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Attorney General Investigates Music Price Fixing
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian is reporting that the US Attorney General has launched an investigation into whether or not record labels are engaged in price fixing of music downloads. From the article: 'The department of justice inquiry centers on the activities of the four largest record labels: EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner Music. Subpoenas are believed to have been issued to all parties, with federal officials understood to be focusing on whether the companies have been colluding to keep the price of downloads artificially high.'"
Another pretty good article on this subject can be found at this site
Everyone is greedy to a point. Some are just able to carry their greed to the point of complete selfishness and totally ignore the high percentage of people who have a hard time just keeping a roof over their heads.
What the heck will it take? Evolution of the human species? I always think back to those old Star Trek episodes where they land on some planet where the inhabitants laugh kindly at Earth's culture because they have learned to live without greed, take care of everyone, and actually enjoy sex rather than codify it.
I don't know why I want to write this... mod at your leisure. But before you bite my head off, I want to make sure all the future commenters out there read this very key quote: Hopefully that will keep those crazy anti-Apple fanboys at bay.
...they have to pay a $50 fine and publish a press release including the words "We are vewwy, vewwy sowwy." Rinse, repeat 10 years later...
But we're talking about music and music here. Your parable and the attorney general's actions are like apples and oranges.
They are 10 years late and investigating the wrong medium. I don't see anything wrong with 99 cents per song, my issues were the $21 for a CD with one decent song.
Don't they realise that 90% of albums make a loss?! That marketing and distribution is incredibly expensive? That the few artists who do make a profit essentially provide a subsidy so the record companies can go out and find new talent?
Do these busybodies not grasp that record company executives need to have two new luxury cars every year?
Do they not realise that by the time you've bribed DJs all around the world to play your music rather than the interesting demo some promising new band sent them, there's only enough money left for bonuses in the region of $20 million/year? How can record companies hope to continue attracting the best chief executives if they can only pay $20million in bonuses?
"I always think of how it can cost 99 cents to download a full song from iTunes... but then a ringtone... costs 3 dollars"
That's because p2p networks still keeps prices on downloads down.
Pricing on copyrighted material isnt set relative to costs, it's set relative to available capital for purchases. If the consumers get more money, then the prices will rise, regardless of actual costs. The only 'competition' there is is illicit copying.
The DOJ suing the labels for 'collusion to keep prices up' is rather ironic and just shows how far from reality the concept of IP has gone.
To the attorney general: Yes, of course there is price fixing and collusion to keep the price up. It's in the damn code of law. Look under the heading 'digital millenium copyright act' in your own bookshelf and you'll find all the evidence you need. 'Keeping the prices up' was the whole point of it.
I don't care about price fixing of music downloads. Look at price fixing of physical CDs instead. How can a music CD cost the same as a movie DVD? And while they're at it, make them use the true CDROM standard, without drm hacks.
1) Cold hard cash will be transfered under "campaign contribution" from the mysterious Big Four to the US Attorney General.
2) Investigation will reveal nothing.
3) Profit!
How about a new parable that actually fits?
What did you expect from BadAnalogyGuy?
Even if the attorney general did decide to take some action, it would undoubtedly be some slap-on-the-wrist fine or equally ineffective measure. Nobody seems to ever consider doing something that might be effective. In this case, the problem is at its root caused by the government-granted monopoly of copyright. No copyright, no problems! If the government is unhappy with the copyright monopolies they have created, why not strike the problem at its root and weaken the copyrights of those who abuse them?
This would work not just on music companies but on any business built on copyright; for example software businesses such as Microsoft. Instead of a fine, simply slash the duration of copyright on the company's assets, or even release some portion of them to the public domain immediately. This would not only serve as a deterrent to future abuses; it would actually reduce their *ability* to commit abuses in the present, and it would measurably benefit the public as well.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
"So even for the "cheap" model of production, you're looking at $10 CDs."
Impossible.
Sony BMG has once-a-month sales where they ship CD's to your house at $6-7 per disk. Presumably when I buy a $6 CD, Sony is not losing money, so it suggests the cost is significantly lower than you calculate.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
A few reasons.
I'm not 'flaming', or trying to be a prick in any way. It just seems that most Digg users don't understand why we aren't deserting Slashdot in droves for their site. You asked, I answered.
I recently discovered for myself the used CD market on ebay.
I have currently purchased about ~50 cds. I got most for about $3 - $4 each on average including shipping. Each CD is a full album (no singles). Most have 10-15 songs on them. Many come from shops specializing in the sale of used cds...
Which means I'm paying about $0.30 per song. And to think that someone had to collect these CDs, figure out which ones were scratched, which not, advertise on ebay, put them into a box, and ship them to be via the postal mail...
Even if 25% of the CD is so scratched up that my computer can't read it, I still come out -- way ahead. And I like to think that maybe I'm helping someone [non-RIAA] out... (which may/may not be the case)
And to think that we currently have an *industry* selling electronic copies of songs for $0.99? Thery already had the digitized recording from the recording studios... Bandwidth these days is practically free. There is virtually no packaging or transportation cost. Very little human intervention is required....
So are the music companies colluding? Maybe. Or maybe they are just exploiting the dumbness of their customers... These companies are large enough to **define** the market. They don't have to answer to supply & demand. The real crime is that the public puts up with this and asks for more...
Does anyone remember how buying home VHS/DVD movies used to be expensive? $15-$20 US for a single movie? Lately, Wal-Mart has a huge crate in their electronics dept, filled with DVDs for ~$5-$7 each... (*renting* at blockbuster costs almost that much ~$4). When displayed like that, I realize how stilly this whole $$$ for IP thing really is... But when displayed neatly in nice packaging on a shelf, these videos somehow appear [to the public] to merit their price...
Some might say the $5-$7 movies are crap... Well, what are most of downloadable songs selling for $0.99 EACH??? And movies cost far far more to produce than music...