Music Industry Compared to Movie Industry 553
tgibson writes "The Denver Post has an article comparing the missteps of the recording industry to the movie industry's success with DVDs: 'The best-selling "Chicago" movie soundtrack is available on CD starting at $13.86. The actual movie, with the soundtrack songs included, of course, plus additional goodies ranging from deleted musical numbers to the director's interview and a "making-of" feature, can be had for precisely $2.12 more...'"
Get Off Me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Buy CDs used. They're a more reasonably price, even if still over priced.
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nonsense (Score:3, Flamebait)
I was just thinking about the argument you guys make: buy used cd's; the RIAA gets nothing, you're happy etc. but I just realized that there's definitely a flaw to that logic.
Every time you buy a used CD, you are voting with your wallet. You're telling the used CD store that yes, people want used CD's. They will pay more for them than the store has to pay to get them. It's profitable to buy and sell u
Re:Get Off Me! (Score:2)
I can't understand the logic, if your accepting piracy and deciding that the cost is X amount per CD, why complain when the consumer uses the CD for it.
Re:Get Off Me! (Score:3, Redundant)
Does that mean people in Canada can download all they want without fear, since they've already paid the royalties?
Re:Get Off Me! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Get Off Me! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you take a look at the Copyright Act (don't actually remember the full name... it's got copyright in there somewhere) it's article 80, IIRC.
regarding the canadian blank cd levy... (Score:5, Interesting)
To paraphrase the introduction to an early Copyright Board ruling:
On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the Copyright Act came into force. Until then, copying any sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright. Part VIII legalizes one such activity: copying of sound recordings of musical works onto recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy.
It does not matter whether you own the original sound recording (on any medium), you can legally make a copy for your own private use.
To emphasize this point, endnote 4 of an early Copyright Board ruling says:
Section 80 does not legalize (a) copies made for the use of someone other than the person making the copy; and (b) copies of anything else than sound recordings of musical works. It does legalize making a personal copy of a recording owned by someone else.
Note that the Copyright Act ONLY allows for copies to be made of "sound recordings of musical works". Nonmusical works, such as audio books or books-on-tape are NOT covered.
The wording of the Copyright Act gives rise to some very odd situations. In the 6 examples below, "commercial CD" means a commercially pressed CD that you would normally buy at a retail store.
Re:regarding the canadian blank cd levy... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't suppose anyone out there could persuade the Canadian government to annex Australia, could they?
-- YLFI
Re:regarding the canadian blank cd levy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:regarding the canadian blank cd levy... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but their primary role for some time has been peace-keeping.
Whoops, sorry. Forgot about the language barrier. For you Americans:
peace ['pEs] noun. 1 : a state of tranquillity or quiet: as a : freedom from civil disturbance b : a state of security or order within a community provided for by law or custom , 2 : freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions, 3 : harmony in personal relations, 4 a : a state or period of mutual concord between governments b : a pact or agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity, 5 -- used interjectionally to ask for silence or calm or as a greeting or farewell
Re:regarding the canadian blank cd levy... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a circular argument. You've already defined them as enemies. Many of America's "friends" are worse than their enemies, an America rarely attacks to "free" people. If you recall, the justification for Iraq was (quite possibly non-existant) WMDs. Saddam is not even close to the worst leader in the world as far as attrocities. Don't fool yourself into thinking it's about "freeing" them. How many countries that America has atta
DVDs (Score:4, Insightful)
Simply put, in my sole estimation, DVDs are worth my money--music CDs aren't.
Re:DVDs (Score:4, Funny)
This article was brilliant.
If only the music industry was smart enough to listen to it. However I imagine that they'll be closing their eyes and ears hoping that suing the people they wish were customers will make all the bad times go away.
Poor bastards...
N.
Re:DVDs (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's take your average Summer Blockbuster. Average pricetag with good actors and good special affects and some reasonable marketing seems to be around the $100M mark. But that was just the cost of making the movie. Now we need to make it into a DVD.
Lets add another $20M for:
* The cost of converting 35mm Kodak into digital form.
* Editing time to get a seperate made for TV "Full Screen" version.
* Paying spanish and french voice art
Re:DVDs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DVDs (Score:3, Interesting)
Kevin Smith (silent bob himself) has said that, with the advent of DVD's, it changes the way that he films. Previously, he used to cut the scene when the actor started ad-libbing or embellishing (aflack is notorious, appearantly). Now, he just lets them rant and rave as long as they want, and then he cleans it up in post, and throws the cuts on the DVD.
