response 26 of 189:

May 22 23:21 UTC 1998

Is 6 CDs for $30 a good price? Discounting the music that's on it?

response 28 of 189:

May 23 05:26 UTC 1998

  You're right, CD-R media is still over $1/disc, I was being a little
  over-optimistic on my estimate, but it's reached the point now where
  single units cost about as much as a blank cassette tape, less perhaps..
  The record companies' reaction was predictable, if disappointing:
  keep raising the price of new CDs higher and higher and spend a lot
  of the proceeds lobbying for the recently passed "No Electronic Theft
  Act" making certain classes of low-level copyright infringement federal
  felonies..

  I hadn't heard the details on the Garth Brooks CD set -- if true that
  ups my respect for him a notch as he's in presumably about as good a
  position to gouge fans bigtime as anyone is and I'm sure it wasn't the
  record label pushing to release at that price..

response 30 of 189:

May 23 17:01 UTC 1998

  It's bad that it's never dropped (well, it dipped a bit for a while)
  but what's intolerable is that it's going up even further..

response 32 of 189:

May 24 05:07 UTC 1998

  I'm not exactly sure what you want Congress to do about it but whatever
  it is you're thinking of I probably wouldn't support it..  If you want
  to write letters, send them to the big record companies to tell them 
  that at $16.99/disc in many stores you're simply not interested in
  taking a chance on new music so your entertainment dollars are going
  elsewhere..  

  I think they're going to see sales drop, the question is whether they
  will draw the right conclusion -- by no means certain..  In the past
  when confronted with declining sales their strategy has seemed to be
  to cut off money spent on developing and promoting new artists and to
  funnel everything into mainstream top-40 acts who are proven sellers.
  Since this is about the exact *opposite* of what I'd like them to do,
  one might conclude that maybe they need a hint of some sort..

response 34 of 189:

May 28 00:51 UTC 1998

So what's the total cost to them of a particular CD?  That is, what's the cost
of royalties, on average?

response 36 of 189:

May 28 14:34 UTC 1998

Well there are some fixed costs for royalties, and some not so fixed.
Mechanical roylaties are now $0.095 per song, per item manufactured (CD. tape,
LP, etc) so now you've got about $1.50 per disc in costs, the artists
royalties are based on the wholesale cost of an LP (yes, they are still
calculated based on the wholesale cost of a format that is no longer
available!)  This is $5.98 for a $8.98 LP, and the artist sees about 20% of
this (or about $1.20) which is probably split in some way with the producer.
(A producer may get from 1-8 "points" or percentage points on a record, in
lieu of a guarantee) so this puts it at about $2.70, but this is deceiving
because the cost of manufacturing the disc is usually taken out of the artists
royalties (manufacturing is a recoupable costs, just like studio time,
mastering, artwork, promotional copies, radio copies, advertising & other
promotion)  So now we're back to $1.50, and the wholesale price of a CD is
currently about $7.99 (as memory serves).  $6.49 in gross profit to the label.

RE#35 -- Everybody gets about the same deal, excepting a few "superstars"
(Michale Jackson, Madonna, REM, U2, and the like)

response 38 of 189:

Jun 4 00:31 UTC 1998

Well, if the price drops, it may well be.  I would be more receptive to the
local music store in Anytown, USA having the CD burner, fast link, and photo
printer for the full experience.  Frank Zappa proposed just such a scheme over
a decade ago.

response 40 of 189:

Jun 4 18:54 UTC 1998

Blockbuster wanted to go to such a scheme about, what, five years back?
CD manufacturing kiosks in video stores.  They had support from IBM, so 
the technical part was quite feasible, but the labels didn't want to 
support the idea so it died.
 
Chris: thanks for the mention on the Seagram's acquisition: this was
being discussed when I headed out of the country and I saw very little 
news while we were in Italy.

response 42 of 189:

Aug 25 22:50 UTC 1998

USA Today reports that the numbers for the record business picked up 
decently in the first half of 1998.  Most of the increased business 
was due to the large number of successful movie soundtrack albums, 
especially TITANIC, and then Celine Dion also rode along on the 
Titanic.  For the first time, more women than men bought CDs.
 
Rock music still seems to be in the dumpster, sales-wise.

response 44 of 189:

Aug 26 02:27 UTC 1998

  Judging by what I hear on the radio I'd say rock music deserves
  to be in the dumpster sales-wise..  I'm perfectly willing to
  believe that there's as much great music being produced now as
  ever but wherever it is it's not the music that's getting the
  promotion dollars from the record companies.  The acts that the
  big corps are pushing are unexciting and unoriginal -- it's no
  mystery to me why people aren't rushing to the stores to buy the
  CDs.  Those of us who are record junkies* may take the time to
  actively seek out cool new stuff but the majority of sales go
  to Joe Average who buys 2.5 CDs per year, based on what he hears
  on the radio..  (I'm just making that figure up but you get the
  idea..)  Maybe if WEA, Virgin, BMG, etc.. would get up off their
  asses and start pushing some of the really creative folks in
  their lineups who toil to produce records that nobody ever hears..

  * - record junkie:  I'm moving this week and I packed my CD collection
  (or most of it) tonight..  Thank God I don't own Ken-like quantities
  of CDs (and vinyl..  aieeee!!) but it was still Bad Enough.  And that
  was *after* my attempt at culling the collection earlier this summer..

  Perhaps the scariest part of the experience was the number of times
  I thought -- "there, finished" only to find another 100 CDs or so
  hiding in another room, apart from the main collection.  I think
  that if everything I own were destroyed in, say, a plague of frogs,
  it'd cost more to replace my music collection than to replace the
  remainder of everything else I own, including my computer and my car..
  God only knows what it'd be like if I didn't get rid of the things I
  don't listen to..

response 46 of 189:

Aug 27 00:11 UTC 1998

This is in ref. to #18 (on how the internet affected buying). Personally I
am a music addict, everytime I go into a music store i buy something, Every
time 'cause I really like being exposed to new things. As a result I have a
great appreciation for just about every form of music. (BTW my favorite store
is tower, due to the fact that it carries books and a wide selection of
magazines.) Unfortunately since the majority of my favorite music comes from
britain or is extremely hard to find domestically (I listen mostly to Drum
'n Bass, a type of electronic music). So I've found that buying directly from
tthe record companies online is alot easier, and sometimes cheaper. So the
'net has really been beneficial there. Also one place that I feel is
revolutionizing online music uying is CDuctive (www.cductive.com) On their
website you can go through and pick out the tracks you like (you can preview
in RA) and they will put them onto a CD and ship it to you. You can even name
your CD. They charge persong and the price for a 12 song CD is a little
cheaper than buy a similar CD retail. They have deals with alot of the lesser
known labels, so it's a really cool way to get some of those songs that don't
get radio play or whatever. I encourage everyone to experience it.
Tyr

response 48 of 189:

Sep 21 19:52 UTC 1998

  I'm sure that there's a lot of truth in that but it can't be quite
  that simple or presumably someone would be making money developing
  and promoting new acts -- either one of the big labels that wanted
  to distinguish itself from the others or perhaps some of the indie
  labels, sensing an opportunity to move in on the big guys' piece of
  the pie.  But if there's a flourishing indie scene right now, I'm
  somehow missing out on it completely -- as far as I can tell the
  indie record scene is about as dead as I can remember it being since
  I started watching such things..

  Is there nothing more going on here than the labels' devotion to
  short-term profits at the expense of long-term sustainability?  Or
  are there other factors at work, perhaps the assimilation of the
  big labels into multinational media empires that don't go by 
  prevailing music-industry practices?