In case you missed it, here’s a quick round up of other Music-related news from the weekend:
• Apple renews contracts for 99 cent song downloads: Apple announced Monday that they have renewed contracts with the four largest record companies to sell songs through its iTunes digital store at 99 cents each;
• Allman Brothers Band and Cheap Trick sue Sony,
claiming they are getting ripped off on downloads (How can the labels claim "breakage" of downloads as if they were physical
records or CDs? What weasels!);• The Canadian Music Creators Coalition warns the RIAA that "Suing Our Fans is Destructive";
• Measured in cost per minute,
compact discs are not a good value;• The Consumer Electronics Association finds its voice and finally asks, Who Are You Calling "Pirate"?;
• RIAA sues a family that doesn’t have a PC — (more here); see also: RIAA loses its attempts to force a guardian ad litem;
• Finally, this
blog covers all the RIAA’s lawsuits;
Some of this might be amusing, if it wasn’t so sad . . .
ITunes still at 99 cents a download? Barry, you got to put that in your “no inflation” side of the ledger.
Actually, most other established technology / software (non-monopoly) comes down in price, as economies of scale factor in and sunk costs get depreciated.
Think Plasmas, DVDs, iPods, cell phones, mobile service, internet access, etc.
The fact that its held steady — while the rest of its peer group has dropped — is either inflationary, or reflects the monopoly pricing power of individual artists.
This is what is called the “ownership society.” Those who own key economic niches will get increased rights and powers. Republicans have sponsored laws to let media companies search your computer and trash them if they find someting they don’t like. There is pressure to hinder self recording because in theory it could be used for information one doesn’t own.
This is what the dominant wing of the Republican party stands for. Bush used family connections to get as city toi condemn land (at one third value) and build him a baseball park. Cheny and Rumsfeld sold government contacts for high corporate position.
Department after department is being destroyed because government is considered a fiefdom to put cronies in. Fema was seriously improved under Bush, now it’s killed with experienced workers driven out. The CIA and the VA (turned into an effective system under Clinton) are on the target list. Look at how contracts were decided in Iraq.
What the Republican party wants is feudalism, not capitalism. Government will be used to protect economic niches and entrench the elite.
The Democrats are not known for free market but they don’t attempt to fully destroy markets and competition. Republicans do.
Whether CDs are a value or not depends on the earnings and PE right ? If you buy $18.99 CDs and get 1 good song that strikes me as getting what you deserve but didn’t earn :).
On the other hand if you manage to buy the Complete Brahms Chamber works – all 10 CDs of the most equisitely beautiful and exultative music concieved by God and performed by vacationing angels, well you take my earnings assessment point – for $54+S&H from Amzn’s used store and it has 12.4 hrs and 96 ‘songs’ of music then I’m paying $60/744 min = $.08/min instead, or $.63/song.
On the other hand clearly the music companies haven’t figured any of this out as yet. The real point you’re making is that the industry has completely lost site of what they could be doing to help the customer.
Consider instead if they made CDs available at $7/CD and also had online backup archives supported by forums and communities. And if disappearing, disappeared and new acts could be avaiable in online access and for dloading. Why you might re-vitalize the industry and music-making. Hmmm….sounds to me like there’s an entrapaneurial opp here maybe ?