So, directors are thinking about DVD's even as they are filming.
~Will
Re:DVDs (Score:5, Insightful)
However, you need to realize that the customer doesn't care. The question is "I have $20 to spend... What should I spend it on? Chicago DVD with the music for $15.98 or just the music for $13.66?" A heck of a lot of people are going to go for the DVD.
It's not our problem that the RIAA has a broken business model. In fact, that's exactly the problem. That's why they are suing their customers instead of selling to them. They're trying to defend a broken business model. It's unsustainable.
They have to compete for a customer's limited entertainment budget. That budget may be split over seeing movies in the theater, buying DVDs, going on a vacation to Cancun... and maybe buying CDs. Their most direct competition is DVDs and in that area they are NOT competitive.
All they can do is lower their prices DRAMATICALLY and hope that's enough. I'm not talking $10... $10 for a music CD or $15.98 for the same music on a DVD is still a hard sell. I'm talking drop the price down to $3 - $4.99. And even there it's a crapshoot as to whether or not they'll make it. Music is free now because they've overpriced their product and driven tens of millions of customers to get their music for free online. The cat is out of the bag and it's going to be hard to put it back in--even if they lower the price of a CD to $5, a price which might have prevented the original exodus to P2P music sharing, it might be too late for that to bring people back.
Re:DVDs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DVDs (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, you're underestimating the revenue DVDs bring in. It gets more and more significant each passing year and many movies that flopped at the box office have nearly redeemed themselves on DVD.
As for the anti-priacy ads, I thought those were supposed to be for comic relief! And here I was rudely chuckling with many of my fellow movie goers...
Re:DVDs (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of piracy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DVDs (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrast that to a major motion picture which might have cost the studio a hundred million dollars or more to create, and I can buy a copy of that production for the price of a music CD. That, to me, is not a bad value. Sure, I dislike the encryption and region coding, and frankly the DMCA is almost enough to keep me from buying DVDs at all, but really there are some damned good movies out there nowadays. Honestly, I don't mind paying $17 or so for a copy of The Hulk or Spiderman or any of the other major motion pictures in recent years. And, I find that there have been thousands of releases of older films that I can buy at Walgreen's for three bucks.
On the other hand, the music industry may or may not be in financial trouble (hard to say, they lie so often.) If they are, I can tell you this: it has nothing to do with anything they say it does. Rather, their problems are a direct result of providing a poor quality product for too much money. This translates to not being a good value for the customer, and is a typical outcome whenever monopolies are involved. What has happened is that the customer base has been exposed to alternatives (all the way from "free" music from online applications to purchased music created by independent (non-RIAA aligned) musicians) and has begin (slowly, to be sure) to wake up to what a rotten value the major music studios actually deliver.
Additonally about movie soundtracks (Score:5, Interesting)
This would of course beg the question as to why a movie soundtrack would be so expensive, given that it was already paid for in the context of the movie. This gives rise to another intersting question: The music industry wants to pretend like when you buy music, you are buying a liscence to listen to it, not the actual good itself. In that case, do you have a right to the movie soundtrack through owning the movie (of which the soundtrack is a part)?
Re:DVDs (Score:3, Interesting)
$50,000 is enough to build your own professional-grade home recording studio. For $100,000 you can build a dedicated, acoustically optimized extension to your house. For $250,000 you can have multiple studio rooms to rent out. And this is all assuming you don't know anyone who's already done this. Cost to produce a quality audio album is almost negligible today.
Contrast that to a major motion picture which
Animatrix example (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, not everybody (*gasp*, I know!) has a DVD player, and moreover I'm not even sure how easy it is to rip music from a DVD. Never mind the fact that it's probably evil [riaa.com]...
Re:Animatrix example (Score:3, Informative)
This is something I've thought about as well, because I own quite a few music video DVDs ( The Cure, Run DMC etc ) and would like to be able to listen to them on the bus, etc, without lugging a laptop around. I'm not sure whether I should feel obligated to buy another copy of the albums in question...
To answer your technical query, if you have access to a supported platform, mplayer has a ao ( audio out ) driver for dumping wave data to a file. Te
Yeah but downloading movies still not easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah but downloading movies still not easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah but downloading movies still not easy (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with CDs is that you usually pay for one song you want to and 15 others you're not interested in. With movie DVD, you just pay for what you want.
Maybe, but there's still a common misconception that CDs are dramatically overpriced because of this.
