MP3s Causing Decline in CD Sales? 277
jocknerd writes "The RIAA is reporting that
MP3 is the
reason for declining CD sales. " God I hope so.
Do you guys realize how convenient it is to have all
audio on demand? I've ripped all my CDs- its just so
wonderful. Why won't the music industry give me
that? I don't think the music industry is totally doomed-
it just needs to change. The radio industry has
more to fear. Why would I listen to WXYZ
when I can select my own music mix for the the same cost
as cable? Thats where I hope this ends.
This will only affect teeny bopper music. (Score:1)
By the way, $15 or so dollars is NOT too much to pay for a CD, especially when most real artists currently only sell a few thousand copies of their work. What you pirating fools take for granted is that these CDs don't just come out of nowhere. Real artists actually have to spend time making and crafting their work. They cannot simply make money off tee-shirts and concerts (as many
/* for
I think my post deserves a 2 at least. While I have made many childish insults, they are no worse than the usual anti-MS stuff. I made some points which have not been brought up in previous posts and could stimulate some interesting discussion regarding the future of the music industry.
Other reasons for the decline (Score:1)
* Older acts like REM and U2 put out stinker albums that don't sell. Fewer older, established bands tour any more. There used to be an arena show every other week. Now it's once in a blue moon.
* MTV used to be a 24 hour music channel. Now it's a 24 hour shit channel. When Creed was on MTV live, they were asked if they would make another video. The singer said no, why bother, you guys won't play it anyway. During the 2 hours a day it plays music, it plays rap. No whites allowed, unless you are a total retard, in which case they'll make you a VJ (Jesse Camp should be shot).
* There are no new young bands coming up, and the few that are aren't touring or getting MTV airplay.
* Radio is now in the hands of corporate chains that dictate what bands are played. The DJ used to decide what was played, but not any more. The end result is over-exposure of the same songs by horrible repetition. KROQ here in L.A. used to be a good alternative station. Now it plays Lenny Kravitz, Everlast, and Everclear about 10 times a day.
In short, the industry destroyed itself through corporatization.
Mainstream crap? (Score:1)
You shouldn't be discouraged though. There is still a LOT of really good music out there. The Internet has really helped me find some of the really good, non-mainstream music that's out there. I listened to mostly popular, mainstream type stuff for the longest time when I was younger, because it's all I knew about. I really didn't start getting into progressive rock and jazz until around 1994 when the Internet began to get more popular. Now I'm listening to the likes of Spock's Beard, Al DiMeola, etc.
Decline in CD Sales (Score:3)
Looking around locally (Albany, NY and NYC), I see the big chain record stores doing poorly, and the smaller independant stores doing well. I like seeing this. The independant stores are offering more of what people want: used music, local artists (often self-published, it's cheap to get your CD burnt in small batches now), and DJ Mixes (also self-published).
Music is all about freedom of expression. The freedom of the artist to make the music they want, and the freedom of the listener to set their style by the music they select. The RIAA and its member companies have been trying to play with this freedom, and it's now starting to backfire on them.
The self-published music industry started the decline in CD sales. MP3 is just another few nails in the RIAA's coffin. The RIAA blames it on the MP3's to divert attention from the real reason, because they don't want people to realize how a talented musician can make it without their "help". You can't really be a multi-million dollar megastar without them, but you can be a respected and fed musician with no help from the record labels.
The real reason is $18 for CD's! (Score:1)
The RIAA has it out for mp3, and will say or do anything to make it look bad. This is just the latest example of their own FUD tactics.
The music industry must change, or be crushed by the technology it is trying so hard to hold back from consumers.
Rich
Flip side (Score:1)
CDR's (Score:1)
Write a database then... (Score:1)
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
RIAA == Reality-Impaired Arrogant Assholes. (Score:1)
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
speaking of DJ mixes... (Score:1)
-A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
damn right! (Score:1)
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
Cool (Score:1)
I love having everything on demand. It's great, since I don't have to spend 10 minutes looking through my sea of CDs for one specific title. Instead, I spend 11 minutes looking for whatever cryptic filename I gave the MP3, and which directory it's in. ;>
Organization is good . . . Angle brackets are bad (Score:1)
Awww, (Score:1)
I feel so bad for them. Imagine, not being able to charge $16 bucks for CDs that have one decent track on them. How will they live? They might have to get jobs!
----
Radio & Community (Score:1)
Prices and lack of quality music... (Score:1)
1) Lack of good music. I don't mean that there are not good bands around...but the music business is not getting it out to us. There have been no real "mega" groups or artists come along for a long time that have wide ranging appeal.
2) Most albums are pretty spotty in terms of consistancy of songs. Too many albums have two or three really good songs, and the rest suck.
3) No really big tours. Tours sell albums. If I go to a concert and see a band, I am more likely to buy the album.
4) CD costs...retail blank CDs are under $2 CDN. Average CD price is $15-$20 range. But that is about the same as it was a decade ago, when only plants could cut CDs.
