"Universal Music Group on Wednesday said it will slash its wholesale prices and reduce its suggested retail pricing for music CDs to $13, from between $17 and $19. The company, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, is home to a number of record labels, including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Interscope Geffen A&M Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, and Philips.
“Music fans will benefit from the price reductions we are announcing today,” Jim Urie, president of Universal Music & Video Distribution, said in a statement. “Our new pricing model will enable U.S. retailers to offer music at a much more appealing price point in comparison to other entertainment products. We are confident this pricing approach will drive music fans back into retail stores.”
They should have done this about 5 years ago. I predict it’s too late now! The genie is out of the bottle.
[ignorance] Holy Crap! They were $17-$19 per CD? I can buy a DVD movie for less! A good one! No wonder no one wants to buy music any more. What a ripoff. :shock:
I just sign up for Columbia music club every few years. They give me like 14 CDs for a penny, and I have to buy from 1-4 CDs for like $15 (IIRC) to finish my obligation. Come to think of it, I haven’t even bothered with that for a few years. Just getting old I guess.
Now that I have boradband I can honestly say that you are right, but not quite for the reason you give. I can’t see myself buying cd’s, not only because downloading music is free, but because downloading music is so damn conveniant. I have easy access to any and every song I could possibly want. Should I hear a song on the radio that I want I can have it on my hard drive in less than five minutes. Compared to that it would hardly worth the effort to go to a store and purchase a CD, even if they gave the CD’s away for 1$ a piece.
I’d drop my boycott if they slashed CDs to $9.99 and tripled the royalties for artists, and agreed to stop exploiting them.
In other words, I’ll be buying used CDs until the RIAA goes the way of the dinosaur, because the latter is not going to happen as long as they’ve got a stanglehold on the music business.
Retailers don’t actually charge the suggested retail price for most CDs, though. Some do, but the discounters generally sell them for less. I think the reasoning behind the new price point is that new releases at stores like Wal Mart and Best Buy will hit the $9.99 price point.
Still, I think this is probably too little too late. Record companies have been gouging consumers on CD prices for over a decade, and everyone knows it. Now they are trying to kill digital media, and everyone knows it. I doubt adjusting CD prices to the levels that they should have been at from the start is going to have as dramatic an effect on the market as they want it to.
They’re grasping at straws. Wasting millions on frivilous lawsuits that hopefully will be losses for them. Trying like hell to prevent people from finding out that they’ve been conspiring to price-fix for years, all the while cheating artists out of the royalties they deserve.
It’s judgement time. And what’s this? A possible congressional inquiry into the matter?
I really need to send in my money to the EFF one of these days. Hank bless them.
Speaking of price fixing, I want my fucking check!
It’s good news, though. I just don’t buy CDs that cost $17-19. I can pick up new releases for $10-12 at Best Buy and the like. And I can get just about anything new online from Buy.com or Amazon for $12-14. The only people who pay 19 bucks are idiots who don’t realize you can buy CDs from places that aren’t in the mall. Hell, I bought 8 used CDs last week online from half.com and the Amazon marketplace for under $50 shipped (all from different sellers, and non of it stuff I could have gotten at my local used CD store).
Yes, but you’re still giving the money to Big Music by buying it new. Buy it used, if you’re going to buy it. The more people that do that, the sooner the dominoes begin to tumble.
Most of what I buy is from independent labels. Just about all, actually. I don’t even listen to music on the radio, so I’m not mindlessly buying the flavor of the week. The stuff I like isn’t usually stocked at a Sam Goody or Best Buy, I have to go online or to a local independent record store for cool new stuff I’ll actually like. I do occasionally pick up new Radiohead, Weezer or Beck CDs from the big boys.
