EMI Only Selling CDs To Mega-Chains From Now On 334
farrellj writes "According to Zeropaid, record company EMI has been notifying small music stores that they will no longer be able to buy EMI CDs from EMI, and will have to buy product from mega-chains like Walmart. Independent record store customers are some of the most loyal music buyers around. You are not going to find the back catalog, what used to be the staple of the music business, at your local Walmart. One wonders when the music business is going to run out of feet to shoot?"
CDs? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm 15
What's a CD?
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I can't imagine that this is going to do EMI much long term good!
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
People here seem to taking the "music industry is evil and outdated" thinking route again. However when I saw the title and summary, I couldn't but think that they're starting to see how internet distribution starts to dominate.
So now they're cutting extra costs by only delivering physical media to the largest retailers, and maybe putting that effort into online sales. If so, for me this sounds good.
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Actually they already do and every other record company does aswell. Lossless is probably just issue with the music stores. They also provide music to spotify [spotify.com] and equivalent where users can listen to music for free or pay premium (9 euros a month) to listen to everything without ads. Speaking about spotify, it's said to getting close to US release soon, so americans can also enjoy the service we europeans have been enjoying for a year now :)
Bullshit Misleading Spin on True Situation (Score:5, Informative)
From a post by 'chpthrlls' in the zeropaid thread via the linked comment: "First of all "One Stops" DOES NOT mean Wal-mart and Best Buy. A one stop is a distributor that buys from the labels and sells to retailers. Most indie stores get their product from one stops anyway."
Even before I'd read the correct explanation, I'd already realised that this didn't sound plausible, even for the death-wish record industry. My initial guess was that EMI were making them buy through their distributors (as normally happens anyway) and someone had- either through ignorance and/or a vested interest in their own position- misinterpreted this as the "story" that we were presented with.
I was right, and I'm neither a genius, nor work in the music industry.
If I spotted this, why did Wayne Rosso, ZeroPaid or Slashdot themselves not figure this out and spend five minutes checking the facts?
Oh yeah, I know. Never question it if it makes a good story, even when it's blatantly fishy to anyone with an ounce of common sense.
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so americans can also enjoy the service we europeans have been enjoying for a year now :)
Us Yanks already have Jango, last.fm, Pandora, etc. Spotify may be better, but I'd say we can get by for now.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Y'know, a year ago I would've agreed with you. But in that year I went off to college and discovered a wonderful little record store just off campus. Prior to this, the only places I ever got music were iTunes, my friends, and The Pirate Bay. I'm going to assume that's the case with you, that you've never been to a really good recor
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, their distribution network doesn't just consist of delivering those cd's to retailers or making them. There's lots of else involved too, from actually finding the artists that could be something, providing them studio time and sponsoring them so they can get their job done, making the music videos, doing promotion, making sure the actual product is somewhat quality (yeah, quality can be argued!) to actually delivering the products to retailers, tv and radio stations and whatever other places. Lots of times people forget that record labels do lots of other work too and sponsor the bands, and they're not there just to collect money forgefully.
This is why I think the record labels will continue to exist and will be used by artists. Yes, I said used. Its not necessary for artists to use them, noone force's them to. But lets face it, all that usually needs lots of money and time and work. Not a single person can usually do so much, but go work with record labels so they can handle all the other stuff and artists can spend the time on their core thing -- making music.
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Interesting)
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True, but it's debatable how many of the other functions you list add value from a consumer point of view. In some cases you could argue the reverse was true.
Ah, now. From an artist's viewpoint, it's a little different.
Indeed it's not. On the
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Myself I'm into
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from actually finding the artists that could be something
Which, considering that music taste is varied, is something the audience does a much better job of itself. Particularly with modern tools like social networks.
providing them studio time and sponsoring them so they can get their job done
Studio time ain't exactly that expensive any more. Especially if you're reasonably prepared beforehand.
making the music videos
Somehow I doubt the wisdom in wasting money on videos that there's barely any market for at a
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hey - he is 15. don't overstrain him with ancient relics like AOL
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Informative)
CD or compact disc is a physical medium that has spun off from the development of Laserdisc.
