response 13 of 81:

May 2 04:59 UTC 2003

So there is hope yet, the convenience factor (and not having to spend
time downloading a file only to listen to madonna saying "what the f*ck
do you think you are doing"...(she's bright, that one))

response 17 of 81:

May 2 19:03 UTC 2003

... which is an odd restriction, since one could burn one copy
of the CD from the playlist and then make copies from that...

response 19 of 81:

May 3 15:56 UTC 2003

When I started buying western music about ten years back, a cassette 
used to cost Rs.40 or approx 80 cents. Yesterday, when I again bought a 
few, it cost me almost $5 each. Approximately, a whopping 600% jump!!!! 
What else has gone up by 600% in the last ten years?? Certainly not the 
quality of music. IMHO, at 99cents a song, it is still a rip-off.

Maybe a group of artists will start to sell music online at lower 
rates?? 

response 21 of 81:

May 5 12:45 UTC 2003

I haven't owned anything from the Beetles since the days
of vinyl.  But today I'm going to make my own "Best of"
album at 99c a song.

I don't expect I'll use the service a whole lot but,
if it works, it will be nice to have available.

response 23 of 81:

May 6 06:26 UTC 2003

Sorry, I am talking about here in Oman. A CD costs RO 5.500 and a 
cassette costs RO 1.800

An Omani Rial is about $2.58. Thats $4.64

In India, the last I bought cassettes they were Rs125-Rs140. But that 
was about two years back. Sony has this special Indian edition CDs that 
cost only Rs250, thats about $5. Rest cost Rs.650, that is about $13.

Comparitively, books are sold at 1/5th to 1/10th the price in India 
than what they are sold for in the US. Special asian or Indian edition 
books.

response 25 of 81:

May 6 17:17 UTC 2003

Why are books/cds/etc. more cheap in India? That seems odd to me. 

response 27 of 81:

May 7 07:15 UTC 2003

I don't think it has anything to do with manufacturing costs or 
royalties. Its just plain marketing. If you sold a technical text book 
for $20 in India almost none of the students would buy it. It would end 
up getting photcopied and pirated. Now if you sold it for say $2-$4, 
all students will buy a copy (as they do). 

You have to remember that in volumes the Indian market for technical 
text books must be bigger than that of US+UK+other-English-speaking-
countries. So its a BIG market and something that the publishers can't 
simply ignore. With more than 250 universities, 1,500 research 
institutions and 10,428 higher-education institutes, India churns out 
200,000 engineering graduates and another 300,000 technically trained 
graduates every year.

The local authors have local publishers and can sell a book at $2-$4, 
so to compete with them the foreign publishers must sell at similar 
prices. Low volume books are imported and sell at US prices for example 
medical textbooks. Heh, so lots of medical students buy pirated books.

I wish the music publisher's take a hint from the book publishers and 
do more like what Sony is doing.

response 29 of 81:

May 7 14:12 UTC 2003

So if they sell as tape for $5, everyone will make copies for their friends.
If they sold it cheaper, people might buy originals.

response 31 of 81:

May 7 15:57 UTC 2003

Yeah. But you can visit India and buy those books and read them in the 
US. My sis bought Rs. 50K of books on her first visit to India after 
she went to study in the US. Thats ... ummm ... $1000. But I guess the 
US value of those books would be anywhere between US $5k-$10k.

response 33 of 81:

May 7 17:32 UTC 2003

The economic concept here is called "market segmentation," IIRC.
It also happens on a geographic basis with medical drugs; on a 
"class" basis, it is used by the airline industry so they can 
charge thousands of dollars for a business traveller, but only 
hundreds for vacationers.

response 35 of 81:

May 7 21:26 UTC 2003

If that were the only consideration gull, the airlines would simply 
give a big discount for advance purchases. But they also have things 
like cheaper fares if you stay overnight saturday which is totally 
designed to offer cheaper fares to vacationers. 

An airline might offer a route between city A and city B because 
typically they can fill 75% of the plane with business travelers who 
are willing to pay say $400 for the flight. Vacationers arent so 
willing to spend the $400 because they have other options (they can 
spend their vacation at home for instance). The airlines use the "sat 
stay" requirement to offer the vacationers seats at $200 or even $100.