Universal cuts CD prices

[gmask]

$13 for a CD seems reasonable :thumbsup:

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by gmask
$13 for a CD seems reasonable :thumbsup:

It's definately an overdue step in the right direction. I just hope all the other labels follow suit.

[EdHarriss]

Great news! I hope that this is one step in many to help get the music industry back on track.

[Gentle Fury]

ha ha ha.....and the funny thing is, they STILL blame piracy for bad sales!! What are they gonna say when sales boost 10x this year because cd's will be affordable??

I predict that if the avg cd price did drop to about $12-$13 that the amount of cd's sold would at least triple. I know i for one have had MANY times going to a music store and seeing a cd i want and saying......well i really want it, but there is no way in hell i'm spending $20 on it!! Then i have also had times where ive seen a cd for like $12 that i perhaps wasnt looking for but said.......eh, thats a good price......i can get it ;)

[trthing]

Originally posted by Gentle Fury
ha ha ha.....and the funny thing is, they STILL blame piracy for bad sales!! What are they gonna say when sales boost 10x this year because cd's will be affordable??


They are gonna say the sales boosted because:

http://www.p2pnet.net/article/7694

and

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112364,00.asp

hehe

[Gentle Fury]

yeah, its strangely convenient that the file share witch hunt gets in full force while at the same time prices drop......so the price drop will bring in revenue and they will say it was because of the witch hunt.

Though, if they really sue thousands of people i think they are going to lose more customers than gain ;)

Kinda like going into a store and being told at gunpoint that you HAVE TO BUY CD's!!!!!!!

Not a good selling point.

[gmask]

>>>Though, if they really sue thousands of people i think they are going to lose more customers than gain ;)

Keep in mind that Universal is the only record label that is dropping prices currently.. but they are the largest.

>>>Kinda like going into a store and being told at gunpoint that you HAVE TO BUY CD's!!!!!!!

If you aren't considering buying any CD's then what are you doing in the store in the first place?

[PhilOsirus]

Maybe I'm just browsing!

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Phil "Osirus"
Maybe I'm just browsing!

<RIAA> Ok, that's it. We're taking you to court...

[gmask]

Originally posted by Phil "Osirus"
Maybe I'm just browsing!

Okay so you are just window shopping but if you came across something interesting and it was cheaper than it used to be and you listen to in the store ..you wouldn't buy it?.. you'd go home and try to download it first.

I haven't really heard of record stores changing their policies about people browsing...if anything recent events should make them more eager to enable the potential buying to preview what they are interested in. I just don't get the analog of a record store demanding patrons to buy CD's at gunpoint. The store owners stand to loose no matter what happens because if people simple are not interested in buying CD's anymore and would rather buy their music online where does that leave them?
There is no blaming the record stores..as they don't set the prices and they stand to lose everything at the rate things are going.

Your small business owner is going to get screwed no matter what in the music selling industry. They can't compete.. it takes money and negotiations to make deals which enables a company to sell music online.

[PhilOsirus]

Record Stores will have to change and adapt like we all have to do at some point when facing situations that require us to do so.

One day, the printing industry will have to adapt, cause all billboards and pamphlets etc are going to be digital. And so will video stores.

It's normal, and there is no way that consumers will have to sit by and spend money on a product that is less effective, more expensive, and more combersome than what the new technology is able to make. Go digital powah!;)

[gmask]

Originally posted by Hookflash
<RIAA> Ok, that's it. We're taking you to court...

pfft.. bombastic troll as usual. :rolleyes:

.. for one the RIAA is after uploaders at this point in time not downloaders or for that matter people browsing in record stores. If you listen to a record in a store you do not get to keep the track unlike when you download it for the same reasons on your computer.

I wish life was such that I could try out anythign for as logn as I liked before I decided to buy it.. I imagien very little would get purchased int hat world.. that would be nice .. I think I'd like that.

