Two giants are squaring off, Walmart and the RIAA (the granny suing people) are set to battle each other, and even though I dislike Walmart and never shop there, I have to root for them. The bulling RIAA has no real power compared to them, and if anyone is to defeat the RIAA it is Walmart. When you can easily pick up a DVD for below $10 and yet a CD that is years old still costs over $10 then something is wrong. I hear all the ‘we have to pay the artist, we have to promote, we have to bla bla bla and that cost money’ and I just don’t buy it, a movie’s cost is much higher. Without going into the physical cost (blank CDs, case) as they are pennies, to create a CD it takes what, maybe the writer, and band, the mixer etc. So what’s that, maybe 12 people? let’s be generous and say 25 people to record and mix the CD, and another 25 to create the case design and promotional materials. I won’t mention the tour, because that is making it’s own money and being used to promote the CD. The promotion usually only lasts for a few weeks after the CD is released so that cost is mostly limited. So after three or more years in release, why does a CD still cost over $10? DVDs are released at about $20, to create a blockbuster movie it cost 100 times more then a music CD, there are hundreds of people in a movie and it takes alot more to create a DVD master of a movie (menus, graphics, 5.1 audio…) then a cd master(audio only!) yet with a few exceptions, a year later a DVD can be picked up for under $15 and sometimes even under $10. Dark Side of the Moon which is 33 years old, still demands $14 (worth every penny so maybe a bad example) while this weekend I picked up the 2 disc directors cut of American Psycho for $10. OK, now the crowd will say that the artist needs to make some coin for their effort and they should, The people making the actual music, the writer, singers, mixers, etc., should make most of the money from the sale of the CD, not the record company, of the money you pay for Dark Side, $5 should go to the artists that created it (Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett*, Alan Parsons…) the rest… well there shouldn’t be any more, that’s how much the CD should cost. OK, the record company should get something for their efforts, but nowhere near what they take now. The RIAA likes to complain about how much they lose to ‘piracy’ but don’t consider that if they sold CDs for $5 -$7 they would sell a lot more CDs. They could also try releasing good albums too, but that’s another post.
CDs are only 2% of Walmart’s sales but 20% of record industry sales, If Walmart wants to throw a scare into the RIAA, they should pull all CDs off the shelves for a week (or a month!), see if they can handle that. Just for the record, I used to buy 2-3 CDs a week, but since the RIAA started suing people I have stopped buying so many and now only get maybe 2-3 a year, usually on sale, I buy about 1-2 DVDs a week. hopefully Walmart forces the RIAA to lower the price of CDs, but even if they do, i doubt it will be very much.
Posted by sherlock from bakerstreet and DeMeNtEd FiLmS
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(*Syd got royalties from Pink Floyd even after he ‘left’ the group)
If I recall, this is pretty much because Syd was a dear friend, and more or less the muse for the whole group.
I agree though, I loved how Metallica was shilling for the RIAA, only because they had sweet recording contract deals that would be effected by music-sharing. The rest of the artists see most of their money (or in some cases, practically all of their money) from touring.
I buy a few CD’s every once in a while, but the only CD’s I really ever buy are Gospel (the cost I hope is supporting a ministry) or Narada/other instrumental publishers. All are expensive, but I only buy them occaisionally. I would love to be able to buy them more frequently. If they cost 5-7 bucks a pop, I would buy them every week, when we get coffee and browse Barnes and Nobles.
Funny, River, you and I have the same musical tastes. Craaaaaaaazy Christians!!!
The next big (ongoing) online battle will be with Allofmp3.com., the Russian file sharing site. They are taking advantage of the very favorable exchange rate between the ruble and the dollar to offer downloads at stupid low prices (like an entire album for about $1.75) The RIAA has been trying to find a way to shut them down but they appear to be operating legally, at least by Russian Standards.
My initial feeling is that Wal-Mart and the RIAA deserve each other, but that would be unfair to Wal-Mart. The record industry better find a way to adapt to current and evolving markets or there’s gonna be a whole lotta “Blood on the Tracks.”
PS: River, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you are a big Phil Keaggy fan!(?) Moi aussi!
I like Walmart. The new one they just put up in our town is saving me gallons and gallons of gas, since I don’t have to drive all the way into town to do mundane shopping. Still, I don’t know why anyone would be doing their music shopping at Walmart. I can never find what I want there. Of course, what I want is usually at least 20 yrs old, and often pretty obscure, so…
If we’re talking about the latest Britney Shakira Aguilera CD, I think they should be giving those away to be used as coasters, or skeet targets, or something.
Non lethal ninja stars.
It’s a good indication of how old we are when most of the CD’s that we look for are over 20 years old.
Well, that and the gout, of course.
What was I just talking about?
Allofmp3.com.
Here’s a quote that’s sure to have several record executives seixing:
As music lovers, we should be so lucky…
That and the summary execution of dissenting journalists…
The RIAA is one of the reasons I support iTunes religiously. iTunes may still be funneling some money to the RIAA but it is setting up a paradigm where an artist can go to a local production company, produce an album and market and sell it world-wide through and iTunes or like platform for pennies and get to keep most of those. There’s a long ways to go but the writing is on the wall for RIAA. Peer-to-peer production and sales is starting to really happen now and nothing can stop it.
RC, I pray that, someday, we will see this happen. It will be a great day for artists and music lovers.