In the past 6 months, I have only bought a few CDS, the new Garbage, the new Sarah McLauchlan, 3 Chris Franke (two Babylon 5 soundtracks & one other). I used to buy an CD every couple of weeks. Nothing appeals much to me anymore.
Hardware, or the format? (Score:1)
I took this and my crazed mondo homebrew highend turntable, and my original British SHVL 804 'Dark Side of the Moon', and ran the signal directly into the powermac, recording it to digital and then converting it to your usual mp3 (no special high quality, joint stereo 128).
Played back over my full studio monitoring system (includes very serious subs), the result was really pretty respectable. It was like CD quality, only slightly dirtied. That's how I'd describe it. The CD version of a good album with a bit of dirt on the needle- it didn't lose all that much from the CD quality level.
I'm certainly going to be experimenting with ways of compressing the audio before subjecting it to mp3ing, because it definitely sounds like pre-emphasis would help- one thing I didn't mention was that this funky custom turntable has controls for some circuit elements like feedback loops that are normally fixed- so I was able to pre-emphasise the sound to compensate for the mp3, something that would not be possible with ripping straight from CD. I'm pretty sure I artificially enhanced the results for that reason, but what the hell, call it sweetening
Again, the result is really pretty respectable. You can listen for sound quality for some extent, and the tonality comes through about as well as it does on CD, only with a certain amount of added grunge. This isn't too horrible a problem.
Radio...? (Score:1)
'course, most of the music out today is crap anyway - never thought I'd hear myself saying that....
8.3 filenames (Score:1)
re: read the article people (Score:1)
Read the article folks.
Article title:
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Wednesday released a report showing a large decline in sales to young demographics, and the association suspects MP3 trading is a culprit.
Article contents:
"Potentially, the rise of the Internet as a free entertainment center, and the accompanying availability of free MP3 music files, could be contributing factors," said the report.
Even the title of the article is making assumptions. They state that MP3 downloads *could* be a contributing factor, but they don't have conclusive proof.
For me personally, MP3 downloads (legal ones) are a waste of time, as none of the bands I listen to have their songs available. Now I could (and have) download illegal MP3s, but personally I prefer to buy a CD. Why? It's already on a storage device, so I dont have to download a song and stick it onto a CD. Convenience! Agreed CD prices are just plain crazy, but believe me, North America has it easy compared to England. Having moved to Canada from England, my CD collection rocketed because they are so much cheaper over here.
So maybe if CD prices came down then the RIAA wouldnt have to worry about MP3 and piracy.
Radio won't die (Score:1)
Not as long as I am driving my 1967 Stingray.
MP3 ain't much good when you're cruising down the Texas highways. 99.5 The Wolf. This is Texas Country.
"...I'm not dead!..." (Score:1)
there are more reasons than 2 that radio will not die with the widespread use of mp3s.
i work in a radio station, i know the deal. music is only part of what goes on. talk, news, commentary, documentaries, radio plays, etc. are all a major part of radio programming.
radio stations are part of a loop that consumers are not unless they have the time to contact labels and constantly read CHART. i'm not talking just the new cd from virgin or warner or geffen. even the small labels. if you've ever run a music distribution (i have for years) than you know that *finding* the music takes a lot of time.
it's not as simple an issue as MP3s will change the world because i can get some music for free. the fact that people who are into MP3s are creating community to share their music and going out and active finding new music to share, that will change the music world.
exactly (Score:1)
Here at my university I know that cd sales are declining because of mp3's. Everyone in the dorms here is connected to the local area network, and quite a bit of mp3 trading, sharing, and downloading goes on.
The only time most of us turn on the radio is to hear songs we havn't downloaded yet. Some of the people in my dorm have barely 100Mb of free space left on their hard drives due to the massive amount of mp3's they have.
Mp3's are huge here, and in the years following graduation I'm sure most will continue to favour mp3's over cd's.
try using an mp3 search engine? (Score:1)
Try using time tested and proven formula.
1. Try using Altavista to find MP3 search engines. 2. Use the MP3 search engines to find the MP3 sites.
3. Use FTP to hammer the MP3 site until you get in.
4. Then download all you want.
RIAA Blowing Smoke (Score:1)
I really seems funny to me that RIAA is really going ape about MP3. They are worrying about piracy in MP3 form, but are not really worried about the $1 burnable CDs. I for one have burned every CD that I had before MP3 came along and gave out copies to friends. It is just like tapes. The only reason they are really pissed is that the MP3 portable players are now out and the non-techies can now have MP3.
Of course this sure sounds like a SPA revival to me and we all know what happened there...
MP3 Causing Decline in CD Sales? (Score:1)
I think radio stations may change significantly as a result of the digital era -- in fact, the changes have started already. Pure digital music can lower their costs; no big library of music to store (even at higher data rates than most MP3s), no huge transmitter required. You may start seeing very small stations as a result, with fewer listeners per station.
how would you redesign the music industry? (Score:1)
I think you may go to more of an honor system. Give away one MP3, sell others. Some people will pirate, but many of those people wouldn't buy anyway. If the cost of an album is (say) $2 instead of $15, you should end up selling more, and if most of the profit goes to the artist, the artist earns a similar amount to now. If the cost is lower, places can have a wider selection due to cheaper inventory costs, so it'll still be decent business.
