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HMV Canada Cuts Music CD Prices
umStefa notes a CBC story reporting that the largest music retailer in Canada, HMV, has slashed prices on CDs and is attributing the move to demand by customers for lower prices. The back catalog of popular artists will see price cuts of up to 33%; the cuts average 20% across the board. The Canadian version of the RIAA is spinning the news as being a direct result of music piracy.
Because, as we all know, customers who want CD's at a decent price are OBVIOUSLY pirates...
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
So in other words, if people keep pirating, then CDs will be cheaper. Sounds like a win-win to me.
is attributing the move to demand by customers for lower prices
Holy shit. In Canada, all consumers have to do is demand lower prices and they get them??
Piracy is a direct result of unreasonably priced music so I don't think they're going to garner a lot of sympathy.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
The Canadian version of the RIAA is spinning the news as being a direct result of music piracy.
They can spin it however they want, but it's legal for Canadians to download music. It's part of the reason behind the tarifs we pay on storage media (as much as $25 on an iPod, for example). I'm paying for my right to download music, thank you. Now be sure to give my money to the artists and not line your own damn pockets.
So when will CD prices dip below DVD prices?
Also, from TFA:
"A succession of Canadian governments have sat on their hands and done nothing," he said.
Excellent. That's the best kind of government. The type that doesn't make laws just to please some industry group.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Let's here it for music piracy, the only thing that's putting some competition into the market.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
At least things work as they should somewhere. It finally dawned on them that "Hey, people don't always steal music, and when it's cheaper, they buy more."
It's quite sad that this has to be such a stunning revelation, actually.
It is probably not the result of piracy but the result of the rising Canadian dollar (or the falling US dollar), meaning that the Canadian dollar is nearly at par with the US dollar, so people expect the prices to be nearly the same.
Somewhere in Bentonville, Arkansas, a Wal-Mart executive is deciding how to respond to this pricing move. When the decision is made, calls will go out to record companies, telling them what Wal-Mart is willing to pay. That's what really scares the RIAA.
The action to reduce the price of CDs actually brings the cost more in-line with what the true cost should be. For many years RIAA included marketing of a group was factored into the cost of the CD/Tape/Album.
Well, I call shenanigans on that. When is the last time you saw any marketing for any of the older groups? The only time they do anything is to pump up sales of re-masters or collections.
If they lowered the price to USD$8-10 a CD, I'd consider buying some of my old favorite groups. But for now, I have my XM and a steady supply of music that's free of bullshit-interruptions and asshat DJs. Spend USD$18 for a CD? No way, not even for a group I truly enjoy. That's pure and utter BS.
This also just helps bring Canadian prices in line with American prices for the same products. We have always been getting ripped off and over the last year as the Canadain dollar has risen the prices have become more and more unreasonable.
When you buy a big name CD I don't think your paying for the CD/music, you're reimbursing the studio for all the money it spent on marketing so you could hear it on the radio, MTV, etc.
A lot of people complain and say they listen to indy artist, and while I can appreciate a good song. How do you find these artist? Everyone know's Gwen Stephanie, and whoever is on the top billboards, and they are there more or less because of the amount of money that was dumped into marketing.
Yeah, I would never want to change the poverty and disastrous education system, the lack of health insurance for most people, the broken two-party political system, the prison system with highest rate of incarceration in the world, military profiteering and the $34 TRILLION debt load...
But it sure would be great if CDs cost less in the USA.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
A similar article in the Globe and Mail points out that the 18-24 year olds aren't listening to the latest pop chart toppers but are instead "tuning in to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin - the music of their parents' generation", which is the reason for the back-catalogue price drops.
In any case the article seems a bit more unbiased than the CBC/CRIA fud.
No, its not the dollar (though that will help a bit of course), but the cost of CDs has stayed somewhat high, while the cost of movies has dropped, DVDs are getting cheaper all the time, and video games seem to have hit a ceiling. That, in addition to HMV loosing its leadership position in music sales to Walmart, Future Shop and BestBuy, makes HMVs traditionally high prices seem rediculous. Why would I pay $13 for a CD at HMV, when I can get it at Best Buy for $10, and I can buy the concert DVD elsewhere for $18? HMV has had some good sales with their 2-for- or 3-for- sales, but the majority of CDs in their stores are sitting in the racks at regular sale prices much higher than anywhere else.
to actually expect that the fees collected will go to the artists.
