doesn't mean you can shove an inferior, overpriced product down peoples throats and not lose market share to the inevitable backlash. When the record companies get a backlash they buy new legislation to pay them for their losses, i.e. tariffs on blank CD's, IPODs and computers.
I feel morally ashamed when I buy a CD now and support organized crime. I buy only a few CD's a year now and avoid DVD's entirely. I used to buy a couple dozen CD's a year. I'd rather listen to old music than support criminal monopolies.
I also hold major music bands partly to blame, you don't have to go though dishonest labels (the majority - all RIAA members) or distribute by traditional channels (use direct downloads instead).
I hope my fellow Slashdot'rs will consider boycotting any paid music or video DVD's whenever possible. Even though I don't illegally download music (I've bought enough stuff already), I think illegal downloading is morally justifiable when you are up against a corrupt government (I'm refering only to the US here, I don't know about overseas), and your media companies are also totally corrupt. Only a boycott can resolve this issue. Even then, we will face taxes on PC's, blank media and possibly the air we breath, to replace the lost profits of record companies.
Are you up to the challenge?
The labels just don't get it, do they.
/rant over
* Better music might be a good place to start.
* CDs that adhere to the red book standard would be a good follow-up.
* Treating your customers with respect would complete the trifecta.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who