DJs like that would be nice. Where are they? (Score:1)
You're right, a good DJ could do so much better than that. For some reason the big stations decided we'd all be better without them and we're stuck with these overhyped wannabes. It's like they decided to take the most popular items on the menu and make a single dish from them and are wondering why "Steak mousse pasta" isn't selling well...
More money = unlistenable sound? (Score:1)
I am not an audiophile but I know my cheap stereo only sounds good enough. The problem with expensive equipment is that it also points out the flaws. I record my own music and on the CDRs I've made from WAV files, they sound good enough on my stereo and only so-so on a friends great stereo. Whenever I use bladeenc to create MP3s of my music it just sounds like crap at any sample rate below 256kbps.
MP3s are only good for the unattentive listener. If you are trying to really listen to a song, you don't want MP3s.
Nice outs (Score:1)
WXYZ... (Score:1)
MP3 Ain't All That (Score:1)
There ya go! (Score:1)
Err, Symlinks (Score:1)
MP3 Ain't All That (Score:1)
Culture Club, Dude! (Score:1)
My favorite band is the Cure, and I still prefer them to any of the dreck on the tuner these days. :)
MP3 Ain't All That (Score:1)
If you can read this... (Score:1)
Jamie Zawinksi once said that "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail." I think this should now be upgraded to ""Every program attempts to expand until it can browse the web."
My reply to awalsh@riaa.com (Score:1)
, you wrote:
> The continuing drop-off in the proportion of purchases accounted for
> by 15 to 24 year-olds (32.2% in 1996 vs. 28% in 1998), once the
> mainstay of the market, is puzzling. Potentially the rise of the
> Internet as a free entertainment center, and the accompanying
> availability of free MP3 music files, could be contributing factors.
The increasing proliferation of music files on the Internet cannot by
itself be considered a significant factor to the decrease in music
purchases by young people. Simply being able to listen to your
favorite songs for free is not the only reason why music files are so
popular now.
First of all, there is growing public dissatisfaction with the
exceptionally high price of CDs, a disproportionately large portion of
which is markup and not the cost of production. We all heard from the
music industry about ten years ago that as soon as manufacturing
plants recovered their costs that prices would decrease; prices kept
increasing. I *rarely* buy new CDs anymore. Most people think your
typical mall price of $14.99 or $15.99 is simply too much; the music
industry should indeed be thankful for the existence of discount
department stores that sell them for a few dollars less, and for used
CD shops.
The product itself is also a factor. Ask almost any consumer how many
times they felt cheated when they purchased a CD to find that they
only like one or two songs on it. I've had this happen to me quite a
few times. Generally speaking, we only hear one or two songs off an
album on the radio so there is usually no easy way to see if you like
an album before you buy it. More people (consumers and the industry
alike) should see MP3 files as one way to accomplish this. If people
are able to concentrate their purchasing power on only the material
they like, the music industry would produce a larger amount of more
quality material.
The radio industry itself is also a factor. Conceptually a radio
station can serve very well as a vehicle to encourage people to
purchase music (public-radio station WFPK in Louisville, KY is an
excellent example). In reality most radio stations are doing a very
poor job, and it's only getting worse. In very few communities does
one have a decent choice of music formats to listen to, and most
people haven't heard of but a very small fraction of the material that
is available. Meanwhile, your typical classic rock stations are
playing the same tired 1970s songs over and over again. Your typical
oldies stations are playing the same tired 1960s songs over and over
again. Your typical CHR and rock stations are playing the same artist
every half-hour, when they could devote more of their time to other
artists. They played artists like The Spice Girls, Hootie And The
Blowfish, Metallica, and countless other artists way beyond the point
of saturation.
Younger people, seeking a wider variety of material, are getting tired
of radio stations that overplay The Spice Girls, CD prices that to
them are a reflection of greed instead of production costs, and the
products themselves that consistently fall short of their
expectations.
All I'm asking is that you think of the increasing availability of
music files not only as a cause of decreasing CD sales, but as a
reflection of a far more serious problem. While the factors I talked
about are probably as obvious to you as they are to many consumers,
you need to keep those in mind.
Thanks for your time,
Darren Stuart Embry
owner of over 400 CDs
--
And CD sales caused the decline in LP sales (Score:1)
Re: I doubt it... (Score:1)
Well, it depends on the compression rate of the audio file. I don't claim to have exeptionally good equipment, but I think I got a reasonable system in the $3000 range. At 128 kbit the diffence is hard to discern on the speakers (for most music - there's one Led Zeppelin recording that sounds bad at anything below 256 kbit!), but on the headphones the artifacts stand out quite clearly. At 160 kbit, most music is indiscernible from the CD, even on the phones. (Tested using "Something happened on the way to heaven" by Phil Collins, from the "But Seriously" album and Bladeenc.)