The audio CD has increasingly been sold in standards breaking versions with record companies pretending they are genuine Red Book Standard CDs. These fake audio CD's that the music industry has flooded the market with are used to distribute computer rootkits, or other Windows targeting malware hidden with music.
Music CDs are increasingly being marketed as remastered, this is usually a clue that the CD is basterdised in sound quality thanks to music industry obsession with loudness, making music completely unlistenable and giving ear ache in very short order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war [wikipedia.org]
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Informative)
Music CDs are increasingly being marketed as remastered, this is usually a clue that the CD is basterdised in sound quality thanks to music industry obsession with loudness
Older ones that were originally on analog are being re-remastered (if they weren't already) because when they put the analog music on CD, they remixed the multitrack analog, and a lot of the early ones were poorly done. It's a rare album that's sucessfully mixed as well as the LP, or mixed faithfully.
When CDs first came out I salivated for a player (they were very expensive then and I was poor), especially wanting a digital version of Dark Side of the Moon. When they became affordable and I bought one, that was the first CD I bought.
I was very disappointed.
It's a bit of an irony that they go for "loud". CDs have a superior dynamic range than LPs, yet going for "loud" wastes this. Back in the analog days the engineers strived for dynamics, and many titles used dynamic range for artistry - The above mentioned album is an example, as is Boston's first album, as is Santanna's Abraxis.
Cheap op-amps in portable CD players (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a bit of an irony that they go for "loud". CDs have a superior dynamic range than LPs, yet going for "loud" wastes this.
The loudness race started in earnest with Sony's Discman and other portable CD players. A lot of these used a cheap op-amp to drive the headphones, and discs had to be loud in order to be heard over outdoor noise.
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Funny)
What you burn your music to after you get it from bittorrent, if you want to back it up or make a mix for a friend.
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Shaun Micallef (Australian comedian) recently intro'ed a TV show "Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation" with something roughly as follows.
"In 1979, the CD or Compact Disc was invented, and none too soon: it finally provided a use for CD Towers which had been invented 20 years prior."
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It's something old people buy, claiming that the sound quality is better than a music download. Unfortunately, their ears are wrecked from listening to too many of them, so they can't tell the difference anyway. The only people who can tell the difference are teenagers, but unfortunately they can't afford to buy CDs.
(And thanks for making me feel old, even though I'm only 8 years older than you. For some reason (apart from the better sound quality, which I can still hear) I still like having CDs, even thoug
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A CD is a data carrier on which the audio data is typically stored in way less corrupted way than the Generation MP3 is used to consume.
Maybe my ears differ just enough from the average physical model, but listening to MP3 for longer time makes me dizzy -- and I see no point in buying artificially crippled audio.
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Well obviously you have never experienced this 'bad money replaces good money' effect in your life yet.
Or maybe he has always been an active practitioner of the "paying no money" methods of music acquisition?
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Marblecake, clearly.
Not a surprise... (Score:4, Funny)
It's been years since they stopped wanting my business. It's about times these stores stopped getting special treatment. Customers are overrated anyway.
What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm obviously missing something here, how can this business model work when you're reducing your customer base?
Ever hear of the 80:20 rule?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle [wikipedia.org]
"roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes"
Hypothetically speaking, if 80% of the sales come from 20% of the retailers,
then you can cut your logistics costs by dropping the underperforming 80% of retailers.
I say "hypothetical" because we don't know EMI's real #s,
and I realize it's not going to be a popular opinion, but
if cutting 80% of retailers leads to more than a 20% reduction in costs...
This had to be a high level decision and I'm guessing the bean counters won.
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We do, however, have a pretty good idea of the general standard of their products. It would be trite to say "...and nothing of value was lost", but it would also be largely true.
