One Buck Forty or Die

pc mag ^ | 27 sep 02 | John C. Dvorak

[white trash redneck]

It's rampant. The new P2P systems, such as KaZaA and Morpheus, have picked up where Napster left off, and blank CDs now outsell prerecorded discs. The trend is clear: concern not for the law but for economics. This happens with disruptive technologies. If you had a machine that could make a new Lexus for $1,000, then why would you buy one from Toyota for $50,000? Because you had a moral obligation?

[polemikos]

Don't forget WinMX. Also very good!.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

.

[StolarStorm]

Ahhh. but the music doesn't COST 35 cents to make... only to reproduce. The costs include studio expenses, royalties, promotion and much more. Granted, I do think that the record companies should drastically reduce the price they charge for music and sell it online. 16 bucks for a CD is absurd.

[StolarStorm]

Ahhh. but the music doesn't COST 35 cents to make... only to reproduce. The costs include studio expenses, royalties, promotion and much more. Granted, I do think that the record companies should drastically reduce the price they charge for music and sell it online. 16 bucks for a CD is absurd.

[Gigantor]

"...the music doesn't COST 35 cents to make... only to reproduce. The costs include studio expenses, royalties, promotion and much more."

Keep in mind that SOP is for the record company to charge the studio costs to the ARTISTS and deduct it from their share of the profits.

They charge the artists for hotel rooms, and limo's etc.

Creative accounting.

[nightdriver]

"Ahhh. but the music doesn't COST 35 cents to make... only to reproduce."

Perfect point, SS. I know a lot of excellent musicians who work their buns off to put out a good sound and get very little for it. One that I know is not only an accomplished artist, but a good organizer as well. It cost her over $30,000 to put out her first CD. She got about $1.00 per copy out of the $16 the distribution system sold it for.

I can see both sides of the argument. Like what happens all too often in our system, it just looks like the producer is the one getting screwed, again.

[upchuck]

I highly recommend WinMX. Simple user interface, tons of folks using it, NO SPYWARE, and, best of all, it's FREE!!

[upchuck]

I agree with Dvorak. It's time the "music industry" changed their business model to something more reasonable.

At $16 a pop, no way I'll buy a CD. But at $1.40 or even $3.40 you bet I would. I'd rather pay $3.40 and get top quality than download anyday.

[Imperialist]

I hope that riaa does not go back to tapes!!!!!!!!!!!

[thescourged1]

Which is probably why some create their own record labels and cut out the middle-man, in true capitalist fashion.

[BfloGuy]

I agree.

At first, I thought this might be an interesting economic perspective on the issue -- but you're right, the writer only takes into account the cost of a CD and reproduction.

And, as for making a Lexus (or whatever brand it was) for $1000, I think that patent infringement would come into play.

It's still just stealing.

I don't know what the recording industry should do to combat it. Maybe there's a germ of truth here that the price of a CD will have to drop -- with the necessary drop in the price of talent.

I don't like, myself, the suggested solutions of examining everyone's computer. Hope there's a better (and still capitalistic) way.

[jodorowsky]

Usenet Usenet Usenet! :)

GigaNews

Complete albums and no annoying slow connections, no disconnections in the middle...

let's see, today in 20 minutes of paging through the boards I got a 2 CD Current 93 live album, Robert Henke - Floating Point, Joe Meek And The Blue Men - I Hear A New World, Beatles - White Album, Black Texicans cowboy music from the 30s, Explorer Series - African Drums'n'Drones, Serge Gainsbourg - L'homme a tete de chou

Your tastes may differ, but there are like 100 different mp3 newsgroups to sample :) !

[Paleo Conservative]

Ahhh. but the music doesn't COST 35 cents to make... only to reproduce. The costs include studio expenses, royalties, promotion and much more. Granted, I do think that the record companies should drastically reduce the price they charge for music and sell it online. 16 bucks for a CD is absurd.

I read the article in PC-Magazine last night, and I disagree with Dvorak. Why should the royalties be a proportion of the manufacturing costs? Digital technologies are driving the marginal costs toward zero. What does it cost to download professionally made MP3 files and burn them onto a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM? If royalties should be proportional to the manufacturing cost, they also will go to zero!

[Winston Smith]

I remember when they were debating cost of CD's in our GLORIOUS capital. I heard several big name stars claim that the first thing the customer would do is make a copy of the CD on tape. So our bright arse legislators along with the "MUSICindustry" lobbiest alowed then to charge YOU for 2 copies of the CD. Why the heck do you think it cost $16. The game was rigged in the early 90's, there is a LOT of catching up to do. Download your heart out, you allready paid for it.

[rdb3]

16 bucks for a CD is absurd.

Where are you? I haven't seen CDs sell for $16 in quite a while (that's in Dallas).

[rdb3]

Which is probably why some create their own record labels and cut out the middle-man, in true capitalist fashion.

Like Master P.?

This guy created, promoted, and distributed his own record label (No Limit Records). His label's hip-hop stinks (unless you like the South's hip-hop, some of which is okay). Yet he is worth half a billion dollars.

That's capitalism.

[dheretic]

I don't like, myself, the suggested solutions of examining everyone's computer. Hope there's a better (and still capitalistic) way.

They have no constitutional right to do that therefore it isn't even an option. Anyone that says it is should be shouted down and out of politics. There is absolutely no ethical justification for that approach.

[rdb3]

They have no constitutional right to do that therefore it isn't even an option. Anyone that says it is should be shouted down and out of politics. There is absolutely no ethical justification for that approach.

Indeed. Probable cause is thrown out the window under this scenario. And owning a PC or a Mac does not constitute probable cause in and of itself.

[SamAdams76]

Serge Gainsbourg - Maybe you grabbed one of my offerings on WinMX by Serge "Bonnie & Clyde." Or Julian Cope's "Come Space Rock With Me."

Try finding THOSE in record stores! And that's just the point. Walk into an average record store these days and you are confronted with overpriced mediocrity. Madonna, Backstreet Boys and Puff Daddy for $16 a pop. Then you have the endless sea of old catalog product that the record companies are still foisting upon us for the "budget" price of $12 and up. I'm talking old Elton John, Journey and Styx albums here. I've always wanted to own the Beatles catalog on CD but it is still prohibitively expensive. $15 a CD for albums that were released over 30 years ago and that I paid for twice already on vinyl and cassette! Give me a break. So I'm burning my old cassettes into CD. A large project but I'm saving thousands of dollars. Of course, if Beatles CD's were priced at $5 or less, I'd own them today.

But I digress. The sad fact is that about 90% of the good music out there cannot be found in your average record store. That's why MP3 sharing sites like WinMX are so wildly popular. You can find practically anything ever recorded out there. It's an awesome distribution system. Pity the recording industry never took advantage of this technology early on. They could have wrestled some control over it and had they charged a nominal fee (or subscription fee), the revenues would be flowing into their coffers by now. Most people would have gladly paid some $20 a month to download music from a Napster-style environment. But the recording industry have missed the boat.