Disclaimer: Yes, I own both of the mentioned CDs, but I'm too lazy to change discs every hour. (When using the music as background music, not in audiophile mode! ;-))
The *real* reason for declining CD sales... (Score:1)
Personally, I fall just outside that demographic (I'm 27), and while I'm not an MP3 fiend, I go looking for them periodically. Generally the mp3s I look for are stuff that's not available on CD -- live recordings, outtakes, etc. -- or stuff that I've never heard before. I've bought several CDs precisely *because* I DLed an mp3 and liked it enough to shell out for a CD. I doubt I'm unique in that regard, and that seems to be a distribution model that hasn't even crossed the RIAA's puny little minds.
--Troy
"...I'm not dead!..." (Score:1)
Besides, I don't know how the internet connection is in your car, but I'm not very good with RealPlayer in mine. (Most radio listening occurs in moving vehicles.)
MP3 Ain't All That (Score:1)
Rob, I'll tell you why. (Score:1)
MP3 VS CD (Score:1)
ABCNews reports on this too (Score:1)
I just submitted this link as a story, not knowing it was already submitted and had over 200 comments. I guess that's one drawback to the filter system (I filter out articles on Music).
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
An oft-overlooked advantage to MP3s (Score:1)
the fact that from now on, you'll no longer have
the problem of something being out of print.
MP3s allow for indefinite archival and trivial
duplication, making having to search all over for
someone who not only has the CD you want but is
willing to part with it for a reasonable price a
thing of the past.
--
Kevin Doherty
kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
cs423x and Ensoniq AudioPCI - Great Cards (Score:1)
Both of these are great cards. The cs423x is present on Intel Pr440fx motherboards, and the Advanced Gravis Ultrasound Pro, PnP, and Viper MAX. The Ensoniq cards are now OEM'd by Creative Labs, and their very high quality is untypical of Creative Labs cards.
I spent a few extra bucks on good quality shielded cables RCA->RCA cables, and I use an adaptor right at the sound card to turn the 1/8 connector into something better.
Aside from real professional cards with optical outputs, I think this is the best you're gonna get. Since cards with optical outputs are about 10 times more expensive and recievers with optical inputs are a bit steep, I thing the tradeoffs are worth the money saved.
Buy CDs to support the artists! (Score:1)
Its all about those MP3's. (Score:1)
http://www.deadabase.com
We have over 70gigs of free MP3's. The RIAA is scared shitless of what sites like this offer unsigned artists. I say "Fuck em!"
Serious Audiophiles and MP3's, bs arguments (Score:2)
As an aside, even a CD is a lossy compression format. You're compressing the audio information with two mechanisms:
1) You're taking an infinite number of analog singal levels and compressing it down to 2^16th discrete steps.
2) You're taking a signal with infinite resolution in the time domain and sampling it at discrete points.
As another aside record albums are lossy too:
Any signal can be represented by an infinite weighted sum of smaller signals. During the process of cutting the LP there is a finite limit to the maximum frequency that can be represented in the grooves of a record. During playback there's also a limit to how quickly your needle can track the grooves. Overall this frequency limits the sound.
Anyway, the point of all of this is that regardless of the technology involved in reproduction if your source information isn't adequately reproduced it still won't sound good. Garbage in, garbage out.
MP3's Affect (Score:1)
Otherwise here is a theory for you...how about the fact that CD's have risen in price by about 30% since 1996? I know that has affected how many CD's I buy. When a new CD now costs $16 or $17 as opposed to costing $11-$12, that is a pretty big impact on a college students wallet.
Or maybe the recording industry should look at the fact that they aren't pushing artists anymore and only pushing singles. This I imagine has much to do with it too.
I wish CDs cost $18 (Score:1)
In the UK, the average price of a CD is equivalent to about US$24 at current conversion rates, with "premier" artists charging even more than that. Sure, I can order them over the net at sensible prices from CD Universe or CD Now, but if I do so, I also have to pay
- postage and packing
- 3.5% import duty to HM Customs and Excise
- 17.5% VAT (value added tax) on the purchase price
all of which tends to defeat the original purpose. You guys don't know how lucky you are to only be paying $18 per CD...MP3 and the Record Industry (Score:1)
Points to consider:
1. Battery life in players. One draw back to CD's and even cassttes is thier lack of battery life. There isn't a single "portable" player that can play for more than 90 minutes at best and only about 45 on the average. In a motorless system (like the Rio) there is not the demand of power that there is in anything that has a motor. It's a sad state of affairs that my digital camera has more life than my sony diskman. and my camera has a flash.
2. Cost vs Value. Sure, $15 for a CD is not a bad price, but only if you like most of the songs on the album. If you only like one or two songs, it just is not worth it. With a flash card based system, a music store could have a kiosk where you can put in a blank card and a couple of dollars and you get the song(s) that you want without getting the ones that you don't like.
3. Whine factor. As was posted, there is a problem with the current system of record publishers. If you aren't really massive/popular/contreversial, you aren't going to get as a good of a deal assuming you can even get published at all. Thanks to the tight fisted, iron handed attitudes of the industry, it's no damn wonder that smaller bands are going with internet publication. The guy who posted an apology about hating the mp3 format admitted that when he posted a few of his band's songs, got more requests for appearences, records,and more interest than he ever got in his band's existance.
to sum up...
