20 bucks for CD's? Where? In the US they go for about US$12. In 1985 when I bought my first CD player they went for about $16. In 1985 dollars. By my estimate they cost half what they did 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation.
In a perfect world the artists would work for free, advertising would cost nothing, distribution would be free, retailers wouldn't want to make a profit and wouldn't need to pay their employees, etc. But in the world I live the cost of manufacturing a CD is a small part of its price.
Yeah, now they are. Will they still be low-quality in 3 years?
It's easy to think that the folks who collect MP3's aren't likely to buy the CD's, anyway, the cheap, tin-eared b*stards that they are. It's even easy to imagine that when they gain access to a decent sound system they'll want to run out and purchase all the music they've stolen. To some small extent that might even be true. Now. Problem is, MP3's will get less compressed over time as people get more network bandwidth.
Historically, unauthorized copying has been revenue neutral for the recording industry. That is, home recording hasn't cost or earned them any money. Sales are lost when someone hasn't paid for a recording, and sales are gained when they are exposed to music they want to purchase. There are two recent technologies that threaten that balance. First, digital recording mediums have made owning The Real Thing less important. If you record to CD-R then the only thing you're missing is the liner notes. And I've seen some people solve that problem with a copying machine. Second, the Internet makes worldwide distribution possible. Now it's not just a couple friends that have access to your music. You can share it with *everyone*. I don't like anyone placing restrictions on my legitimate use of technology, but I also don't want making music to become unprofitable. Do you really think the Rolling Stones are gonna work for nothin'? Do you think having an advertisement on the page you downloaded their latest album from is fair compensation? I think not.
>>My suggestion to the idustry is to make music available free on the internet and earn money on advertisement. Barf. Haven't you seen enough advertising? I've had enough. If all entertainment came with advertising, subsidized at a rate *someone else* determines, then I'd be pretty pissed off. Take the model of television. The cost of watching an hour of programming is 15 minutes of ads. How much is your time worth? Was that hour of programming worth 15 minutes of wasted time? For me the answer is usually 'no', so I don't watch much television. So you want to let someone else determine how much of your time should be wasted in exchange for an hour of free music? If you get what you want you'll make that music unavailable to me. You're probably already thinking "just buy the CD if you don't want the ads". Right. Where can I buy a Seinfeld tape? That's right, it's not available (or at least the majority of television programming isn't). That's because there isn't money to be made selling the tape when the majority of people have nothing better to do than watch commercials, so they won't pay for it. I see the same thing happening to music if it's given away with ads. Barf, barf, barf. Enough advertising. No Thanks.
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20 bucks for CD's? Where? In the US they go for about US$12. In 1985 when I bought my first CD player they went for about $16. In 1985 dollars. By my estimate they cost half what they did 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation.
In a perfect world the artists would work for free, advertising would cost nothing, distribution would be free, retailers wouldn't want to make a profit and wouldn't need to pay their employees, etc. But in the world I live the cost of manufacturing a CD is a small part of its price.
"MP3's are a god awful way to listen to music"
Yeah, now they are. Will they still be low-quality in 3 years?
It's easy to think that the folks who collect MP3's aren't likely to buy the CD's, anyway, the cheap, tin-eared b*stards that they are. It's even easy to imagine that when they gain access to a decent sound system they'll want to run out and purchase all the music they've stolen. To some small extent that might even be true. Now. Problem is, MP3's will get less compressed over time as people get more network bandwidth.
Historically, unauthorized copying has been revenue neutral for the recording industry. That is, home recording hasn't cost or earned them any money. Sales are lost when someone hasn't paid for a recording, and sales are gained when they are exposed to music they want to purchase. There are two recent technologies that threaten that balance. First, digital recording mediums have made owning The Real Thing less important. If you record to CD-R then the only thing you're missing is the liner notes. And I've seen some people solve that problem with a copying machine. Second, the Internet makes worldwide distribution possible. Now it's not just a couple friends that have access to your music. You can share it with *everyone*. I don't like anyone placing restrictions on my legitimate use of technology, but I also don't want making music to become unprofitable. Do you really think the Rolling Stones are gonna work for nothin'? Do you think having an advertisement on the page you downloaded their latest album from is fair compensation? I think not.
>>My suggestion to the idustry is to make music available free on the internet and earn money on advertisement. Barf. Haven't you seen enough advertising? I've had enough. If all entertainment came with advertising, subsidized at a rate *someone else* determines, then I'd be pretty pissed off. Take the model of television. The cost of watching an hour of programming is 15 minutes of ads. How much is your time worth? Was that hour of programming worth 15 minutes of wasted time? For me the answer is usually 'no', so I don't watch much television. So you want to let someone else determine how much of your time should be wasted in exchange for an hour of free music? If you get what you want you'll make that music unavailable to me. You're probably already thinking "just buy the CD if you don't want the ads". Right. Where can I buy a Seinfeld tape? That's right, it's not available (or at least the majority of television programming isn't). That's because there isn't money to be made selling the tape when the majority of people have nothing better to do than watch commercials, so they won't pay for it. I see the same thing happening to music if it's given away with ads. Barf, barf, barf. Enough advertising. No Thanks.