Nice meal.. I think I'll return it though.. after digesting it I have decided that it does not suit me.. or uh..nice sports car but after wrecking it I have decided not to buy it because it obviously isn't the greatest car..looks nice but isn't safe. I've listened to this song hundreds of time now.. and well I've decided I don't like it so I'd like my time listening to it over and over again back and feel free to erase my memory of it because after hearing it that many times I can't stand the thought of thinking about it again. Or I just sat through this entire movie and even though I was able to watch the whole movie I have decided that it wasn't worth paying for in the first place and would like my money and time back. Or I have had this software for motnhs now and even though I find learnign it very entertaining and even though the hours I have spent learning it cleary would add up to thousands of dolalrs of entertainment in other forms I've decided that I won't pay for it and would like my time back.. anyway it' an absurd world..

[gmask]

>>>Record Stores will have to change and adapt like we all have to do at some point when facing situations that require us to do so.

well the existing ones ownd by small bizness men will probably go out of business and be replaced by automated digital music vending machines owned by large corporations.. who needs humans to sell music to teenagers. Likewise who needs summer jobs when the work could be done by machines.

>>>One day, the printing industry will have to adapt, cause all billboards and pamphlets etc are going to be digital. And so will video stores.

These are possibilites but what is so wrong or overly expensive about good ole paper and a couple of guys putting the sign up.
It is arguable that there are far more pollutants invovled with the manfacurering of such devices in comaprison to the damage that using recycled paper pulp could cause. Digital billboards aren;t going to be cheap ..so for the advertiser what do they gain? Aniamted billboards should be illegal around drivers because they are too distracting. Cellphones etc are allready bad enough. Let alone the visiual polluttion.. let's just get it over with and pave the earth into one big parkign lot with wall to wall video screens. that's gotta be better than nature :surprised:

>>>It's normal, and there is no way that consumers will have to sit by and spend money on a product that is less effective, more expensive, and more combersome than what the new technology is able to make. Go digital powah!;)

You could also just not buy these products.. they are luxuries.. do you really need them? 100 channel of cable and most of it is crap.. is it anybetter if it's cable, HDTV or satellite.. it's the same crap just on a different stick. I'm not saying progress is not inevitable but much of it is really pointless and simple part of the planned obsolescent nature of the modern consuming world. Everything is disposable and good for one use or until the Jones get the latest greatest. That's why they call it the rat race.. cause we are just rats in a digital maze trying to get the digital cheese.

[runejw]

I'm just making a couple of historical observations here:

1) When the CD came it was priced higher than the vinyl records, but was cheaper to produce.

2) The DVD's are currently higher priced than videos, while also being cheaper to produce (just think of all moving mechanical parts in a video compared to a DVD)

I'd say the music/film industry has been and still is enjoying a very good margin, even after such price cuts.



Cheers,
Rune

[gmask]

>>>1) When the CD came it was priced higher than the vinyl records, but was cheaper to produce.

This may be true but CD's ar ealso better quality recordings than vinyl .. generally speaking people are willing to pay more for better quality especially when the technology first becomes available.

>>>2) The DVD's are currently higher priced than videos, while also being cheaper to produce (just think of all moving mechanical parts in a video compared to a DVD)

Same reasons as above.

Obviously both formats have been well accepted and are now standard .. but they aren't charging for the media they are charging for the content. Some would argue that the quality of content has come down in which case so should the charge for it.

[PhilOsirus]

Yes they are luxiries Gmask, yes I could simply not buy them. I could also buy CDs that require 100 oversea underpaid workers to make. I would feel so generous! But wait a minute, this is about corporate irresponsibility. They are making millions, their music (which is advertisement when played on the radio) is constantly heard by all of us all day long, at work, on the streets, at home on TV, everywhere.

Their tactics have prooved effective, effective indeed.

Now that we are music addicts, we are putting forth a demand. We want our beloved music. We want the one we like, we want the icing on the cake only not the rest of it, we want it wherever we are; in airplanes, at the bus stop, at home, in some hotel at the other end of the world. We want all sorts of music, we want to be suprised, we want music we never thought existed, we want the most commercial music as well, we want Mozart, Eminem, Talvin Singh, the Brave Heart soundtrack's main theme, Britney Spears, Afghanistan's national antheme.