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I think it's over-reliance on rules like that leads to companies like EMI doing silly things to begin with. It's the same reason why Microsoft are doing so poorly at the moment while Apple is actually doing well despite everything else. It's as if they're operating their business by treating it like some kind of machine and trying to understand it's separate parts and systems, rather than developing a more realistic overall view of the industry (perhaps like Steve Jobs).
MS is doing poorly? (Score:4, Informative)
Is this based on real data, or stuff you made up?
Looking at MS they have a P/E of 14.7, making their stock price low (20 is pretty normal). They have a 25% profit margin, cash way in excess of debt, and a 40% ROE. How is this "doing so poorly?" They are making tons of money, DESPITE the recession. They are not one of the tech companies in the red, and many are these days.
Yes, Apple is also doing great, however that doesn't mean MS is doing bad. They both can succeed, and are it seems.
Please let's try to keep facts straight here. "Doing bad," in the business world would mean that your company is having some real financial trouble. AMD is doing bad. They are losing money left and right, and were even before the downturn. Thus there is worry if they'll be able to stay in business. That is doing bad. Making a profit, and a healthy one at that, in a recession is not doing bad, that is doing great.
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if cutting 80% of retailers leads to more than a 20% reduction in costs...
It still wouldn't make sense - in the long run. It might make sense if there were no competition.
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It's rather a shame for the small businesses who will end up paying for this, but I guess that's how business works.
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Exactly, this is what already happens in other markets.
A wholesaler that already distributes Tshirts, posters, joss sticks etc will take on this role.
Upside for the supplier is they only deal in bulk.
Upside for the retailer is that they can now combine their CD orders with the Tshirt etc orders to meet minimum order values and be able to order more frequently.
It may cost the retailer a little more but that has to be weighed against the ability to reorder more often, from a stock aspect, the benefits of this
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
'Exactly, this is what already happens in other markets.'
This is what already happens in the music industry. The zeropaid author has misinterpreted the original waynerosso article (which itself seems to be over-hyping the situation - see some of the replies to the post):
http://www.waynerosso.com/2009/06/30/emi-to-mom-pops-eat-cake/ [waynerosso.com]
This only states that EMI wants the independents to purchase from 'one stops' rather than directly from EMI. These 'one stops' are one stop wholesale distributors, not one stop retail stores like Walmart.
From a post by 'chpthrlls' in the zeropaid thread:
"this really isn't such a big deal. First of all "One Stops" DOES NOT mean Wal-mart and Best Buy. A one stop is a distributor that buys from the labels and sells to retailers. Most indie stores get their product from one stops anyway. Some labels do sell directly to larger indie stores that have a large volume, but this, and only this, is what EMI is halting. I should know, as I am an indie retailer. We have always used a one stop distributor, and will continue to do so. And F*CK Wal-mart!"
From Jason Hughes in the waynerosso thread:
"This is sort of a false story. EMI closed a few accounts that were doing minimal orders. No stores in Seattle, or in our coalition for that matter, were closed. The ones that were closed got 3 months written notice. I'm not sure where Wayne is getting his info but he should fact check it."
From 'jack' in the waynerosso thread:
"Wayne's post is inaccurate. Every year, all the labels take a look at their accounts and make changes. I know people at EMI and know EMI sent letters (back in February) to a handful of small physical retailers -- we're talking a fraction of a percent of their physical accounts -- and informed them they'd need to go through one-stops for product. They gave them months and months of notice and a list of options for one stops. They didn't just call them last minute as Wayne claims."
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably more important: Why would an aspiring artist go to EMI and have a limited reach when he could as well go to some competitor and be sold also to customers of small music shops? The loss of small music shop customers may not directly hurt EMI (otherwise they wouldn't have done this), but a loss of content to sell will probably hurt them. And it will not be obvious until the current hot stars are not hot anymore, and the new hot stars are with different labels. And then it's too late.
