Music Piracy Crippling CD Sales

Centre Daily Times ^ | December 6, 2002 | Adam Smeltz

[Winston Smith]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL..... Whew
They should have charged $3.99 for CD instead of charging people for 2 copies when they buy them. Thanks to YOUR gov't they allow the premise that the first thing a purchaser of a CD was going to do was make a tape copy, so they allowed the copy to be tacked on.....
For years they sold them for $15.99, payback is indeed a BIAAAATCH.

[per loin]

It's time for hundreds of recording artists to sign a petition against the RIAA declaring war against music pirates.

[Dimensio]

Misleading headline. Should be that the RIAA claims that music piracy cripples CD sales. They supported this by showing a decrease in the number of CDs purchased (while failing to point out that while CD singles dropped in sales, CD albums actually increased, resulting in greater revenue overall). They also ignore the fact that CD sales did not drop until after the death of Napster, and they try to imply that the drop in CD sales must be a result of music piracy and that it could not at all be related to the downturn of the overall US economy.

All in all, it's just an excuse for them to use when paying off Congress to pass new restrictive copyright legislation that totally destroys the concept of fair use.

[wideawake]

Note to the RIAA:

Technology has rendered you obsolete.

You are in the business of manufacturing buggy whips.

Find another line of work.

[Ciexyz]

Market forces at work. If the recording industry decreases the price of CD's and movie admissions, then they cut the incentive to download.

Remember, the Beatles don't own their own catalogue of songs--Michael Jackson does. So when consumers buy the Beatles Greatest Hits, they're putting money in Jackson's pockets, not giving it to Paul, Ringo, and the estates of George and John.

[dennisw]

I have as much sympathy for the RAII and it's so called industry as you do. Their intrusive, totalitarian solutions have turned me against them.

[supercat]

They also ignore the fact that CD sales did not drop until after the death of Napster, and they try to imply that the drop in CD sales must be a result of music piracy and that it could not at all be related to the downturn of the overall US economy.

Maybe it's a result of people's being fed up with music-industry actions against Napster et al., or with people who are unwilling to buy music without listening to it first.

Some interesting articles on www.janisian.com [linked here previously]

[rwfromkansas]

My college is attempting to keep bandwith reasonable.......which is being overloaded with file-swapping activity. Luckily, they only are instituting a download speed limiter for certain programs such as Kazaa instead of not allowing any downloads whatsoever.

Considering this college is a conservative Christian school, they are being rather lax, even when sending out e-mails quoting the Ten Commandments and all.

Personally, I confess to downloading a ton of songs and I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt......

It is quite easy for the companies to deal with this problem. Allow people to simply download songs on their websites.......every song their artists sing....individually, say $1 per song, $2 at the most (any more than that is a rip-off). That would be reasonable. Of course, for that price, I would expect fast downloads.

[new cruelty]

Agreed, wideawake.

The RIAA has isolated itself from the comsumer rather than finding a new means of delivering a product.

However, I don't see them becoming more lax any time soon.

[Ciexyz]

$17.99 per CD is just too high. Add on taxes and it's three times the hourly minimum wage.

[jude24]

"Stores such as mine, and other stores in college markets across the country, were the first to see the potential impact of file-swapping," Negra said. "Business, generally, in that group of stores in the second half of 2000, was down about 40 percent," he said.

I don't doubt that file sharing programs like the now-defunct Napster and Kazaa are hurting these stores sales, but notice what group of stores this is: the college stores. Now, I know at my school, the store of this type here at UB has a much higher markup than Amazon.com, so many of my CD's from Amazon.com.

So, basically, the guys squawking here would be in trouble anyway, since any reasonably savvy consumer could find a cheaper (legal) source of music.

[SamAdams76]

What turned the corner for me was not file-swapping - the quality of most MP3s are terrible - but CD burners. When I discovered how easy and cheap it was to burn my own CDs, my CD purchasing decreased dramatically. I mean, it's hard to justify paying $13.98 and upward for a CD when you can get a stack of 100 blank CDs for almost the same amount. It really makes the consumer realize just how much he was getting ripped off all these years.

I still buy a CD from time to time, but I am much more selective. It has to be a damn good CD for me to spend the money. (I do sample CDs online before buying).

I have enough CDs from previous years (nearly 1,000) to keep me making my own compilations for years to come. Another thing I have done recently is record CDs right off the radio. So when there is special programming that appeals to me - such as a Wagner opera or a Led Zeppelin profile on some oldies station, I stream the audio right onto CD. A blank CD is now done to about 20 cents for 80 minutes of music. What a bargain. This is even 10 times cheaper than cassette tapes!

[HHFi]

The RIAA never considers the possibility that sales may be down because consumers are completely burned out on the cookie-cutter teen pop, hip-hop, hat act faux-country and rap crap they have been foisting on the public for years, every disc virtually indistinguishable from all the others.

I am a record collector and used to buy a ton of CDs, but lately, the only things I've bought on CD have been independent releases and some reissues like Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Mostly, I've been buying old vinyl and extending my already immense LP collection. You can get them cheaper, and there's actually music on them worth listening to.

[new cruelty]

'Personally, I confess to downloading a ton of songs and I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt...... '

Nor do I, rwfromkansas. Nor do I.

They can have my mp3s when they pry my keyboard from my cold dead hands. : )

[Spiff]

Interesting note. Overall, CD sales are down considerably (blame it on piracy, crappy music, whatever).

But, CD sales of Contemporary Christian Music is up 13% over the past year. Hmmm....

[Alberta's Child]

Maybe the decline in CD sales is directly related to the abysmal quality of new music these days.

[Revolting cat!]

In an article published a couple of months ago in PC MAG (which unfortunately I'm unable to locate on the net) John Dvorak argued that if the record industry followed the path which had been followed 100 years ago when sound recordings became available, CD's would cost today about $1.40, accounting for inflation, increased costs, etc. But then, the paradigm would have to be shifted and the teenage madonnas would not be flying their private jets and their record companies would not be swallowing up movie studios.

Buck forty I'll pay!

(By the way, at my local record store I pay not much more than that for brand new CD's by out of favour, or new artists, CD's which had been sold (dumped) to the store by newspaper reviewers, DJ's and distributors.)

[LibKill]