OF COURSE THE ARTISTS GET NOTHING!
Lets review some definitions:
Slut: someone who does something for the love of it. (see also: Amateur [and its spelled right!])
Whore: someone who does something strictly for money.
Pimp: someone who tries to make whores into sluts by removing the profit motive. (see also: RIAA)
John: someone who pays through the nose for everything.
(The fuckin' you're getting isn't worth the fuckin' you're taking.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yay for piracy!
Now, we just need to keep downloading torrents and DVDs will get cheaper, too!
*Nothing to do with the lack of demand for crap music, obviously.
The technology to pirate books has been around for a long time.
.02
Almost no one copies them, when you can buy a paperback for a reasonable price, it is not worth your time.
When CD prices and delivery get into the (for me) 3 to 5 dollar range, and the CD includes some nice pretty additional content like artwork, book, lyrics (OMG more possible infringement) poster or something not even thought of yet, no longer worth the trouble to download and record for me.
Price correctly, and piracy goes away. My business (auto parts) had had to cut prices dramatically, and the smart survive, sure the are a lot less high priced executives but we survive.
My
This article from the Globe and Mail provides some more interesting insight into why they are doing this.
However it raises more questions. Like if younger people are buying more old Pink Floyd albums (errr... CDs), why is HMV charging $10 dollars more than newer CDs? After 30 years on the market you would think that 'Dark Side of the Moon' or the 'Led Zepplin' CDs had made their money and maybe could be reduced to the price of say, a CD produced in 2007?
And for those who don't know, HMV is the Canadian equivalent of, for example, the chain of Virgin record stores. In fact, HMV recently took over the Virgin location on the corner of Burrard and Robson in downtown Vancouver.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Just a reminder to our American readers, it is legal to share and download music in Canada and it is not piracy. This is a result of a the Canadian version of the RIAA's successful past pressuring of the government resulting in the imposition of a blank media tax. The proceeds are supposed go to the artists to compensate for loss revenues from sharing of music. As I understand it, the courts have deemed that sharing music via the internet is no different than copying a CD and giving it to a friend. Therefore since the record companies already accepted the tax as fair compensation for music sharing - they cannot ask for more. Someone more informed than I can provide the links and clarify the details but we download music here without worry.
But I don't.
I used to be a real record CD hound spending hours combing through the stacks. I used to go to big name concerts regularly. I no longer buy CDs (last I bought was over 10 years ago - some medieval music and some worldbeat) and when we go out it's to listen to small local pub bands, small chamber ensembles or choirs or dance to electronic music DJs. And I'm more likely to play music or sing karaoke than listen to it. A large part of this is just disillusionment with the entire big business music model. Spending a couple of hundred bucks to see Madonna or go to the Opera or listen to a warhorse symphony *again*, doesn't seem to make much sense when there are so many more enjoyable alternative musical experiences.
the lack of health insurance for most people
Hey, now, let's be fair, the number of Americans without health insurance is currently around 47 million, or 16% of the total population (though this doesn't account for this with insurance who are denied coverage). Hardly "most people".
I point this out only because a useful dialog about things like healthcare reform can't begin if people persist in exaggerating or outright lying in order to support their position (and that applies to either side).
This price drop has nothing to do with piracy or any other big bad boogeyman. HMV is lowering their prices because Universal has (finally) made an adjustment to the Canadian market to reflect the strong Canadian dollar and dropped prices across the board. This adjustment was to compensate for the fact that Canadian stores were paying about 15-20% more than their US counterparts due to prices that were set to 10 year old currency exchange rates. You'll see the same problem with books that print US and Canadian prices on them, with the current exchange rates, you're much better off paying in US dollars.
If you want to do the music industry and your ears a favour, boycott HMV, the RIAA, CRIA and the big 5 and buy from the indies and local indy stores.
<shameless plug>
http://www.canadacd.ca
</shameless plug>
I'm another Canadian CD shopper that's pretty tight-fisted when the price gets much above $15.
I don't download music; I have ripped CDs I borrowed from the library, which by my reading of our copyright act is legal as church on Sunday - but the bulk of that was out-of-print Jazz albums you can't find in stores anyway.