If a CD which costs $15 has 15 tracks, 5 of which are good, 5 of which are average, and 5 of which are bad, then it's inappropriate to say that the songs are worth $1 each. Maybe the good songs are worth $2, the average songs are worth $1, and the bad songs are worth nothing.
On the other hand, if you claim to like bands that produce CDs with only 1 good song, then my conclusion is that you obviously have bad taste in music.
-a
Re:Yeah but downloading movies still not easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Do people have a sufficiently short attention soan that this concept is unappealing?
Jedidiah
What are you talking about? (Score:5, Interesting)
To be quite honest, I would rather have cds of my entire music collection. When I purchase cds, I listen to them much more intently, I hear music the way it was intended in an album sense.
I have no idea what songs I have are on what album. I couldn't name you 1/4th my collection on a good day, but I can name you almost every cd I own.
When I burn a cd, it just doesn't feel the same.
If you priced cds at 5 bucks a pop, I would never download another song (aside from learning about a band to subsequently buy.)
I walk into a music store, and I WANT to buy thier music. I do. I refuse to because of the prices (except for punk/emo/techno comps that are reasonably priced.)
I can purchase a video game with the latest graphics, or two cds.
It has EVERYTHING to do about the money, and not about the ease. I hate walking into music stores because I want to buy their albums.
I really do.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What are you talking about? (Score:4, Interesting)
My CD's tend to sit in a shelf or in a large book somewhere, and I tend to only keep about 50 or so CD's from my library in use over the course of a month or so. Mostly recent stuff. The rest of my CD's never get used. Too difficult/pain-in-the-ass to hunt through my CD's to find a song or album I want to hear.
I then started the process of recording CD's onto my hard drive. I now find myself listening to a lot more of my older stuff with a lot more variety. The MP3 players are great at catalogueing the music.
It's just much easier to use MP3 files when you have hundreds or thousands of CDs. My actual CD's are now sitting in storage somewhere in the basement.
Sure I suppose music could still be sold on physical CDs, but for me they're going to be recorded onto the computer anyways.
Not for me (Score:2)
On the other hand, if I like only one song, I'll download and burn it instead of buying the CD for $13. However, as the price drops, it will be more convenient for me to buy the CD in
Re:Yeah but downloading movies still not easy (Score:2)
I still want my music collection to be legal though. I don't want to be paying for a worse service than I can get for free (albiet illegally) so no stupid copy protection, no ties to a single machine. Want I want is a subscription based service that gives me the content I want in the way I want it.
I already subscribe to emusic - I would happily pay more for a much bigger choic
Basic Comparison (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Basic Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
that's nonsense. Wait until the day we have gigabit ethernet in every home and we can copy an entire DVD in
They've just have less enemies cause there's less easy ways to steal/copy. That's all.
Re:Basic Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Basic Comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Basic Comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that at the end of a movie you can see a 100-person+ credit scroll buy. You understand that all these people earn a good living doing what they do, you calculate all the time used and all that expensive equipment, and in your head you reach the conclusion that a DVD is worth about as much as you pay for it (sure, many would prefer a lower price)
CDs on the other hand. There's the band/artist, and producer(s). Then what? Once upon a time a studio might have been a true hi-tech wonder. Nowa
Re:Basic Comparison (Score:5, Informative)
No, no, you got it backwards... (Score:5, Funny)
They brought in Celin "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaai will alwaaaaaaaaaaaaaais luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv juuuuuuuuuuuu" Dion and got it for not singing a song. (Pardons to any fans out there. You have my sympathies
Kjella
They're the same except for the hair (Score:3, Funny)
Whitney Dione, Celine Houston, who can tell them apart? And the Backstreet Boys vs NSync... is NSync the band where the tough one wears the bandana, or is it that sensitive angsty one? Personally I spend my money on cds from the pop amalgem sensation Boy George Michael Jackson Browne Vs Board Of Education, he rocks!
I never buy DVD's (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I never buy DVD's (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't watch a movie walking down the street or on my commute to and from work (or at work for that matter), but I can sure listen to music. These arguments are pretty stupid, IMO.
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't watch a movie walking down the street or on my commute to and from work (or at work for that matter), but I can sure listen to music. These arguments are pretty stupid, IMO.
Because when I'm about with a group of friends, I say, Hey... Wanna listen to my cd collection?
Also, music takes less money to make than a movie. I.E. I will pay more for a movie.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Albums might cost less to produce but movies rake in far more at the box office than most albums do and the return on movies is much quicker. Consider that even a crappy movie will sell in the millions of tickets at the box office where as a CD will be lucky to sell more than a million copies. Most are lucky to sell more than 500,000 copies and even more still will see no more than 250,000 sold.