I personally think it's a bad business move. If I had EMI stock, now I would sell.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because often, aspiring artists are not being courted by many labels simultaneously. Remember, most in the music business are looking, and perpetually waiting, for their "big break" - a major label offering them a contract. No-one will turn down a label because they think they'll do better with another. Labels are not a service industry for musicians. Musicians are raw material for the labels' products.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Why would an aspiring artist go to EMI and have a limited reach when he could as well go to some competitor and be sold also to customers of small music shops?
As a long-time musical artist & bandmember myself, I can tell you why. Most don't know any better. Most bands and artists are so desperate to "make it" that any label showing interest in them is considered as being offered the gold ring. They're sick and tired of playing dumpy bars and clubs and making $50-$75 a night, two or three nights a week, four sets a night. That's if they can actually stay booked steadily.
One of the things that being signed gets you is that it opens up a whole new level of venues to play, with a whole lot more money. A band goes from a few hundreds of dollars a show to two or three thousand. Billboards and radio ads go up ahead of their appearances, and crowds increase. Merch sales skyrocket.
The fact that the label that's offering them a contract doesn't distribute to independent record stores doesn't even enter the picture to their thinking.
Again, that's not all musicians/bands/artists, but most that I've encountered in my many years in "the biz".
Strat
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Funny)
You lie! Slashdot reliably informs me that it is fine to pirate music whenever I feel like it, because musicians should make their money from live performances yadda yadda Beethoven yadda yadda player piano lawsuits yadda yadda.
Now you're saying that doing live performances is very low-earning and doesn't provide a decent income unless you are famous enough to be already filling stadiums. That is just un-possible. Slashdot readers are famous for expertise in business management (which as we know is a lame activity done by jerks that is nowhere near as difficult or intellectual as installing software patches or writing v23332 of the companies timesheet software).
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
You lie! Slashdot reliably informs me that it is fine to pirate music whenever I feel like it, because musicians should make their money from live performances yadda yadda Beethoven yadda yadda player piano lawsuits yadda yadda.
Now you're saying that doing live performances is very low-earning and doesn't provide a decent income unless you are famous enough to be already filling stadiums. That is just un-possible. Slashdot readers are famous for expertise in business management (which as we know is a lame activity done by jerks that is nowhere near as difficult or intellectual as installing software patches or writing v23332 of the companies timesheet software).
I know that you're being facetious, but I'll reply.
Live performances are still the best income-generators for most bands, signed or unsigned.
It's just that being signed opens up a whole new level of venues and opportunities that are out of reach for unsigned bands. Booking agents that handle the larger, more famous and lucrative venues won't touch an unsigned band/artist, regardless of how talented they may be.
Gigging as an unsigned band is much like living like a poorer college student. There's a lot of Ramen noodles in the diet. :)
The average signed act (not the top one-half of one percent of signed acts that become truly famous) still only makes $2K-$3K on average per performance. After expenses that go along with a top-shelf touring band, that still doesn't leave much.
I'd love to have my bands' CDs "pirated" across the world! The promotional value would be tremendous! Even if my band were to be signed, I still would be fine with people "pirating" our CDs as royalties after the Hollywood accounting used by labels means that CD sales would still only account for a very small percentage of income. This leaves live performances and merch sales as still being the lions'-share of a bands' income, whether they are signed with a label or not.
I view "pirating" of my bands' music to be an invaluable source of viral marketing, regardless of if we were signed or not.
Strat
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How true do you reckon the arguments made by the likes of Courtney Cox about how the "gold ring" isn't such a great deal are, in general terms?
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sorry, Courtney Love. D'oh!
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
How much does a billboard cost these days, anyway? or a radio ad? Do you really need to sign your life away to get these things?
Because it seems to me that all the labels really provide is the initial financing for advertising and studio time at usury rates.
It's not the labels that pay for the billboards, radio ads, etc to promote a performance. It's the venues and event promoters. However, those venues and event promoters won't spend the money on a non-signed act, nor book them to appear in the first place. Nor will booking agents that handle those type of higher-paying venues accept an unsigned act as a client.
