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Do you think a standard pricing structure for CD's would help the music industry.


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Greeting,

 

I happen to be watching television yesterday and noticed a lot of CD's being sold for $10.99. Well its been a while since I've done a distribution deal, but that pricing seemed real low, maybe too low.

 

For years I thought CD's were selling for way too much money. Now it seems, to combat pirating, the bottom is falling out. Maybe the Music Industry needs something similar to OPEC. All the labels and major Distributors get together and lay a flat price for CD's based on size and genre. Once this price is set everybody including Best Buy, and Wal Mart would have to adhere to this retail pricing structure.

 

I do see many positives in this as long as the pricing was fair. Before making a purchase the buyer would already know what any given CD was going to cost; the market would eventually get conditioned and realize this is what we must pay for music; and it would definitely prevent the CD dumping that some labels have started doing, by dropping the pricing of their CD's so low.

 

Just a few of my private thoughts.

 

Dallas

http://TrilogySound.com

 

Reading, PA

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According to an article I read earlier today, the answer to the downloading issue may be $5...

 

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62434,00.html

 

Actually, I think you'd run the risk of violating laws and anti-trust regulations if you did an OPEC style approach to CD pricing - it's called "price fixing" and it's illegal. But I do share some of your concerns about the trend to "undervalue / devalue" music.

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The price has already been fixed, it's .99¢ per tune. Regardless what a CD would, should, could cost, the price I'm willing to pay is .99¢ per tune. If I want to buy a paticular song,

I'll go to iTumes Music Store and look for it, if it's there I'll buy it, if it's not there f*ck it. It's a new world, and IMO the CD has had it.

Here in Chicago there's a well known DJ, he's been on the radio for 40+ years, he still goes out and does the occasional gig, he's 75+? years old, and his live rig is a laptop and two hard drives. He has converted his entire collection of vinyl to mp3's (and it's huge). Not a CD in sight.

I said all that to say, who cares what a CD costs? You may eventuall see CD's gong for $2 or $3, I predict that CD's from top artist will be going for $7 to $8.

The CD has seen it's day, it now basically replaces Floppies & Zip drives. It doesn't matter what's on a CD, the percieved value has gone down, and it can't be brought back up.

So at .99¢ per song $10 will be the maximum I'LL pay for a new CD with 10 songs on it.

DVD mp3 will be he new thing. Now imagine 800 (mp3) songs on a DVD, there's your NEW value. Even at 44.1K/16bit you could get 80 songs, that's the pricing that needs to be figured out. What would you pay?

 

Sly :cool:

Whasineva ehaiz, ehissgot ta be Funky!
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Two words:

 

Recoupable costs

 

When accounting games go away, maybe...

RobT

 

Famous Musical Quotes: "I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve" - Xavier Cugat

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Originally posted by Groovepusher Sly:

In my car they sound fine, better than the radio.

Plus, like I said, you could put about 80 CD's (44.1/16) on a DVD.

 

Sly :cool:

At $1.00 per song, 10 songs on a CD, 80 CD's on a DVD disc you're looking at $800 for a piece of plastic. Not gonna happen, no matter how much music you can pack on a disc.

BlueStrat

a.k.a. "El Guapo" ;)

 

...Better fuzz through science...

 

http://geocities.com/teleman28056/index.html

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Originally posted by Groovepusher Sly:

DVD mp3 will be he new thing. Now imagine 800 (mp3) songs on a DVD, there's your NEW value. Even at 44.1K/16bit you could get 80 songs, that's the pricing that needs to be figured out. What would you pay?

And that is the question. What would you pay?

I doth quoteth myself.

 

Sly :cool:

 

Plus I said, 80 songs, that's $80 bucks.

How I arrived at that number?

Average 44.1K/16bit tune = approx. 50MB X 80 = 4GB.

The 80 CD's worth would be mp3's for sure (avg. 5MB tune), and I guess would / should cost less than a dollar each if you're buying 800.

Whasineva ehaiz, ehissgot ta be Funky!
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Standard pricing certainly wouldn't help the indie labels, which need to recoup as much of theiir costs from basically everything they can sell that points back to the music. For those folks, it might be a detriment, unless some sort of balance can be worked out.

 

I'd like to see what some of the indie folks think of this idea. Lee, DJDM, anyone?

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Craig, so the weedshare is workin' out for ya? Does it look like they'll be around for awhile?

 

As for standard pricing structure:

 

NO NO NO!!!! That's communism! That means there is no private ownership. The private owners of the music must be free to charge what they believe is their best market price. Leave them alone. Damn!

 

Edit: cleaned up my language. :wave:

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