Yes BUT (Score:3, Insightful)
And Also... (Score:3, Interesting)
I still go to see movies. I no longer buy CDs from major labels.
Re:And Also... (Score:2)
Is millions of dollars per movie reasonable?
great article (Score:2)
Re:great article (Score:2)
anyways, downloading a movie takes (on avg) 4-5 hours. I wouldn't even bother burning it on a cd because I have enough hd space (and half the ti
One thing wrong in the article (Score:5, Funny)
uh huh right and I'll find that along with element 118, cold fusion and bigfoot, and non-buggy M$ products.
Re:One thing wrong in the article (Score:2)
Hah! Freecell is a very stable game!
Much more stable than Freecell on Redhat!
Did you really expect otherwise (Score:2)
Exactly.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Too little, too late (Score:3)
Buy from unsigned artists. Buy from independent labels which are not members of the RIAA. It isn't good enough for the RIAA to lose. Their competition has to do well.
Overlooked point (Score:3, Insightful)
Buy one factor is not considered. A CD of music is more readily conveted to mp3s and shared over the internet than a DVD. The shear size of a movie (800-1600+ MB) make them more resistant to on-line sharing than music (for the moment).
I do have to applaud the movie industry for trying to make the DVD format more attractive with special content: the making of, choice of widescreen or scaled, alternate endings, etc.
If they further lowered their prices, people would buy more dvds as a matter of convenience. Everyone likes a nice box and cover art instead of two cdrs and a handwriten index card in the case where someone downloaded a movie.
The article has a nice junxtaposition bewteen the music and movie industry.
From the World of Stuart (Score:5, Interesting)
http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/estate/dh69/
The problem is psychological. People simply do not compare the prices of CDs and DVDs. It is not how we think. In America, everything is $15 instead. Exchange rates do not matter--it is the number that is significant.
P.S. Why does slashdot strip the pound symbol?
Why I buy DVDs but not CDs (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say that I love listening to music, but at the prices CDs are going for I find that my money is MUCH better spent on DVDs. For the same or less than the price of a CD I can buy a movie with all sorts of extras. The DVD has audio on it and a picture, the CD just has audio and no extras, why should it cost the same? The answer is it shouldn't.
I also have a lot of problems with the way the RIAA is trying to keep hold of their antiquated distribution methods and huge markups. Why should I support thier lawsuits with my money? Granted, the MPAA has not been the best player all along wither (they fought the introduction of the VCR for example) of course they have learned their lesson as the sales of movies in VHS form have made them a bundle of money. The RIAA refuses to see the future of music, not even doing a good job of promoting legal online distribution methods or interested in lowering prices.
I'll continue to add to my DVD collection, but until prices are MUCH more reasonable for a CD (say under $5 for ANY title I'm interested in) I won't be buying very many, if any. If the price and distribution method are right I think the record companies can get people to buy music again. Of course, this assumes the music is worth listening to, but that's another story.
So Much Music is So Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
While I'm complaining here, I have to say that I really don't like the extra material on CDs, and I really can't stand CDExtra. The material slows down my computer, makes it crash some times, and generally is pretty lame. It often autoruns too, which drives me crazy. In short, I am inclined to avoid the new-and-improved CDs even if I think I'll like the band. How do you feel about this?
Earlier today, I was thinking (contemplating really) about how I buy music on eBay or used on Amazon or trade on Trodo [trodo.com]. I decided that I like that approach much better than buying from a store. eBay is at least 1/2 price off and often you can even get new CDs for a low price. On Amazon, you can often get a music preview, so there is no advantage to visiting a brick and mortar (do people still say that?) music store. And, to top it all off, I can find music I like faster on the web. I can find recommended music, related music in the right genres, and more. It is easier and cheaper. So, can anyone explain wny I should actually visit a store? (My only answer is instant gratification -- I can buy and listen immediately.)
Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel contempt when I watch MTV while I actually pay attention to movie trailers.
I feel used by ("new") musicians while moviemakers entertain me.
Re:Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
STOP COMPLAINING! Who cares what MTV has to offer!
Artists on MTV / ClearChannel radio might constitute the majority of music industry sales but it's only because of people like you perpetuating these idiots. DON'T BUY CRAP MUSIC. That's the best way for music to improve.