We just want music. The Internet is our friend, the Internet has music, all sorts of music, wherever I am, it has what I am looking for. And I can store it all on a tiny walkman, no more CDs! The machines have won the first round in doing man's bidding, the corporate apes have lost.

[gmask]

>>>Now that we are music addicts,

We are? I'm not.. I have my favorite groups but I can make music to fill that void if I needed to. Don't get me wrong.. I like music but the whole soundtrack to your life BS is just another marketing ploy ;-)

>>>we are putting forth a demand. We want our beloved music. We want the one we like, we want the icing on the cake only not the rest of it, we want it wherever we are; in airplanes, at the bus stop, at home, in some hotel at the other end of the world.

Sounds like you just described satellite radio. oh but you have pay for that..don't ya. Or an MP3 player.. it is legal to make MP3s of your CD's or other music you have legally obtained so that you can listen to them anywhere you like.

>>>We want all sorts of music, we want to be suprised, we want music we never thought existed, we want the most commercial music as well, we want Mozart, Eminem, Talvin Singh, the Brave Heart soundtrack's main theme, Britney Spears, Afghanistan's national antheme.

You could easily buy any of this music except Afghanistan's national antheme (interesting choice) pretty much anywhere at least in the civilised world.

>>>We just want music. The Internet is our friend, the Internet has music, all sorts of music, wherever I am, it has what I am looking for. And I can store it all on a tiny walkman, no more CDs! The machines have won the first round in doing man's bidding, the corporate apes have lost.

So entertainment should now be free for all eternity! Sucks to be a musician.. let's say that the music industry folded (not very likely) would you then pay for music that came from indendant artists or would you continue to bottom feed off the stuff that is no longer being protected as copyrighted material?

Anyway. I'm not really sure where you are going with this? I'm not against mini mp3 players but I do feel like radio that P2p companies act like broadcasters except as station owners they have no control over who the DJ is..regardless they owe mechanical royalties to the labels like a radio station.

Sure the technology is great but it is funded by advertising and the makers of these softwares are exploiting illegally obtained and distributed content. If this content did not exist their services wouldn't either.. they owe the makers of the content. There's gold in them there hills of the internet .. it's the exploitation intellectual properties.

[pearson]

Just a couple of months ago there was an article about how CD sales were slipping. The RIAA said it was definately not because prices were too high (they did polls of people in record stores), but that is (IMHO) absolutely wrong. I know I hear a song on the radio and think, "Hey it'd be great to have that song!" But I know that A) it's going to cost $20 and B) it's probably the only song I'll like on the whole CD. And because I know this, I don't even go to the record store.

I think that Napster hurt the industry alot, not because of people getting music for free, but because it showed people that you could get the music you really wanted, and only that! You don't have to buy a whole CD full of garbage you hate in order to get that song you love! I don't care what label the artist is with! I don't want to have to sign up for a legal download service only to find out that most of the music my favorite band made was released on a label that service doesn't have a contract with.

Plus with Napster you could try new music risk free and discover new music and artists. The current RIAA method for hyping their artists is radio, where a few songs get played over and over and (at least here in the states) the only genres you can listen to are pop, top 40, country, and rap. None of the cool electronica that I listen all day to.

These are two big problems with the music industry which they need to figure out (and Jobs may have done for them): How to stop the labels fighting each other and get all the music together at the same place, and how to make money by selling only the songs people actually want to buy.

Some groups, Metalica included of course, are refusing to put their music on the Apple system because they don't want people to be able to buy each song individually. They want to make people buy all the songs, even though only a couple are going to appeal to a wide audience. They don't want to have to make a whole CD full of great music, they want to make a couple of hits and let those hits sell the rest of the trash that comes on the CD. Those days, I hope, are numbered.