If rhe RIAA is losing money on mp3's then it's thier own damn fault for not keeping with the trends and innovations that are shaping the world
Phoenix
I doubt it... (Score:1)
My test I did with MP3's used 128kbit and 256kbit rips. I use a program under Linux (can't recall which) to generate 44khz 16 bit stereo WAV files. Those wav files were burned out to a CD, so I could test the quality of the format, not my computer's audio hardware. (Which is pretty good anyway, I do a lot of music production on it -- although I *never* record off the output, its always mixed down to a wav file and burned to a CD...)
I listened to the CD in three or four places. On my discman with the normal headphones it sounded fine. I didn't lose much quality compared to the original tracks.
With good ($100) headphones, it just struck me as being very... tinny? I'm not sure a good word for it. It was hollow sounding, but mostly in the high frequency ranges... it wasn't bad at vocal ranges, but electronic music (I had a Front Line Assembly track on the disk) sounded awful. Lost a *lot* of detail.
I also tried it on my home stereo. Not a great system, a Sony dolby digital setup, Bose 4001 speakers, custom built center channel (which is a lot higher quality than the Bose's -- I just haven't been able to afford to build left/rights yet...) The source was coming via a digital stream from my DVD player into the AC3 decoder, so it was digital straight to the amp. Sounded fine on here. (The lousy high and low end response on Bose speakers I'd attribute to that...)
The last place I tested it was in my car. My car's got about $5k of audio hardware in it. The speakers are custom enclosed Vifa components (some of the highest quality stuff you can get, car or home...) Very expensive wiring, 1000 watt amp, blah blah blah...
Results? Unlistenable. The Vifas are so accurate (especially with that much power able to take hold of them), every little inaccuracy of the source recording is audible. Everything sounded very hollow, there was some wierd side-to-side inaccuracies that I didn't recall noticing in the source material. I could go on...
That's just my results. A MP3 component plugged into most stereos will probably sound great. I'm not sure why I'd want to spend the $$$ for an MP3 component though, when I can get a 200 disc changer for $300, and not deal with the hassle of burning MP3 CDRs, and still being more limited in what I can listen to.
The idea of a portable player like the Rio is good, especially when I'm at the gym or biking or something. Its better sounding than a tape, and CDs are too prone to skipping.
More money = unlistenable sound? (Score:1)
The problem is that a lot of formats today (CD, DVD Audio, DAT) have better sound quality than the vast majority of equipment can reproduce. Its typically not, however, better than the studio equipment on newer recordings, so the quality capable in the recording is actually there in the recoding. As a result, you miss parts of the music.
So you spend more money to get better stereo equipment to handle the available quality in the format you choose. The problem you get from that comes when you listen to a source thats not as high a quality. MP3's are one example, but MD, and even old CD's copied from lower quality studio masters are all like that.
Its tough on good equipment to, for example, listen to CD's of stuff from the 80's. Interestingly I've found CD's of older material to sound better. During the 80's so much was being played on tape I guess they just pushed some parts of the recoding harder than they should have. They're all sort of piercing in the high frequencies. A Bangles CD is painful to listen to on real good equipment, but a Pink Floyd might sound fantastic. (Especially I've found the quality on the gold remasters to frequently be excellent)
My reason FWIW for spending all that $$$ on the equipment in my car was that the car was a convertible, and it takes a lot of power to get clear sound with the top down. (Most car stereo equipment takes advantage of the fact that you're essentially in a closed box to produce its sound -- without a top, you need to produce a higher volume, more power, etc...)
I doubt it... (Score:1)
I don't expect much from the headphones. I can't hear the inaccuracies in the recording because of the inaccuracies in the headphones. Make any sense?
I'd rather hear lousy recordings on lousy equipment than lousy recordings on good equipment. Lousy equipment tents to muffle out and lose the detail in its own noise and inaccuracies. I'd rather not hear something because of lousy equipment than hear something that doesn't sound "right".
I can't get better sound anywhere than I can get in my car. Does that mean I don't listen to anything anywhere else? No, it means there some stuff I really don't like listening to in my car because of the low quality, and some stuff I don't like listening to outside of my car because it loses its impact. Most good classical falls into that latter category. Most '80s music falls in the former.
I'm no expert on human auditory perception, but personally I've noticed I can tolerate high volumes, for example, when the sound itself is very clean, and not distorted. A similarly high volume coming from a distorted or dirty source causes me headaches and makes my ears hurt.
That may have something to do with the whole headphone issue -- I don't listen to headphones as loud as I'd tend to listen to a stereo.
*shrug* I didn't say it was logical, I just said it was my observation.
I doubt it... (Score:2)
You can tell the artists with real clout in the industry -- they're the ones that you can't get in any CD catalog. They control their royalties, they decide how their art gets marketed and sold, thus they don't get bundled into flat-rate licensing from the labels.