I've spent plenty of money on Radiohead, Coldplay, Kronos Quarter, Placebo, John Coltrane, DJ Shadow, Turin Brakes, Goldfrapp, Money Mark, Yo La Tengo, Spiritualized, Royksopp, MC Paul Barman, and countless others. Why? Because I haven't allowed myself to be marketed to by the major labels or Viacom's television network or magazines, and I pick up stuff based on what I like, not what I am told to like.
Now, this might be a revolutionary way of thinking, but I'm sick and tired of people complaining they don't like artists that are being marketed to them. Go get yourself some taste in music and free will and discover artists on your own and stop complaining about the newest Creed album.
May be it has to do with a business model? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really. I think the main problem that these people (record labels and such) just don't care about music at all. A decade or so ago the recording industry transmformed itself into "industry of the cool" but because the music is what a lot of regular people still care about the record companies are having problems right now.
I think it all happened in the beginning of 90's with rap invading a mainstream and an unexpected breaktrhough from Seatle. It all was raw, real and it was for sure cool. However gangsta
Re:Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel contempt when I watch MTV while I actually pay attention to movie trailers.
I feel used by ("new") musicians while moviemakers entertain me.
This would be you aging and losing touch with the younger generation. If you ask anyone, at any point in history, they will tell you that things were better "before". Music in the 70s was not all great. Neither was music in the 60s or 80s. It was mostly crap whatever time you want to look at. The difference is that as time goes by, the horrible crap fades and the truly great stuff stays. Look at the top songs of any year and you will see the biggest load of crap that you are thankful you don't remember (top song of
cost efficiency (Score:2, Interesting)
Most Insightful Comment. Ever. (Score:5, Informative)
The more people that say this, the greater chance the music industry will start paying attention to their customers' wants again.
cd prices are dropping! (Score:2)
while this probably won't bring the price in line with DVDs, its nice to see that prices are as low (and even lower) than when CDs first were released.
They're owned by the same companies! (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:2)
Don't think so, michael. I don't think so. Apples... meet Oranges...
I agree absolutely. (Score:2)
Also plain old quality (Score:3, Insightful)
I can name several films in the past two or three years alone that I consider classic films, that I would watch over and over and are well worth the 20 bucks tops to get on DVD: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Pixar movies, etc.
Out of all the music released in the past three years, I honestly cannot name a single CD I can say the same for. Seriously. The music these days is pure chewing gum. Single songs, maybe. A big maybe. But whole albums? None.
I don't think I'm alone in recognizing this total pure crap ola level of quality in the music biz.
Remember, if the MPAA had had its way... (Score:5, Insightful)
The music industry can follow suit. Embrace file sharing, don't try to stop casual non-commercial copying, and sell CD's for $3.99 each. They'd make a fortune.
The problem in both situations is that, when confronted with technology that seems potentially threatening, suing it until it goes away seems less risky and more economical than embracing it and trying to develop a new business model around its existence. Fortunately for both us and the MPAA, they lost. Now they make a fortune in the video industry. Unfortunately for both us and the RIAA, they have not yet lost (better lobbying) and are suing themselves into oblivion, while hurting end-consumers as well. Especially the 12 year old ones.
Re:Remember, if the MPAA had had its way... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is an approx. current price breakup:
$ 2.00 Record-label profit + Executive salaries
$ 1.40 New artist development
$ 1.15 Distribution
$ 1.10 Manufacturing (CD + artwork + jewel case)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Re:Remember, if the MPAA had had its way... (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing new for the movie studios... (Score:4, Insightful)
Only time will tell if the recording industry can demonstrate similar adaptability to challenges of their traditional business model or go the way of the Dodo.
Josie and the Pussycats better example... (Score:4, Informative)
Josie and the Pussycats DVD: 17.99 pounds [hmv.co.uk] ($29)
Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack CD: 19.99 pounds [hmv.co.uk] ($32)
Same retailer, same movie, two pounds ($3) less for the DVD than the soundtrack CD ! It's ironic really, because the movie is only OK, but the soundtrack [angelfire.com] is utterly fantastic - I have it on auto-repeat at the moment...
Re:Josie and the Pussycats better example... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Josie and the Pussycats better example... (Score:4, Informative)
CD-WOW concentrates on more popular music (not just mainstream) and doesn't have either item but Play.com has your Josie and the Pussycats CD at 9.99 pounds and the DVD at 6.99 pounds. So why you'd ever pay over twice as much for either item is beyond me.
Seriously, only an idiot would shop at HMV UK's online store. With a few exceptions, its prices are set to match those in its stores, so people who want to know how much a CD, DVD or whatever will cost can browse the site before they head to their local HMV.
