Prices are determined by the marketplace. Things that are new and hot will always command a higher price. Failed albums quickly quickly get to the remainder bin. Collections of older music have lower prices. Used CDs sell for a few bucks at garage sales.
Here's the really scary thing for record companies: CDs are far better in quality than kids' sound systems. Heck, even the lowest quality MP3s are better than the systems they are played on.
There is absolutely no force in the marketplace for the six channel 24 bit audio DVDs that are possible. CDs cannot be copy protected. You might be able to prevent fast ripping on a computer but you will never stop copying at a quality level acceptable to kids.
Artists are not backing the record companies because the companies treat them like the old Hollywood studios treated actors -- basically slaves always indebted to the company store.
Now everyone says the music sucks. I can't comment because I'm too old to follow the new groups. And when I did followed music I leaned towards alternate alternative -- the Fuggs and Zappa. My kids are into jazz and swing, mostly old stuff, although they follow some current live bands.
It's just possible that we are entering one of thse pendulum swings where live bands will have more following than recorded music. And those bands that are good can publish without a record company.
This is what the xxAA is attempting to prevent. It is impossible to do what this bill would mandate except by building hardware that would play only those files that bear a special "seal of approval" that could only be added to a file by a small circle of publishers. If standard-format files can be played, or if just anybody could add copy-protection codes to files, then the system simply won't work. Bootlegged files with the protection stripped off are indistinguishable from files recorded on Joe Sixpack's pre-ban camcorder. Bootlegged files with the old protection stripped off and new (looser) protection codes added by Joe Sixpack are indistinguishable from files recorded on Joe Sixpack's new Leghorn-compliant camcorder. Ergo, the only solution is to compel Joe Sixpack to go, hat in hand, to a Hollyweird-licensed place to have his files recoded (for a modest fee... or a not-so-modest fee if the files are to be coded for publication rather than only for one person's use).
Somebody else but me remembers the Fuggs???!!!
I used an album of theirs to win a neighbor war once. Nothing drives off a prospective homebuyer like "lesbian dwarfs having a tomato orgy" being blasted through the neighborhood. N.B.: I didn't start it, I just finished it.