For an average talented, but unsigned regional band to spend thousands on billboards, radio ads, newspaper ads, etc etc on promoting a gig at some average bar/club where they'd be making a few hundreds of dollars would be insane.
There is a sort of glass ceiling effect where unless a band is signed, many of the most-lucrative venues and opportunities are simply not available.
Strat
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What's funny to me personally is that a number of years ago I stopped buying music at Wal-Mart because I mad at them for only selling "sanitized" music, and not always labeling it clearly saying so.
So I guess now EMI will never sell another CD to me again.
Foot (Score:2)
Meet bullet
What a bunch of numpties
They're out of feet (Score:4, Funny)
Meh. Don't buy RIAA regardless of who's selling. (Score:5, Interesting)
EMI is one of the big four RIAA member labels, along with Sony, Universal, and Warner. I stopped buying their shite ages ago, and I don't really care if I'm not buying it from a little store or a big one.
Re:Meh. Don't buy RIAA regardless of who's selling (Score:5, Interesting)
I stopped buying EMI products the day the Harry Fox Agency accused me of being a criminal for putting my own work on the web.
Not only did I stop buying things from this company, I went from being an *avid* collector to them being *dead to me* and unlike some others, I never looked back.
At the same time, I started discovering independent music, *many* genres with artists who are far more interested in getting their message out than getting a 1/16th cent royalty from you. Many of these artists benefit from being discovered -- not by a record producer but by YOU, the person who might become a fan after listening, and who might actually attend a concert, not at a megastadium but at a club or a festival.
I don't really care what EMI does, or doesn't do. They are dead to me, and I do not believe in ghosts.
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your pre-owned copies
I hate to be so pedantic, but can we all just go back to saying used instead of pre-owned?
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Now we can feel even more superior about where we don't buy it: Walmart!
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I'm inadvertently boycotting RIAA labels. Their hasn't really been an album released on a "big" label that has warranted my bandwidth or money in some time. I probably would buy something from them, if there was anything I wanted. Perhaps its my age, perhaps I have odd tastes, but I still haven't found anything new or interesting on a major label in some time. I manage to support a ton of small labels "accidentally" though.
So, here is my question, what has been released on a major RIAA label lately that
Perhaps you should reconsider? (Score:2, Interesting)
I understand your current position, even if I don't agree. However, I think there is something you are overlooking, which is the collateral damage to society brought about by RIAA attempting to stop those "folks who infringe on their copyrights".
Do you actually believe that 100% of the hundreds (or perhaps thousands, there is no real way to know how many) of people who are contacted by RIAA for paying a mere few thousand dollars to settle out-of-court are all guilty?
You do realize that even for someone who
Legal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it even legal to only sell to certain customers and not others based on size of business?
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Yep, at least in Australia, UK and US. This law is occasionally overruled if the company is a monopoly or the only source of something (in which case it the government normally gets it made by someone else under license). Smaller businesses may be able to start a class action or some similar large civil suit but this is not illegal.
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How many "In Soviet Russia..." jokes will this generate? I'm taking bets...
Whacked business case (Score:3, Insightful)
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Hey, you know what'd be great? If they didn't have a revenue stream like that. Y'know, if there were no pirates out there to prosecute. Then they'd be forced to work on their music instead!
Ah, a world without piracy. That would be nice.
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I think you misunderstood me AC. I was playing on the immediate blaming of record labels, rather than the people who rip them off.
Still you make a good point.
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Artists involved... (Score:5, Informative)
From EMI's website [emi.com]:
New Music finds and develops new, exciting and successful music. Its record labels include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, EMI Classics, EMI CMG, EMI Records, EMI Televisa Music, Manhattan, Mute, Parlophone and Virgin. Artists on EMI labels include Lily Allen, The Beatles, Beastie Boys, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Doves, Gorillaz, Iron Maiden, Norah Jones, Massive Attack, Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry, Pink Floyd, Queen, Sir Simon Rattle, 30 Seconds To Mars, KT Tunstall, Keith Urban and Robbie Williams, as well as international artists such as Amaral (Spain), Camille (France), Empire of the Sun (Australia), Tiziano Ferro (Italy), Flex (Mexico), LaFee (Germany) and Utada Hikaru (Japan).