Pointing out that HMV.co.uk is expensive is as revolutionary as saying "the sky is blue" or "it's cold in the North Pole". Similarly, using it as a comparison shopping example ("hey, look at how expensive everything is here in Britain!") is equally stupid, as you've picked an expensive retailer to start with, failed to point out that VAT (sales tax) of 17.5% is included in those prices, etc.
Music vs. Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
A music CD, on the other hand, I could easily listen to the music on it hundreds of times, if the songs are good.
So even for the same price, music vs. DVD, the music gives me more entertainment value. However, I am refraining from buying either, partly due to economic reasons, and partly due to the fact that I hate the RIAA and the MPAA.
Re:watch it again, and again (Score:3, Insightful)
The article has it correct... (Score:5, Interesting)
I buy a DVD about once a month, and like building up my collection. Not too much overlap with my VHS collection, because a lot of my DVDs are of movies that have come out in the last 10 years. I like the extras, especially when the extra scenes are inserted into the movie, like in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
On the other hand, I rarely listen to the Top40 music stuff in the last couple years. My station is almost stuck on the classic rock and light rock stations.
I completed my classic rock CD collection about 3-4 years ago, and haven't bought a music CD in the last 2 years -- more out of disgust against the RIAA. Haven't borrowed a CD from anyone in a couple years. And now that I ripped all my CDs to my PC, I prefer listening to my own mixes of favorites rather than a store-bought.
Not sure if the RIAA wan't my business anymore. Not sure if I care.
I love... (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, cause clearly DVDs currently have no problem of the sort cough and the difference between read-only and read/write takes a mind of staggering genius to understand. Fluff.
Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Music writers & singers have no such options. There is no advertsiing capability on a Justin Timberlake CD. There are no Justin Timberlake action figures.
The price of CDs at $15 is not a mis-step, it's the reality of the costs and lack of other ways to make money off of CDs.
Re:Not a fair comparison (Score:3, Informative)
First, the vast majority of films lose money during their theatrical release.
Second, most movies don't have any tie-ins so there is no revenue stream there.
DVD sales (and home video sales in general) saved the entire movie industry and allowed it to move to the current huge budgeted movies that are produced (you decide if that's a good thing). The movie industry did not go into this model peacefully. Under Jack Valenti's leadership
Argh! Why must you be so sheep like? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, for your information, I am going to list brilliant albums of the past ten years (even half-brilliant ones), and categorize them by genre. Please try one of these out -- you're not guaranteed to love each one, but I do. If you hate all of these, then you don't have good taste in music to begin with...
Rock/Alternative/Folk/etc
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast
a-ha - Minor Earth Major Sky
Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
Radiohead - OK Computer
Beck - Sea Change
Beck - Mutations
Clinic - Internal Wrangler
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Elliot Smith - XO
Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Hey Mercedes - Every Night Fireworks
Brand New - Deja Entendu
At The Drive In - Relationship of Command
Hot Water Music - No Division
Sting - Brand New Day
Counting Crows - Hard Candy
Ben Folds - Rockin The Suburbs
Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
Thrice - Illusion of Safety
John Mayer - Room For Squares
Jazz/Blues/Classical/etc
Don Byron - A Fine Line: Arias and Lieder
Soulive - Turn It Out
Kronos Quartet - Nuevo
Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet - Requiem for a Dream OST
Christian McBride - Vertical Vision
Pat Martino - Live at Yoshi's
Pat Metheny - Speaking of Now
Greyboy Allstars - A Town Called Earth
Tan Dun - Hero OST
Electronic/Techno/Ambient
Air - Moon Safari
DJ Shadow - The Private Press
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain
Royksopp - Melody A.M.
Crystal Method - Vegas
Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
UNKLE - Psyence Fiction
Turin Brakes - The Optimist
Hip-Hop/Rap/R&B/Urban
Breakestra - Live Mix Part I & II
D'Angelo - Voodoo
Greyboy - Mastered the Art
Mos Def and Talib Kweli - Black Star
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
Quannum - Solesides Greatest Bumps
The Coup - Steal This
Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030
Mr. Lif - I Phantom
RZA - Ghost Dog OST
Jurassic 5 - EP
Again, you're not guaranteed to love each and every single on these -- but it's a good start. More info on any of these: AMG: All Music Guide [allmusic.com]
RIAA IP argument is a red herring. (Score:3, Interesting)
Having RIAA and the music industry trying to prevent people from copying music digitally is like trying to have a law that keeps people from using tractors on a farm to save the plowmans' job.
