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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | DanAbnrml9@aol.com |
| Subject | Re: the death of the CD |
| Date | Fri, 5 Sep 2003 14:12:01 EDT |
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In a message dated 9/5/03 1:01:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
We were talking about the downloading issue last night, and the only real
analogy I can make is shoplifting. Sorry kids...
Well, you can say that, if you want, but the fact is that without internet
record stores (NotLame in particular) and mp3s I probably never would've heard
of Bobby Sutliff or The Windbreakers. I've never seen a Bobby Sutliff record on
the shelves, ever, and likely never will.
I don't say this to put you down, but to attack the notion on behalf of some
artists that this is merely "stealing". To say so is to ignore the incredible
promotional powers of the internet--and even ILLEGAL downloading (in fact,
particularly illegal downloading) can be an incredible boon for lesser-known
artists when it comes to at least getting their name/music out there. How often do
you get radio airplay? Not often, I assume, but people probably do download
some of your mp3s. And I personally don't buy the argument that mp3 trading
will kill off CD sales since ALBUMS are a major pain in the ass to download in
full. If you want a song or two to sample, or just like the single from an
album, then yeah--that's pretty easy. An entire disc is an entirely different
story, and at $12 I'd rather just buy it if I actually enjoy the few songs I've
heard. I have a chance TO hear a few songs if I can download them.
I don't mean to look at this through rose-colored glasses. After all I work
on the retail side of the music industry for an independent retailer that is
already seriously considering its exit from the music retail business completely
in favor of selling fun junk. The industry is facing a crisis, and
downloading IS a huge part of it. But its impact could easily be lessened by
implementing a few measures--re-introducing the single, promoting more artists so as to
appeal to a broader range of tastes and ages, and reducing the (artificially
inflated) price of CDs. For those who DON'T think that's a factor, consider
this--my (fairly sizable) chain has been increasing the prices on many of our
catalog titles for about 3 years because THE RECORD COMPANIES CHARGE US MORE, AND
THEY TELL US TO RAISE THE PRICES. We fight them whenever possible (they often
do this, in part, because of some quasi-legal deals enabling Best Buy and
other behemoths to offer the lowest advertised price in our region, which is
complete bullshit and we often sale-price their catalogs simply to spite them). Our
average mark-up on CDs is a mere 14%, which is nothing when you consider that
we have rent, employees, and other overhead costs to consider.
But I don't blame downloading, at least not completely. I think that the most
telling piece of info I've seen recently--and I've seen it used in several
respectable publications--is a graph detailing CD sales over the past 10-12
years. CD sales PEAKED in 2000 (which was WELL into the Napster boom, in fact 2000
was most certainly the peak of Napster as well) and then dropped back down to
1998 levels, where they are at present. But it's worth noting that in 1998,
CD sales were higher than they'd ever been, so the number of units currently
being sold is actually still a very respectable amount. It's also worth
considering that after 2000 the nation entered into a major recession that curbed
spending on luxury items (like music), and we still haven't emerged from this.
For the time being, I choose not to believe the sky is falling, even if it
does wind up changing a bit... --Jason
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