Catalogue maximises the value of EMI's historic and extensive music assets. Seminal albums in EMI Music's catalogue include Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane (David Bowie), Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (The Beatles), Pet Sounds (Beach Boys), A Rush Of Blood To The Head (Coldplay), Birth Of The Cool (Miles Davis), Come Away With Me (Norah Jones), Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall (Pink Floyd), A Night At The Opera (Queen), OK Computer (Radiohead) and Songs For Swingin' Lovers (Frank Sinatra). EMI Music's Catalogue division also owns and runs the world-renowned recording studios Abbey Road in London and Capitol Studios in Los Angeles.
There's also this page [emi.com], with a more complete listing of artists.
EMI's catalog includes some of the arguably best albums of all time, and some of the most popular current artists. I don't see any way how this will end well.
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there is no reason why e.m.i.
i tell you it was all a frame e.m.i.
they only did it 'cos of fame e.m.i.
i do not need the pressure e.m.i.
i can't stand those useless fools e.m.i.
unlimited supply e.m.i.
hallo e.m.i. goodbye a & m
-Sex Pistols
Well, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, no. But you won't find the vast majority of that at specialist retailers either, they don't have the space. They would order it for you, but everyone knows its easier (and frequently cheaper) to get it from amazon or their ilk. The web retailer own that long-tail retail space, and that's not going to change.
Specialist records stores will have to survive solely on the quality of information and advice their staff can provide -- it's their only market advantage.
Re:Well, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me see ... you go to specialist record store and the advice they give is "this album would be good but I cannot get it, buy it from Amazon" ...
No, the record stores cannot survive solely on the information they have.
Justifying Piracy (Score:2)
Well at least this will give Slashdot to justify their pirating ways.
Re:Justifying Piracy (Score:5, Funny)
You accidentally a word.
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He didn't accidentally the verb, however. That's an important.
Damn this would be a great business (Score:3, Insightful)
... if it only wasn't for the customers.
This is the motto for the music industry these days. Do everything possible to minimize the number of customers you have to deal with, I can only assume they don't like having customers.
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Maybe this is just the death of physical media. It's massively expensive to produce and push all this landfill material around. The CD even now is a relic. A generational gap. Obviously they aren't going away right now, but this could signal EMI beginning the inevitable change from physical media to digital. Perhaps physical media (disks, whatever becomes popular next) will be relegated to collectors and fans much like records or concert t-shirts are today. They can be attractive and can make nice mementos,
This can only be good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, when I look for music at my local store, I'll have a higher chance of accidentally finding a non-RIAA CD to take home. C'mon Sony, you go next. Make my store a better filter, it's annoying searching RIAA Radar for everything I want to buy.
And they wonder why piracy is rampant (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the big deal? This is a business... (Score:3, Insightful)
From the summary:
When faced with the shear numbers Wal-Mart brings to the table, does loyalty actually matter? That's the problem here. A thousand loyal indie store customers are trumped by a million disloyal Wal-Mart customers. This is a business about making money, not about keeping indie shops afloat.
Regardless of your answer to the above question, if I have 100 customers, and 90 of them buy my product through Wal-Mart and other large chains, I would concentrate on selling to the large chain stores. That number is just a guess, but I suspect it's fairly close. My guess is that EMI looked at their distribution costs versus the number of customers reached and decided, "These indie stores just aren't worth the distribution costs." I can't really blame them. It sucks, but I can't blame them. Distributing a physical product costs money, and what better way to cut down on distribution costs than to ship to your two or three largest customers and make the indie stores obtain your product from there, at their own expense.
From the article:
This is a rare case of the music industry--well, at least EMI--moving away from a business model we all know is outdated, and people are still complaining? And no, phasing out CD sales has nothing to do with illegal file sharing. There are better, cheaper, more convenient, DRM-free options out there, like iTunes and Amazon MP3. They aren't trying to push away their customers; they are trying to encourage people to either buy from stores with cheap distribution costs or buy from digital stores with even cheaper distribution costs.