Technology has advanced where we do not need a recording industry to capture and distribute music, any more than we need to have farmers plowing fields by hand.
The DMCA should be argued against as the act of corporate welfare that it is.
Goodyear didn't get gov't breaks against the onslaught of radial tires which lasted longer. Horse and buggy makers didn't get breaks against car engine makers. Propeller plane makers didn't get breaks against the Jet engine makers. Neither too should the recording industry get breaks against the new computing industry.
Imposing artificial restrictions and charges in the music world completely goes against the grain of technological progress and truly free markets.
Business survival of the fittest (Score:3, Insightful)
The market changes. You either embrace these changes or you die.
The problem is our global economy (due mainly to legislation like the 1996 Telcom Act) has ended up with less competition and larger players, and when they can't quickly adapt to meet the needs of the new marketplace, they try to scare (RIAA), Mislead (AT&T) or coerce (Network Solutions) consumers into continuing to do business with them.
We saw Microsoft try to do the same thing when they initially ignored the Internet, but eventually MS had to embrace this new medium. History is full of new market dynamics that the established entities claim is unfair and will put them out of business (mail, telephone, radio, television, VCR, CDR, fax, modems, cellular, satellite, cable, digital photography, etc.) It's a never ending cycle.
Some companies try to legislate the maintaining of the status quo, like the RIAA is doing now, but it will never work, just like SCO can't stop the open source community by suing IBM. These are the companies that don't want to adapt and lose their spot at the feeding trough and have to start over. Unfortunately that's the nature of things. You adapt or you die. Organizations like the RIAA and SCO are either unable, or unwilling to fairly compete using the new market dynamics, so they resort to feeble bullying tactics that don't work.
Brilliant Idea # 1023 (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if CDs were more like DVDs more people would buy them. For example:
Slap some extra tracks, out-takes, alternate versions, remixes on the cd.
Stick some multimedia content on 'em: music videos, band interviews, behind the scenes making of, tour videos, live video.
Stick some "trailers" as the first track of every cd: some sample songs from other artists on the same label with releases coming out soon.
I don't think any of this content would jack up the price to make a cd in the least.
Re:Brilliant Idea # 1023 (Score:4, Insightful)
The reasons are technological (Score:3, Insightful)
A redbook CD is about 650 megs (usually less) of uncompressed audio. With audio compression techniques, (MP3, Ogg etc.) the CD becomes about 100megs (at a compression rate that doesn't *completely* mangle the music.) and each track comes out to about 5 megs or so. A CDR can be had for much less than a dollar. The last CDRs I bought were FREE after discounts and rebates.
So, to copy the Original CDR at "full quality" Redbook audio costs nearly nothing and when compressed to MP3, eats 100 megs on my drive.
DVDs are already compressed, and if the movie is over 2 hours, they are often VERY compressed. The DVD eats (usually) about 4.2 GIGs of space on my drive.
Now, until very recently hard drives weren;'t all that cheap. The first one I could afford of consequence was in 1994 when I bought a 1 gig drive for $580 and I got a damn good deal on it. DVDs didn't exist, but even if they did, my computer didn't have a large enough drive to store a movie, unless I wanted to experience it at 180x240 at 15ips and compressed beyond all human imagining. Also, the computers were so slow, that to rip that much data would have taken....a reeeally long time, given I was running a 48 mHz machine...
So, music was the first to get digitised due to its file size. the rest follows, really.
When the $400 desktop computer I pick up at best buy has a 4 terabyte drive, and processes data in the multiteraflop range, and has 7.1 audio built right in, and the video card has a gigabyte of VRAM, Hollywood will be making the same kinds of noises that the RIAA are right now.
Compressed audio sounds lousy, but no more lousy than DVDs presently look. Once the file size for DVDs relative to the hard drives and CPU speeds isn't such a big deal, people will cheerfully rip DVDs and burn them for their friends, and their will be precious little Hollywood can do about it.
When will the bandwidth to my house via (whatever succeeds DSL / cable modems) in 10 years be? No idea, but I kind of doubt that it will be able to move movies around with the rate of speed I can move a title of MP3 / Ogg choonz.
therefore, the bandwidth for trading movies over the internet at a reasonable quality will lag far enough behind that Hollywood won't give a rats ass about it for quite a while.
However, as we all know, the bandwidth for trading music, even entire CD Titles, has been around for quite a while, and hence, the RIAA get their knickers in a twist.
