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Digital Music Downloads Too Expensive?
threeofnine writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article written by a copyright and technology lawyer asking if we are paying too much for digital downloads. From the article: 'Parallel imports are unavailable in the Australian digital market, however. Australian consumers cannot purchase downloads from iTunes or Wal-Mart in the US, which are often cheaper than downloads available here, without a US-issued credit card. And restrictive licensing conditions imposed by copyright owners also limit the sale of digital downloads across international borders. For both reasons Australian consumers miss out. And retailers cannot buy downloads from overseas and resell them here, even if it is worthwhile for them to do so. In a recent analysis, the prices of Australian-made CDs of artists such as Bon Jovi, REM and Robbie Williams were compared to those of legal parallel imports. It was found that the local product was as much as 300 per cent more expensive.'"
Interesting key (and somewhat conflicting) points from the article:
and:So, in addition to lobbying in the United States to encumber music and entertainment beyond any previous restrictions (to the point of unusability if they get their way), the music industry tries to layer artificial geographical artifacts over the internet to further increase their (already obscene) profits. I find it interesting the entertainment wonks get away with this under the "protection of artists and intellectual property" canards juxtaposed next to the argument that many people lose their jobs to outsourcing as a result of the "global economy" and the breaking down of these alleged geographic boundaries.
Seems like those in power define by expedience.
(As an aside, another tasty tidbit in the article:
I find this an interesting question -- maybe when Americans are also charged a fair price for music (they aren't today). Sigh.Did anyone notice the article summary has no connection with the title whatsoever...?
Why do CDs cost as much as vinyl LP albums did? The production costs for (digital) CDs are several of orders of magnitude less than they were for (analog) LPs, yet the price-point never moved.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
AllOfMP3? Good call. So, instead of illegally downloading a song, you can illegally download it AND pay a fee that never gets anywhere near artists' hands.
Want to know why Australians pay so much more for imported goods? It's because Australians are willing to pay more. If Australians just stopped buying overpriced foreign goods, the manufacturers would start lowering prices. But whinging about the problem is never going to fix it.
While that is normally true, music is not a free market. The music industry has both a macro and micro monopolies over music. By that I mean only a few music companies control the vast majority of music and set prices accordingly. And then each individual music company has exclusive monopolies over particular artists. So if you want to buy Rage Against the Machine, you have to buy it from Sony.
If you want evidence that the music industry ignores supply and demand, look no further than CD prices. Despite the enormous drop in CD sales the prices have not dropped. In fact, the music industry has raised prices over the same time period.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The difference between digital media and other goods is that, for the latter, the price is determined by the cost of production and distribution plus extra which is kept as a profit. Digital media however, has zero production and distribution cost (for each individual download i mean), hence the price is entirely determined by what the record companies think is the optimum price, cheap enough for people to buy, expensive as possible to earn as much money. This means that in a third world country, the optimum price might be 10 times lower than the optimum price in a first world country. In order to make as much money as possible they have to price their downloads differently in different countries - selling it at first world prices everywhere would mean they lose out on profits in less well-off countries, selling it as third world prices mean they don't earn enough in first world countries. That's why they are so intent on limiting downloads accross digital borders. And hence, measures such as region encoding.
To The United States Congress: We are the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). We love selling music and will gladly sell it for a fair price, but we are outraged by filesharers' tactics in acquiring our product without paying for it...
Spin works both ways.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Well the only possible sympathy I have in the examples given are for fans buying REM. Nothing could make me care about what people pay for Bon Jovi or Robbie Williams.
Maybe the way to really fight back against the music industry is to stop buying crappy music, and patronize your local used CD store. The big profits, I would imagine, come from the big multiplatinum albums, of which - maybe - one out of every 20 or 30 represents quality music?
Completely subjective, I know. Smaller labels that have not slashed prices really should, and people should make the effort to seek out independent music from these labels. People should explore new genres. I have a smattering of CDs I bought right from the small labels' websites themselves, for $10.00 for a new album, which isn't bad considering what new big-name artists' CDs sell for.
As for the issue of international markets and price gouging, nothing new here, either. In any case, when it comes to music, you don't necessarily get what you pay for either in Australia or anywhere else.
When you buy a top 40 album, you buy an image created by advertisers for the most part. There are probably half a million unsigned artists the world over who make music as good as or better than what you hear on your local top 40 station. Maybe they're not good looking, or don't know how to stand like a bunch of idiots with their hair hanging down in their eyes, or don't have the bodies to slut it up real good for MTV.
There are alternatives. Someone mentioned emusic.com - that's a good place to start.
But if you're really angry because the last Madonna CD is out of your price range, well...I'm trying real hard to care, but...
-1 Flamebait.
Why do you think your comment is flamebait? Do you think that this statement is controversial:
Has everyone's perception of value been altered by p2p downloads, cracked software and other Internet-rendered amenities? Without a doubt.
I think that statement is true, and I don't think we should attribute to it any negative connotation. I believe that the perceived value of information and creative expression was over-inflated before the digital age. Now we are seeing such things drop to their actual value, which is quite low.
I'm not saying that information is worthless. Far from it: knowledge is power certainly. What I'm saying is that previously there were boundaries on information exchange (some very real, like the difficulty of printing books, and some artificial, like copyright). Now that the boundaries have been lifted, our "perception of value" has indeed been altered. We now understand what a low cost there is on information exchange, and how much we can all benefit from the free exchange of information (examples: Linux, wikipedia, etc.).