I don't like the record industry, and I think the tactics they use are despicable. That said, it's stories like this that make me think they just can't win sometimes. The article makes it sound like EMI is a big mean company trying to crush indie competition, when in reality EMI is itself a business trying to keep costs down and phase out a wasteful distribution system. Give them a break.
Cue anti-RIAA downmods.... now.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
iTunes may be cheaper and more convenient, but how is buying a crippled (lossily compressed) file "better"?
Even if your ears can't tell the difference, you still won't be able to do things like transcode it to other formats, or play it on the high-quality sound system you might buy someday.
Re:What's the big deal? This is a business... (Score:4, Interesting)
In the days when free market capitalism wasn't a dirty word and huge corporations didn't think they had a birth right to cashflow and generally worked hard to make money - 10 or 20 cents profit per CD would have still been seen as profit and worth working for.
Must be nice to have so much money that they can refuse to service customers because it requires some work.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO one of the main reasons the big four record industry goes through such dramatic slumps is because they do not pursue hardcore music fans. They make so much money off of blockbuster albums that they ignore building up a diverse portfolio of talented musicians that are consistently profitable but will never sell millions of records. They only market and promote music that teenagers or preteens like, or bands that are already famous. Everything else they pretty much leave alone. Even though very few ar
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They've been doing this for decades! Name a recent band who has a hit album as their 5th or later release from a major label. Can't be done with more than a handful of bands that first hit in the 90s or later. It started in the 90s. Bands would get good advertising and good pushes for their first three albums and then they were on their own to pull in their existing fans. Today you get one album and then the labels move on the next group. But the trend started over 20 years ago. The only "mature" bands that
Finally... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Onestops aren't walmart, this article is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
One stops are mid level distributors that carry product from multiple labels. Somewhere the person writing this article got very confused by what is going on here.
If you look at the article comments there is a guy there who is also pointing this out.
Not saying EMI isn't annoying as are most of the labels, but this article is seriously confused.
Re:MOD UP !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, I've read the original article, the summary here is seriously skewed, and most of the comments aren't reflecting what has really happened.
But I have to wonder about your claim this is not an excuse to pirate. As you point out, "the onestops don't have the depth of product"
So, if I want something that's 'in the deep abyssial trenches of the mighty product ocean', it's less and less likely to be available on a physical medium in my area. If they don't want to sell item X to me, I'm not a customer for it, from their point of view, not just mine.
Then, they want a high enough price for the non-physical version, at lower audio quality, without other support such as liner notes, album art, and preferably with DRM, they are effectively pricing that too to say "customers go away, we don't really want you".
Some of this makes a pretty good excuse to pirate, or at least a reason for the government to stay out of enforcement. Just like region encoding. If the distributer insists on there being region encoding, and then doesn't sell the product at all in certain regions, they've basically said they don't regard those people in those regions as even potential customers - so they can't have lost any sales, can they? Even if I grant all claims that the piracy is still both immoral and illegal, if there was zero market, the pirates did zero damages.
Where we may not see eye to eye on this is how completely this counts as a refusal by the companies to do business. A lot of people seem to think that offering digital versions at any price counts as still being interested in providing the goods to a potential customer. I don't think so. To make a bad car analogy, if gas sells for about $2.50 a gallon in your area, and you ran across a gas station that had some unusual gas formula that had some minor advantages and some major disadvantages to use, but they want $25.00 a gallon for it. I think most of us would drive past, saying "Well, they obviously don't want me as a customer", and some of us, like me, would add "... or anybody else either.". At some level, a bad enough price gouging counts as saying you have no intention of actually doing business at all, and if you're not actually in business, you've got some nerve demanding the government enforce the laws protecting your business.