A CD, with jewel case and printed material costs around a buck. The artist usually gets in the order of a dollar per sold, although that varies quite a bit based on contract.
They're sold to distributors in the 5-6 dollar range. Distributors (like WEA) resell them in the 9-10 dollar range. Stores mark them up from there.
The price from the distributors is why you don't see any places coming out and selling on razor thin margins and selling big-name CD's for eight bucks. (Witness prices at places like CD-Now and Walmart...)
So if you're spending $18 on the CD, the store itself is making 80% on that sale. In mall situations, they have to if they want to cover outrageous mall lease rates. If you think 80% is bad, you should see the markup on the clothing stores...
Big stores and indie stores in lower-rent locations are the ones that you'll find the $12 CD's at. But they simply don't get lower than that because of the cost from the manufacturer.
I try to support the artists I actually think produce decent work -- their CD's come from stores. I have no problem buying CD's from hack bands that happen to have a song I find catchy from clubs... they're probably getting more $$$ than their music is worth anyway
I doubt it... (Score:4)
This is just a B.S. report from the RIAA to bolster their claims that MP3's are being used to pirate music and its severely hurting the industry. There's doubtfully any truth to it at all. Most people that have a few MP3's probably have them of something they wouldn't have payed any money for otherwise.
Its also silly given the way that CD clubs license music from record labels -- CD clubs hurt profits and particularly artist royalties more than MP3 ever will.
For the same reason the idea of TV tuners in PCs never really took off, MP3s playing through PCs for mainstream users will never take off. And I don't know a single person with a stereo component that plays them. No one wants to fire up their PC and sit in that room to listen to music or watch TV. I know a dozen people who've bought Toshiba or other "name" PC's with TV tuners, radios, etc... and none of them ever use them. These are virtually computer illiterate users. (ie, most of the general public)
On top of that, you've got the audiophiles -- people who tend to spend a lot of $$$ on audio-related hardware. No true audiophile would want to listen to anything on MP3. On anything but lousy headphones or low end computer speakers or stereo equipment they just sound lousy. (And that comment isn't flame bait -- people may disagree, but most people don't have even reasonable quality audio equipment...)
In a nutshell, I think its a growing lack of innovative and creative music in the mainstream popular music area thats responsible for the drop in sales. The big companies (and the companies that are RIAA members) aren't the ones selling the new and interesting music... The RIAA is an association of the big boys, and the big boys are growing old and tired.
Its good to see a drop in CD sales. Maybe one day the big labels will start to take risks again and promote quality music rather than generic clone bands. If the RIAA wants to twist that to their political agenda against MP3, who can stop them?
The Industry is to blame. (Score:1)
I seem to recall purchasing my first CD back in 1987/88 for $16.95 + tax. There was an expense justification going around, for why CD's were $16.95 vs. $11.95 for LPs, saying that they'll be expensive to begin with, but as more and more are sold the economies of scale will kick in and the prices will drop under $10/disc.
I'm still waiting...
I am now paying $12.95-17.95, depending upon what store I go to, and what sale prices or promotions are being offered. And, somehow I think the "economy of scale" kicked in a loooong time ago. Consider that to produce one CD only costs (approximately) $1.50, and LPs cost (then) $3.00-4.00/per pressing.
And I am sick about the record companies and agents screaming about artists rights, but taking the largest percentage for themselves.
Ugh.
Down with music execs! (Score:1)
1992. (Score:1)
Then they took the diverse formats and consolidated them back into tired formulas.
Pearl Jam anyone?
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
the reason i don't buy CDs.. (Score:1)
No thank you!
Preach on my brother (Score:1)
Exactly. I know that I for one have made a conscious decision to reduce my CD buying due to the outrageous pricing.
$18 is just a crime, but$10-13 isn't that much better considering the actual cost of production. The record companies need to reduce the prices and reduce the amount of the cut they take.
Won't happen until sales really start slumping.
This will only affect teeny bopper music. (Score:1)
MP3 is the death of commercial music.... people didn't KNOW that the better form of music (metal) existed.
And this is related to MP3 in what fashion? The people who've pointed out that radio is still the main source for finding new artists are correct. You might be introduced to new bands or styles by friends, but the majority of people don't download new songs unheard any more than they buy new albums unheard. (Yes, I know there are exceptions, but a lot of us don't have T1 or greater speed at home.)
Statistically speaking "teenyboppers" do not somehow mystically graduate to metal. Older audiences tend to either stay with what they know (hence the rise of '70s stations and the increasing popularity of '80s nostalgia shows) or discover less commercial artists like Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Grey Eye Glances.
$15 or so dollars is NOT too much to pay for a CD, especially when most real artists currently only sell a few thousand copies of their work....Real artists actually have to spend time making and crafting their work. They cannot simply make money off tee-shirts and concerts....Support your artists (they have to eat), or some day all "music" will be randomly generated samples by a computer.