I can't wait for Apple to roll out the system for PCs so I can see if they are going to sell the music I like.

[gmask]

>>>You don't have to buy a whole CD full of garbage you hate in order to get that song you love!

It's just like buying a box cereal for the prize.. who needs the cereal.


>>>They don't want to have to make a whole CD full of great music, they want to make a couple of hits and let those hits sell the rest of the trash that comes on the CD. Those days, I hope, are numbered.

Well eventually you'll just have bands that release one, maybe two songs a year.

People are so picky.. what they should do is make you pay a little bit extra and then you have to listen to randomly selected songs every once and awhile and get people out of their custom mix mentality.

Maybe some bands should just create really long songs where the songs just merge into one another. I dunno I usually grow to like other songs once I have given them a chance.. but you'll never hear them if you only pick the ones you want.

Whatever:rolleyes:

[Hookflash]

gmask: No, I'll tell you what bands should do. They should release decent albums, as opposed to this half-hearted crap that we're seeing nowadays. I hate purchasing an album only to have to skip through 20 minutes of filler. If I'm going to pay even $13, I want about 10-15 really good tracks. Oh well, maybe I'm dreaming;)

[gmask]

>>>gmask: No, I'll tell you what bands should do. They should release decent albums, as opposed to this half-hearted crap that we're seeing nowadays.


LOL.. I dunno.. I have favorite bands with whole albums I didn't like.. I still kept it for the "collection". Maybe every song on new albums should be reviewed by Simon from American Idol before they can release it.

"That's the worse performance I have every heard.. you call yourself and idol, you're pathetic".

and then Paula Abdul would say something supportive and the other guy randy would "yo dog! that was cool dog"

I mean who decides how good the stuff is before it's released??

Maybe recording albums should be turned into a reality TV game show.. realtime feedback fromthe audience would eletrically shock the bands members whenever they play something the audience doesn't like.

Maybe the music has pretty much run it's course of possibilities.. the industry has moved into a multitude of sub-genres.. language can only cover some many utterancies of love, sex, drugs etc and still rhyme.. although I will give credit for rap artists for pushing the final envelope on that one.

[runejw]

gmask: So you feel that since the quality of the content has improved (technically speaking) the price should be higher???

Strange everything else has come down in price - cars are better and cheaper, PC's are better and cheaper, etc, etc

Also high prices are effectively ruling out a large part of earths population, so it's no wonder piracy is rampant in places like Asia where the technology is cheap, but per capita income is still way behind Europe and the US.


Cheers,
Rune

[wgreenlee1]

Exactly...
They should be $5 now.
There are millions that buy it compared when vinyl was selling and its still the same price or more?
But they are greedy so we must forgive them we understand that they need to import those CDs,most Ive seen came from Canada here.
So that means along with the jobs the government and these multinational corps shipped out for lower wages and higher profits we must be held to pay for high product prices?
Go ahead and pay for it,Im not,I dont download it and dont buy it just for those reasons and if you guys want to go ahead but I am not going to be apart of that kind of system.Have not and will not.

[markbones]

Some good points, pearson.

I have also been fed up with the price of CD's, the length or # of songs on a CD, and the quality of the tunes that are not marketed as 'hits'. Seal scrapped a lot of his latest album and re-wrote some tunes (I think it's due to be released this month) because he thought the tunes were not up to par with what people expected of him.

I love the idea of Apple's buy-a-track store, as well as buymusic.com - of course neither of these are available in Canada yet. If people are able to buy music on a per song basis, bands may put out even more songs, and put more effort into writing and production.

Not to mention, I am not crazy about too much of today's music (must be my old age). I like some individual songs here and there from bands, but there are very few artists out there from whom I'd be willing to buy an entire CD of music. Instead of losing out on a sale of a CD, let them earn some money by selling songs to me individually.

[PhilOsirus]

I never said I wanted the system to distribute FREE music. I said they make use of the new technology instead of trying to supress it. As it was said in congress, it is really a problem of not offering people a legal alternative, yet they could.