Therefore: Hollywood comes off looking better than the RIAA, because they know that I might have 1000 CDs of music on my 120 gig drive at a quality not very different from the original, but there is no way I'lll have a 1000 movies on my 120 gig drive at the same relative level of quality. Consequently, they toss out DVD movie titles for not that much more money than the MSRP CD title prices...
Now, when I have a 60 terabyte drive in my machine loaded to the gunnels with movies, and the bandwidth is there and affordable for me to P2P a full length MPEG2 movie in 7.1 audio in less than a half hour, and I'm just sitting back and burning DVDRs for friends and fambly, Hollywood WILL hunt my ass down, just like the RIAA hunted down the Kazaalings.
RS
It's all about those CD factories... (Score:5, Funny)
In 1989, the prices still hadn't come down, but I started seeing widespread sales of used CDs. I bought everything used. Aside from a new CD I bought in 1999, the labels haven't seen a penny direct from me since 1989.
In 1999, the prices of CDs still hadn't caught down, but I started downloading music, making MP3s, ripping my friends CDs, and doing direct hard-drive exchanges of MP3s.
It's 2003 -- 19 years since I started college -- and the price of CDs is about the same as it ever was. Two months ago, I finally bought a CD burner of my own -- a 52X -- so I can make my own CDs. I got it for ten dollars after the rebate.
If they can't get those damned facories built by now to significantly lower the price of CDs, they deserve to go out of business.
Comparing the value of DVDs and CDs (Score:3, Informative)
WAKE UP PEOPLE!
This is monopolistic pricing clean and simple. They are charging what you are willing to pay rather than basing the cost to you on their costs plus profit. Considering that a movie costs 2 to 3 orders of magnitude more to make than a CD and the actual medium costs about the same, CDs should be a lot cheaper. If there was any real competition between the record labels prices would drop dramatically but they're all in on this together so you pay through your noise for something that should be very cheap.
superficial research (Score:3, Insightful)
Through a combination of intelligent design, lucky accident and the good sense to follow the consumer's lead, movie companies settled on the VHS video format for 25 years before gently introducing a DVD alternative.
Try lucky accident. Jack Valenti of the MPAA is the guy who said that home taping would kill the movie industry when he was trying to get Congress to stop it. If they'd had their way, there would have been no VHS.
The main difference between the MPAA and RIAA is that the MPAA companies had sense enough to pick a lower price point and add extra content over and above the movie.
Why is the MPAA fighting alongside the RIAA to kill filesharing?
P2P pirating of movies simply isn't economically significant. The bandwidth to the home just isn't there yet and isn't going to be as ubiquitous as the TV for years and years.
So what's the problem?
Same as the RIAA, it's about control. When those broadband pipes to the home are in place, it'll be possible for the next Steven Spielberg to make a movie on his desktop with capabilities better than the best high-end Hollywood has to offer now, rendering and special effects courtesy of a closet full of PCs loaded with high-end programmable video cards... and consumers will be able to download it.
Where is Hollywood in this picture?
For them, that's the problem.
So they're willing to go along with the RIAA on proposals that'll turn the Net into a controlled domain where the only audio/video entertainment content available for public distribution will be "blessed" by Hollywood.
Why is the RIAA out there all by itself suing 12 year olds?
It seems that the RIAA is being the "bad guy" to the MPAA "good guy", and this makes no sense. Gangs of scumbuckets don't make sacrifies for each other unless there's benefit in store for them.
Re:CDs and DVDs wouldn't be so expensive.. (Score:3, Interesting)
High prices didn't lead to people downloading music. The pure convenience of being able to download songs en masse online couppled with fairly high prices brought many people to download music. Which in turn lead to higher prices. Which lead to more pirating again because of its ease.
But you forgot to point out that people do it because it's more convenient. It's not just about high prices. It's about how people do what's easier.
Re:DVDs should be $3.00 (Score:4, Insightful)
You obviously have no idea about how much of the pie is taken up by the retailer, distributor, manufacturing, etc.
Typically, 25-40 percent of the price you'll pay in store goes to the retailer. So, on a $20 DVD that's $5-$8, which pays the rent, the wages, the electricity bills, covers shoplifting losses, etc. Turn that $5-$8 into $.75-$1.20 and watch stores go bankrupt in weeks. That's assuming that you could make and distribute a DVD title (whilst covering the cost of DVD extras, advertising, royalties, etc) for around $2 to acheive your mythical $3 price point.
Frankly, even large scale DVD pirates (who obviously don't have to worry about half the costs the original publishers have to deal with) would struggle to make any money selling DVDs at $3.
Time for you to come back from never-never land and learn that there's more to making and selling a DVD than you realise.