I think p2p downloads and software cracks point to the fact that information CAN be exchanged with very little effort. I know many people hate the "information wants to be free" tagline, but ultimately it appears that since information CAN be exchanged freely, why should we artificially limit it?
I think it is a good thing that we are starting to realize that freeing information is easy and useful.
Selling music by the meg sounds to me a lot like selling paintings by the yard. I thought it was supposed to be about quality, not quantity. But what do I know?
Don't drag me into your petty squabbles.
The goal of going against the RIAA is far from unified. Some people are against them because they want fair use of the music they have purchased. Others are against them because they are ripping off the artists. Others, like myself, believe that they are going against the free market and are using the courts to back up their manipulations. I don't think there is really anything wrong with any of the positions.
now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
Aside from the fact that music in general is too costly, consider this:
( only speaknig averages here.. )
A uncompressed CD is 17 bucks..
To buy a CD full of downloads its costs that much or more, and you only get COMPRESSED versions..
Not too equitable sounding to me..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What about the comparison of the price against the quality of the sound?
Is it comparable to CD (44.1 KHz, 16 bits samples for 2 channels)?
If a physical CD costs, say, USD 15.- USD with 15 songs, each downloadable song should cost USD 1.
Much less if you think about the money they save by not printing the medium and not shipping the boxes all around the world.
Let's say USD 0.75 could be right. It's right if the song is CD quality, of course.
If it's a compressed format song, it should cost less because quality is worse. Let's say USD 0.50 is a fair price.
Almost all legal downloads are above this price. With no real reason!
So I'd say that prices are too high when compared to quality.
And Maybe they are too high in any case.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Selling copies of music by the meg is a lot like selling copies of paintings by the yard. Which they do. The cost of production is bandwidth & servers for copies of music, paper & ink & presses for posters. Tack on a bit for creators and there you go. (not getting into whether allofmp3 does it properly)
Man, you really need that seminar!
I realize that supply and demand are based on a curve. Digital distribution changes the way the curves are set though. The music industry wants to set the supply curve as if the costs of distribution are the same digitally as they have been traditionally. The demand curve flattens drastically because of the same reason. This is what scares them because they make their money from the distribution system currently in use.
The rest of your argument is crap. Your DVD player analogy is backwards. The files you buy from allofmp3(crackhead) are of better quality than you get from legit retailers like iTunes. You set your bitrate and format (no DRM). If a site sells files that are all goatse images, then that site will not be able to continue to stay in business. People will notice the scam and another site will get their business. This is not the fault of iTMS either. Do you think they would still be selling at $1 each if they hadn't been strongarmed by the big labels?The credit card companies don't figure into this either. Any site that would allow a credit card transaction for a single download would be shooting itself in the foot. The solution would be a subscription/user account setup with defined amounts ($10,$20 purchases) in order to minimize the impact of the cost of using their services.
The music industry is pure and simply using monopolistic practices to fight off alternative distributions of the same product. There are very few valid reasons to ever fight against a free market on any good, digital or otherwise.IANAE but I'm not an idiot either
now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
What do I care if it's legal or not? The RIAA can goto hell as far as I am concerned, and it's not like allofmp3.com has a reason to give them my info that I downloaded from them. They provide a fantastic service, and great quality. I am thrilled to give them my money and will continue to do so. MOD PARENT DOWN, go buy your silly DRM encumbered crap, it's your money.
Hard to feel pain for a rapacious monopoly who sues 12 year olds and grandmothers.
I don't have any problem with buying music. I still buy CDs, even. But the instant some inane, pathetic copy protection pops up when I stick it into my computer, I go nuts. I'm too lazy to burn my junk to MP3. I just want to listen to it while I work, but this isn't allowed in RIAA world, because I might possibly allow other people to infringe on copyright with my legitmate copy.
Screw them. They cross the line all the time, from inflated prices, to screwing the artists, to taking away my fair use rights on something I had the stupidity to buy from them. I support legislation that would make it impossible for the corporations to hold copyrights on music that they didn't create, and I don't take "create" to mean "throw money at".
They don't even deserve to be part of the process anymore.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Music cannot be compared with physical goods which are easy to produce and to create knock offs of. Music, on the other hand is a service. The musicians provide a service to you which is supposed to entertain. The fact that you can purchase a reproduction of that service for your own use within your home does not change this reality.
You all seem to forget that musicians in the middle ages performed to provide a service (entertainment) for their patrons. With advances in technology, we are now able to capture and reproduce this service for distribution but it does not change the fact that the initial performance itself is not a product but rather a service.
You speak of fundamental market forces but you insist on not having your wages affected by those same forces. Isn't that hypocritical?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"unlike AllofMp3--REAL pirates who infringe on copyrights for commercial gain (from the dupes who actually give them money)."
Importing music to the US is legal. Until that changes download from AllofMP3 is entirely legal.
"AllOfMP3.com don't pay the appropriate royalties to their artists."
If the artist is registered with ROMS, (The Russian equivelant or RIAA), they get royalties. It's up to the artist. If they want to get paid for sales in a certain country, they must actually *do* something about it. Money ain't free....for anyone.