The technology enables us to find whatever we want without having to browse through dozens of different stores for a whole day, for possibly just one song, and enables us to preview any song without waiting in line, or trying out various CDs. It all works on a tune-per-tune basis, not album-by-album basis, and this is what people are asking.

What do we need to do more, shout in their ears that if they want money they should meet the demand that everyone is making. We know what the technology can do, and already does, so now we want THAT, especially since it is already in place in satisfying people's demand. If they don't want us to download songs without paying, how about they OFFER us to pay to begin with?

They are AFRAID. They want to SUPRESS this technology. Imagine the whole revolution it would bring, making all artists popular on a song-by-song basis instead of how many TV interviews they had, who is their latest dates, what kind of clothes they wear. Think about it, who will pay for whole albums of such an artist if a good part of what makes them popular to begin with has nothing to do with music. Sure they'll still think he/she's cool, but instead of paying 15/20$ for a whole album, they'll buy 4$ worth of music from him, and that's it! But since they will want to satisfy their musical needs, they will purchase music from a greater number of artists, due to the low cost, and the simplified way to find what one likes, regardless of the music's origin or current popularity!

Yes, it is a threat to corporate money-eating apes, but a revolution for the -real- artists, a motivation for the -real- artists, from N'Sync to Ambala Najuripat or whomever, everyone will be able to profit from it and in a much more respectable and equal manner. But of course, the major slave-owners will lose a lot of money.

But hey, it's the free-makert we all love getting a face-lift. Horray for the free enterprise, competition, new technology, better services and so on! In the end it will rejuvenize the industry, and give birth to new distributio company, some focussing on classical music, some on hip-hop etc. Horray!:D

[Gentle Fury]

geez gmask, are you bored?? your kinda sitting on this thread like an egg ready to pounce anyone with an alternative position. This isnt a Q/A it's a general discussion.

This may be true but CD's ar ealso better quality recordings than vinyl .. generally speaking people are willing to pay more for better quality especially when the technology first becomes available.

I know many that would strongly disagree with that statement

[fig]

i think the success of apple's itunes concept shows that people are very willing to spend money on music when they can pick out what they want, and that seems to be a natural progression from kazaa or napster. i like the points this article (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nf/20030909/tc_nf/22250) makes as well, good stuff.

chris

[PhilOsirus]

There is nothing I want more than an iPod! And how about turning it into a cellphone as well, it's already also an alarm clock (goodbye clunky alarm clock with a defectuous Off button, which I must unplug to turn off every morning!), and therefore with a wireless iTune service along with it, so I can download any song from anywhere. No need for big music vending machines, it all fits in my pocket!

Comon, the music industry needs to listen to us. It would expand into a whole new market of centralized technologies and services, much greater consumer services, and they would never profit from me as much as they could have otherwise.

I want iPod, iTune, and YES, corporate-apes, I WILL pay for the services.

[gmask]

Originally posted by runejw
gmask: So you feel that since the quality of the content has improved (technically speaking) the price should be higher???

Strange everything else has come down in price - cars are better and cheaper, PC's are better and cheaper, etc, etc

Also high prices are effectively ruling out a large part of earths population, so it's no wonder piracy is rampant in places like Asia where the technology is cheap, but per capita income is still way behind Europe and the US.


I didn't mean the content was better but that the signal stored on the medium was better. Oh and audiophiles don't count as far as their concerns fior audio signals.. they'll never be satisfied.

No one would argue that VHS is better than DVD.

Duh.. new technology usually fetches a high value.. I guess you guys don't consider $5000 for plasma screen to be expensive.. of course when they first came out they were more like $25,000 $15,000. ..mere pocket change for the early adopter :surprised:

It's just that CD's and DVD's were so popular that the content companies thought they could ride the gravy train endlessly... now is where the buck stops... I guess.. but I woudn't expect it to get much cheaper.

At some point things sort of equalize and you pay more or less the same but you get more.