The real piracy battleground is over the "most popular" pop music that sells a lot of units for a year or so, mostly to people under 30.
Part of the reason I started getting more interested in non-pop genres like Jazz, World, Reggae, electronic was that it was cheaper - even in stores like HMV. I can go in there and get one Avril Lavigne CD for $25 - or pick up Django Reinhart's Jazz, hits by Dean Martin, a Peter Tosh, and an "AfroBeat Collection" for a total of $30. All from the 2/$15 shelf two paces from Avril.
Sorry, Avril...
There's just a LOT of great music out there, and once you stop treating music as a status symbol that proves how up-to-the-minute you are, buying anything new & popular becomes an irrational decision. Wait a few years, and it'll not only be down to the 2/$30 shelf at least, the consensus will be in about how good the artist *really* was under the hype.
However, if HMV drops prices enough, I believe I'll find out what the heck Amy Winehouse is all about this year instead of 2010. One really should encourage moves like this.
Well growing up listening to the music of the 70's and 80's my musical taste tends to revolve around that period. Anythiny from Deep Purple,Zappa,U2 and Rush. In fact the last album I baught was Rush's snake and arrows. I'm also a musician and there is one thing that is very important to me when I buy an albun or listen to some new music. Can the performer actually do what they are doing?
Unfortunatly with the top 20 garbage that has been playing in the past 10 years it's all been over produced superficial artists who get promoted by the record leables because it;s their first album and they have a really bad contract. After the first or second album they get put asside and they bring in someone new to use and profit from.
The bands that keep making album after album and keep their fan base is rare these days, mostly flash in the pans.
So excuse me if I don't buy that new album from that faceless artist who the world will totally forget in 3 weeks.
I'll just wait for Peter Gabriel's new album.
I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, both you and the AC who responded, are completely missing my point. I never said 47 million uninsured was a-okay. I'm saying that, if you want to begin a debate on the subject, you have to put away the hyperbole, otherwise you'll just get ignored as an extremist. And yes, saying "most" Americans don't have healthcare *is* hyperbole.
Rarely does a CD match the Pure Physical Art Value of an LP , or even the technical art value of a DVD (special features, commentaries, documentaries, etc). However with the downloading of an electronic file (mp3) all of the other elements that made the purchase of music an experience,(the art) for all of the senses, not just sound, are lost.
The poster illustrates this in the breakdown of 'head culture by the movement from traditional rolling methods to quick and dirty(change the water dood) bongs. What's interesting is if, like horseshoes, physical copies of items (store bought copies) are destined to always retain value, and in fact may even increase in value as electronic downloading makes them more scarce in the marketplace. Will the CD buyer be the Record Aficionado of tomorrow? And will anyone remember how to roll and light a perfect backflip without burning a hole or sucking ash?
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
The brilliant minds at the RIAA, apparently whether Canadian or USAian, apparently know only one note -- It MUST be Piracy! Somebody at the big record companies (eg, their employer) ought to send some of these poor boys to class in basic economics. Back when I was a kid, the competition for my fixed entertainment dollars was split between LPs, movies at the theater, bowling, and a few other distractions. LPs were basically the only product I could take home (well, tapes, etc).
Today, the average teenager's similarly limited funds are split between PC games, games for gaming consoles (my son owns a PS2, an XBox360, a WII, and a Nintendo DS), DVDs, movies at the theater, rental DVDs, legal downloads, etc. It's also not a big surprise that the kids brought up on all of those choices have increasingly become a part of Big Music's key demographic.
And yet, Big Music doesn't understand this kind of competition (apparently, some retailers actually do), and can't grasp the simple fact that kids like mine rarely buy music of any kind. That doesn't mean they're stealing it, either, but rather, they buy games and play the radio or the PC in the background. If they buy a song, they'll get the one or two "decent" songs on iTunes, not the whole CD. They have very little first-hand knowledge of the "concept album" as we knew it... it's all random-play on the iPod (Kira) or the Sansa (Sean).
So, not understanding this, and not even really wanting to embrace the fact their very way of existence is being called to question, the one answer from the industry is always "must be the Pirates". I guess that's what they can sell to the stockholders and pretend to be addressing. They don't begin to have any answers for the real problems in their business....
-Dave Haynie