The amount of money the artist gets when I buy a new CD at Sensuous Sound for $11 is equal to the amount of money the artist gets when I buy it on sale at Camelot for $14, at Virgin for $16 or full list for $18. This is not a good argument. It also doesn't apply to MP3s if you accept the premise that they allow people to just buy the "one or two good songs" off an album--in that case, the royalty to the artist will be appreciably less. (And, of course, the consumer will miss other songs that might actually be just as good, and with current MP3 technology they're getting subtly but audibly inferior sound quality to CDs.)
Facts, facts please. (Score:1)
I doubt it... (Score:3)
I've personally created such a device and brought it to a party. It played 1 disk for the entire duration of the party and I had to explain to plenty of non computer people what it was. Each of them was very interested in the concept of MP3's.
I agree quality isn't there for the audiophiles (though I believe in ripping tracks from CD's at 256k datarate at the least...you can still fit many hours of songs on a CDR), but then again the same audiophiles also still have vinyl. I don't think the aim of any new technology in the music industry, be it CDs or MP3s is to replace completely high end equipment. There will always be specialized equipment available for those people.
However, MP3's can also support much higher data rates and as DVD-RAM drives catch on (let's hope anyway), you'll be able to fit many more "high-quality" MP3's on a disk. Sure it's a tradeoff for playing time, but once you get to 5 hours or so, there's a limit to how much more you need per disk.
Still holding onto my records (Score:1)
Good question. Let's begin, shall we? (Score:1)
Change
Make money? A living? Off mp3's????
1. Direct CD sales. Mp3's can and often do lead to requests for actual product. Record your own album at a home or local studio, sell your CD direct for $5 - $7 dollars. Sell cheap, and people will buy.
2. Vinyl. Press a single. The world-wide collector market for new vinyl is still huge.
3. Gigs, gigs and more gigs. Now you have one more thing to put on that poster before you slap it on the neighbor's dog: "Check out our mp3 at www.free_homepage_.com!" If your music sucks, of course, this will work against you...
3b. When soliciting gigs, you can simply give the club person a url, and they can check out a song without your sending them a thing. Print up band business cards with the url instead...
4. Merchandise. T-shirts and stickers for direct sale...
5. Yes, your Average Listener may stop buying music altogether, but with fewer 'middlemen' between an artist and his/her/their fan(s), and vastly lower production costs for the music itself (home/small studios are now FULLY CAPABLE of producing professional-quality output, for $3000 or less,) a smaller body of paying fans will nonetheless make a larger contribution to an aritst's well-being...
6. Some artists WILL suffer. C'est la vie. Is it any more wrong/tragic for THEM to suffer when the industry changes than it was for your Uncle Joe to suffer when the steel mill closed?
7. The next generation of artists will benefit, in an arena where a LOT of bands and musicians make a living, but only very few become horrendously wealthy.
8. (gotta go home now!)
how would you redesign the music industry? (Score:1)
Radio...? I do (Score:1)
I listen to radio on occasion. It is a good way to be exposed to new artists/music. The trick is finding a DJ whose music tastes are similar to yours.
Mind you one of the few radio stations I like is in a city many many km away. Fortunately they broadcast on real audio :-)
Their web site is: www.edge102.com [edge102.com]
Organization is good (Score:1)
Eventually I plan to enhance this by associating other attributes with my MP3s. Does anyone know of a command line program that can read the ID3 tag in an mp3 and output something parseable?
Organization is good . . . Angle brackets are bad (Score:1)
My MP3 directory looks like ~/mp3/(artist)/(album)/(song title).mp3 complete with embedded spaces. I have a little script that does a "find ~/mp3/ -name *.mp3" and greps for whatever argument I pass to the script, then it overwrites my standard GQMpeg playlist with whatever it finds. I also have a script that just adds to the playlist. If I know the artist, album, or song title I can generate a playlist in seconds.
Eventually I plan to enhance this by associating other attributes with my MP3s. Does anyone know of a command line program that can read the ID3 tag in an mp3 and output something parseable?
I doubt it... (Score:1)
My Soundblaster 16 (that I originally bought for a 486) sounds OK with cheap computer speakers and lousy through my stereo, but does this have to be the case? I thought about buying a new sound card but I was completely bewildered by the vast array of options. There must be a card out there that makes MP3s sound great at an adequate bit rate. With all the MP3 fans reading slashdot there must be at least a few of you who really know sound cards.
If I knew which sound card to buy I bet I could stick an old headless K6 box next to the stereo and have it sound fine at most volume levels. I might still use the CDs at high volume and I might want to buy an extra quiet power supply.
More money = unlistenable sound? (Score:1)
I realize that the sound is only as good as the source, but given the same source a more expensive piece of equipment shouldn't sound worse than a less expensive piece.
I think I'll set myself a hard limit on stereo system cost and never buy anything of higher quality (price). Audiophilia seems to be a bit like a drug addiction, the more you spend the more you need to get your fix.
Down with music execs! (Score:1)
$13-$19 CDs... (Score:1)
mp3's are much nicer (Score:1)
they really can't stop it, they're going to need to spend the time creating a new economic model. even the idea of watermarking mp3's is silly, there's no way that will stop reasonably clueful "pirates."