[pearson]

Originally posted by gmask
I didn't mean the content was better but that the signal stored on the medium was better.
[snip]
I woudn't expect it to get much cheaper.
[snip]
At some point things sort of equalize and you pay more or less the same but you get more.

What exactly am I getting on the CD that is more than 5 years ago? Nothing. I don't get better quality even. They haven't changed since they were first introduced.

I think it's funny that you mention how drastically prices for other technology things have dropped, but feel that a similar drop in CDs is completely unreasonable.

The most glaring thing for me though is the admission that you will buy a CD by an artist, even though you don't like the music on it, just to round out your collection. This isn't "wrong", but you are clearly not price-conscious in your music purchases. Most of the others in this thread have said price is an issue to them. It's not an issue for you, but you should at least recognize that it IS an issue for a lot of people, and not just blow us off as whiners because we don't want to have to buy songs we don't like for prices we feel are too expensive.

[gmask]

>>>What exactly am I getting on the CD that is more than 5 years ago? Nothing. I don't get better quality even. They haven't changed since they were first introduced.

You are missing my point.. you ar enot paying for CD .. you are paying for the content. Conceivably if the content makers could make better content by throwing money at it would you be inclined to pay more for it??? Probably not.. you expect to pay the same for any CD.. so if you won't pay more for good content then why should you expect to pay less for average content.

It doesn't work that way for entertainment.. the makers make more or less money based on the popularity and number of sales they make. Not by charging more or less like you would for a car.. because in comparison the quality of content is subjective. Whereas with cars you can pay more to get a fast car or big car.. those are objective desires. You can also pay more or less based on subjective reasons. But the quality of a car can be more easily measured than content.

>>>I think it's funny that you mention how drastically prices for other technology things have dropped, but feel that a similar drop in CDs is completely unreasonable.

I think i have explained why CD's are different than a plasma screen. When you buy a plasma screen you are paying for the technology but when you buy a CD or DVD you are paying for content.. can you see the difference? Plasma screen aren't very entertaining on their own... and you will not be buying new plasma screen everytime you get a new movie.

CD's as far as manufacturing goes are as cheap as it gets.but making good content has not gotten any cheaper you can just try to do more with the same money and even then that does not guareentee good content.

>>>The most glaring thing for me though is the admission that you will buy a CD by an artist, even though you don't like the music on it, just to round out your collection. This isn't "wrong", but you are clearly not price-conscious in your music purchases.

You are only seeing a small part of the picture.. it would be wrong to categorisze me as not being "price conscious ". In general I am very price conscious but I have very little interest in current music and I haven't bought a new CD in ages. Instead I bought a DVD player last year and I rent alot of movies.. the money goes elsewhere. Also some of the music I like is obscure or printed in short runs and does often cost more than what a major record label charges... but I don't hate those labels for having to charge that much.

>>>Most of the others in this thread have said price is an issue to them. It's not an issue for you, but you should at least recognize that it IS an issue for a lot of people, and not just blow us off as whiners because we don't want to have to buy songs we don't like for prices we feel are too expensive.

I have to admit that I do often feel like the complaints are a bit whiney and the reason why is because .. I find it amazing that you could have respect for an artist and at the same time be so hateful towards their "lesser" songs. If you only like one part of a painting would you expect to only beable to buy that part of image?

Or let's say you were in a restaurant and you tell the waiter here's $20 .. for everything you do that I don't like I will take away a $1... is that really a good motivation for the waiter to do better.. it's kind of cruel.

In the case with record labels if a band is only selling one song the band will not get a higher percentage of the take.. they will get the same take and it will be a percentage of a dollar. So it stands to reason to me that they might charge more for the one song .. more than it would cost if you divided x number of tracks by the cost of a single album. This is common practice when it comes to any other kind of sale.. you buy more and it costs less per item.

If some bands won't let their music be sold piece meal then that's their business. There are plenty of bands who are willing to cater to the consumer. If the bands who demand control suck they will wither and die away. It still does not mean that their ownership over their music has been nullified.

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