RIAA fails to learn from past mistakes.

[esskreemr]

Seeks higher prices for downloaded music

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7048053/

So, would you be willing to boycott music purchases for a day, a week, a month or a year as a form of protest?

[Soldier]

...but I don't pay for overpriced music; mine is from Russian sites, and rarely runs me more than seven cents for a song.

The poll is fundamentally flawed!

[Gav]

I very rarely buy from esablished high street shops. In the UK we are regularly ripped off by the big retailers and consequently I don't shop there. And then these retailers have the cheek to complain that; downloads and online shops are doing them out of business!

[lochinvar]

Ultimately, the market will decide. There's no escaping the law of gravity.

If music is truly overpriced, a way will be found to circumvent the pricing. This is the impulse behind Napster, Kaazaa, and other file-sharing sites/software. The Big Boys will either have to compete at that level or go to the wall.

On the other hand, we may find that the Law Of Unintended Consequences also applies. If widespread downloading and file-sharing causes the amount of money attainable in music to drop, artists will have no real incentive to produce--why work if your work is just going to get ripped off? The pool of downloadable music will shrink, and the listening public will be the poorer.

Which scenario is correct? Only time and the market will tell.

Personally, I have little stake in the argument either way. I don't, as a rule, have near the compulsion exhibited by many of later generations to be constantaly surrounded by music; consequently, I don't find the level of music pricing to be terribly upsetting. The industry would starve if they had to survive on what I buy in a given year.

Silence doesn't bother me.

[kalivor]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

On the other hand, we may find that the Law Of Unintended Consequences also applies. If widespread downloading and file-sharing causes the amount of money attainable in music to drop, artists will have no real incentive to produce--why work if your work is just going to get ripped off? The pool of downloadable music will shrink, and the listening public will be the poorer.

Well, as it stands, the people making the music don't actually make much money from people buying it. It's been awhile since I saw the numbers, but to the best of my recollection, an album has to go gold for the performer to make a six-figure salary. And gold is a LOT of albums.

Most of the money that artists make come from concerts ... well, probably from concert T-shirts first, then from concert ticket sales ... they make little money from the music itself. They probably view it as more of a way to get people interested in going to shows, from a profit-oriented point of view.

The money made from the sale of CDs goes, by-and-large, to the record company. That is, the profits go to the people who package up the music and deliver it to the customer, not to those who make it.

Downloading music is a new delivery method. On the pay-sites, no matter how little is being charged, the artist probably still gets their share (or something not too different). On free sites, they lose that share, but still get the exposure for the things that actually make them money (concerts, T-shirts, etc.).

It's only the record companies who lose, because they're not getting the same share for delivering the music -- because they refuse to accept the new method of delivery.

[Larrison]

>>Ultimately, the market will decide. There's no escaping the law of gravity<<

Hmm.. I think what's going on is that the music business is having a hard time adopting to a new business model, which might be needed.

The music business has the locked in mentality that you need to stay within their current business model -- a "star" system, like the movie business. Companies identify promising talent, sign them up with lots of $$, publicize them highly, put them on display (big concerts), and then charge $$ for each issue of the "star's" albums so they can pay for the big salaries, big publicity systems, big corporations doing this, etc. The characteristics of this are big corporations, big salaries and publicity for "stars" and "CEOs", and a business population that has a lot of starving wanna-be star artists at the low end, and a few highly successful stars working for big record companies at the upper end.

The other business model is more distributed, de-centralized business model. People, or small production companies, produce their own songs and distribute them using low-to-moderate cost publicity, focusing on low-cost distribution systems and dispersed or highly niched marketing campaigns. People will probably buy individual tracks or songs, and not be forced to buy a whole albumn. The focus on this would be innovation and uniqueness of sounds, or a high affinity to a niche market. Concerts will be still done, but smaller concerts or appearances will also be coupled with sales and promotional events. You'll still have superstars with massive concert events, but this would be more in the realm of specialist productions, and might not support the huge mega-music companies. I note it appears that the visual performing arts is slowly moving in this direction (more power to independent studios, distributors, and independent producers and production houses, and less success through the mega-studio driven "star" system).

I think in the long run (another 20 years) we'll be at the second business model for music. I just won't pay $20 for an albumn that has one or two tracks on it I want. I'll pay a buck or two each to get those tracks, but there are almost no ways to do that legally, and I might gamble another buck or two to find new tracks that might be interesting. I probably buy 6-8 CDs a year, but most of those are off remainder tables, or classical music where I know I want the entire CD of music.

There are a couple of places on the net where you can buy individual tracks, but I don't see really anywhere you can sample tracks by new artists to listen to their sound to see if you might take an acceptably priced gamble to see if you like more of their work.

[prototoast]

I never buy music anyway.