... but the RIAA uses Radio to push "music" (Score:1)
The simple fact is that coporations which have made their money by packaging and selling information (of any kind) are obsolete (or quickly becoming so). They are no longer neccesary and serve no useful function in society. They have enjoyed such tremendous power; and they've abused it so horribly that no one is sad to see them go. This is truly a good thing.
The thought of seeing these dinosaurs get burned within my lifetime makes me just giddy.
Down with music execs! (Score:1)
F THE RECORD INDUSTRY!!!
Lot's of political pressure.... (Score:1)
MP3 Ain't All That (Score:1)
The higher end sound cards are probably even better that this--but, as noted, they are gonna cost you _quite_ a piece of dough.
Does any true 'audiophile' listen to lossy compressed audio, anyway?
Radio & Community (Score:2)
I don't see MP3's affecting radio at all. Many radio stations are already broadcasting accross the net anyway. They are already with us on this digital medium. Why should MP3's change this?
Behavior Modification? (Score:1)
Hardware, or the format? (Score:1)
Has anyone gotten a nice hardware rig going? How does the MP3 format sound when there's no hardware problems holding it back?
MP3 Ain't All That (Score:1)
But CFNY Ain't what it used to be... (Score:1)
...But I can't listen to CFNY for any length of time nowadays.
They were great in the 80's, but with the exception of a couple of brief periods in the 90's, they are really just as bad as AOR.
Oh for the days of Marsdon...Waking up to Ivor Biggun's "Has Anybody Seen My Cock"
Regards,
Tom
Great Ween MP3 FTP site found here!!! (Score:1)
PORT: 555
Login: ween
Pass: ween
Tons of non-album studio tracks, 4 track demos of some of the albums, Peel sesion cuts, all of the non-album B-sides, and mucho live tracks.
WEEN!
would be great if it worked (Score:1)
works great, just checked... (Score:1)
Remember when... (Score:1)
Actually, they may have been closer to the mark with the used CD accusation. Of the 800 or so CDs that I own, more than half were bought used. Why? At most stores I can listen to the used disks before I buy them. Weed out the garbage before it gets purchased. Besides, $5-8 per CD is a lot less painful than $15.95+.
Heck, buy old LPs. They're more enjoyable than 99% of the garbage on the radio and in the music stores anyway.
RIAA role in technology (Score:1)
$13-$19 CDs... (Score:1)
What is the money-making model for MP3? (Score:1)
Here is the problem: I can see how a couple of little companies like Goodnoise can make a few bucks as long as they are essentially novelties. Lots of people will probably buy a few tunes from them as long as they feel like (1) they are supporting a nascent industry and (2) they get most of their tunes for free anyway.
But as soon as the tech gets a little better--ie, MP3 boxes for regular home stereo systems appear, and there is high-bandwidth access for all (to make distribution a breeze for non-geeks), your average listener will probably stop paying for music altogether. I certainly would.
Now that sounds great, except that musicians are not going to work for free. So as I see it, MP3 must be stopped at all costs. Even though I have about a hundred megs of the damned things myself.
I'm not trying to start a flame war here, I am just hoping a few of you out there will stop to make a rational argument to me regarding how the music industry as a whole can survive mass-based (not boutique) MP3 distribution. An argument taking account of the economics of the music industry.
Propoganda (Score:1)
"...I'm not dead!..." (Score:3)
First: A public forum in which the masses get exposed to new music is essential to the industry thriving.
Second: I, for one, don't have time to orchestrate the soundtrack for my day from my MP3 list. I find that, by knowing the radio "landscape" in my area, I can fill in any given part of my day with appropriate music.
Radio fills these two slots simultaneously: it gives me variety and novelty that I might not have otherwise been exposed to had I chosen all the songs for myself.
Whether radio's current formats can survive or not is another matter... however, I'm not aware of "cable radio" stations putting any broadcast stations out of business yet.
How to lie with statistics (Score:3)
The RIAA press release brags that record buyers are increasingly older and female, as a general trend. Somehow, though, in one little bit of the greater trend, MP3 (their favorite scapegoat) is to blame.
Facts, facts please. (Score:2)
First off, you cannot possible compare the sound quality of these two mediums reliably. MPEG Layer 3 is not a lossless compression system. Played back though a computer with even the highest priced sound card you will never acheive the sound quality of a CD played back over even a moderately-priced audio system.
MP3s are the bane of high quality music lovers. Making music available on an inferior medium only pollutes the "gene pool" for people who treasure music and its faithful reproduction.
Shed No Tears For The Record Industry (Score:3)
This is in reference to a typical moderately successful MTV type band ---
This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.
Record company: $710,000
Producer: $90,000
Manager: $51,000
Studio: $52,000
Previous label: $50,000
Agent: $7,5000
Lawyer: $12,000
Band member net income each: $4,031.25
-
This is the NORM, not the exception. Unless you really score the average artist is not destined to make much of any money in the business, while their art has financed the new homes of the executives and producers involved.
Think about how bands/artists will do with the middleman of the record companies gone. They could charge 1/2 the price for an album's worth of material, and still make gigantic cash.
Amen