News Just In: (Score:2)
News Just In:
2nd hand gossip about unverified phone conversation to unknown persons passes for news at slashdot...oh wait...
the sex pistols were prophetic (Score:2)
We need more music education in schools (Score:2)
EMI were once a wonderful company (Score:5, Interesting)
How the mighty have fallen.
Less access lead to piracy (Score:2, Interesting)
I actually don't want to talk about piracy (since neither side can understand each other), but inability to get hold of "your special interest" CDs force people to piracy, as I will show here.
I was on a education for 8 weeks and meet a person who truly was against piracy, really angry against pirates (of music, he didn't care at all about movies and so on) as he are a true music lover.
He spend his life devoted to listening to music, all he was talking about.
We had a great time arguing over the subject of pi
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That my convenience level against my morals are favoring me to piracy a lot easier, not that I don't want to pay (I really do), but no one wants my money in the way I want (to buy) my music.
There's got to be a business opportunity right there. Producing a CD, printing the album cover and shipping on demand. There are on-demand publishers, so whyever not?
Dovetails nicely with Apple "Cocktail" rumors. (Score:2)
There's been buzz this week [msn.com] about the labels having finally persuaded Apple to offer a digitally-distributed "album" including liner notes, videos, ring tones, etc.
So if you're the labels, you create the digital package, let Apple (and presumably others, either right away or down the line) distribute a gazillion copies at no incremental cost to you... and you ship a container-load of CDs to WalMart for people who're still using 25-year-old technology.
Looks like they're just preparing for the shift away from
Wholesalers? (Score:2)
I thought this was standard practice for most industries.
Feet to shoot (Score:3, Funny)
Seeing as they are a bunch of snakes, I don't believe they had any feet with which to begin.
Think like a Music Exec (i know its difficult)... (Score:5, Interesting)
You gotta think like a Music Executive to understand their logic.
Fixed Costs and shipping costs per CD shipped rise uncontrollably when sending it in small batches to mom-and-pop stores.
Their sale price is fixed. WHich means, EMI earns less from each CD shipped to corner store as its shipping costs eat up money.
Better way is to ship HUGE amounts to a few stores and ask the corner stores to buy their copies from them.
Of course it assumes that small shop owner still want to waste their time & money and drive to Walmart supercenters, negotiate a price with manager and come back with 100 CDs of latest Jessica Simpson singles.
LOL
That wastes two days: one day for shopping and one for sorting.
Who the hell wants to do that.
If i were a mom-and-pop shop owner, i would point my customers to allofmp3.com or some other seller of mp3 songs.
EMI's CEO has proved his tactical sense for next quarter results is strong, while his strategic business sense is as low as the IQ of his Turd.
Good luck EMI. You have given me one more reason to pirate.
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If you honestly disagree with EMI - don't pirate. Just avoid their content entirely.
If you pirate, you're basically demonstrating a lack of scruples for your position. You talk the talk, but won't walk the walk, and because of this you can't be taken seriously. People will just accuse you of being a cheapskate instead of someone who will actually put his foot down and go without, as opposed to cheating by pirating and still getting the content.
Sure,
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You are right.
My bad.
Its better to avoid EMI completely to prove the point.
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Wait wait, wait. You think that EMI inconveniencing small business owners, who willingly sell their goods, is a reason for you to personally pirate?
Why don't you just admit now that you'll use any flimsy pretence to pirate?
Re: (Score:2)
Actually i was over-zealous and angry. Kinda like the cop who arrested Gates Jr for swearing at him, even though MA has laws that specifically allow those swearing at cops even when confronted.
My bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh.
Well, I guess I was a little over-zealous and angry myself. Sorry about that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If your business was selling music CDs, you would really point your customers to a web site that competes with you and undercuts you on cost
When i don't have the product a customer wants, and there is no prospect of getting the product for him at a profit [for me], why would i want to go to the trouble of pointing that customer to Walmart or HMV store and thereby enable my competition to earn a profit at my cost.
Better that they too lose the money.
If i can't earn, why should i help my competitor to earn at my cost?
Care to explain?