response 29 of 160:

Oct 2 05:03 UTC 2002

Via Slashdot & USA Today:  The five major record companies and three large
retailers have agreed to pay $67 million and distribute $75 million
worth of CDs to "public and non-profit groups" to settle the 
price fixing suit brought by several states.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-30-cd-settlement_x.htm

This case involved the MAP policy (Minimum Advertised Price), which 
was an attempt to prop up CD specialty retailers who are trying to hang
on against big box stores using CDs as loss leaders.
 
Quote:

>  The companies have not practice the pricing agreement since 2000.
>  At that time, they agreed in settling a complaint by the Federal 
>  Trade Commission that they would refrain from MAP pricing for 
>  seven years.
>
>  Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time 
>  that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1987 
>  and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result.

((Huh?  There was no such price drop.))

The companies admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement and in another 
news story, sources indicated the companies were glad to make the case
go away for so little money.  Supposedly that $67 million is going 
to be returned to customers.  Yeah, we all saved all our CD purchase
receipts from the last five years....

response 31 of 160:

Oct 2 08:11 UTC 2002

I can't see any reason why CD's should cost more than paperback books.
The "raw" cost of the CD proper is probably pennies.  It's certainly
less than $.20.  It's obvious that mass produced CD's are essentially
"free" - how otherwise to explain the drove of CD's companies such as
AOL have delivered to every american household with a postal address.
Clearly a naked CD is cheap enough to be a cereal box giveaway.  The
jewel case & artwork of a commercial CD may have cost more than the
actual CD.  The royalty due to the artist under most current contracts
is clearly not much more.  A few exceptional performers may actually get
rich, but they are just that--exceptions.

Most of the cost of a CD in a store should be the cost of distribution
and marketing.  That is not unreasonable; we pay similar fees for food
in stores with no qualms, and welcome being able to get tomatoes grown
in California in winter without the necessity of a plane trip to
negotiate with a farmer for purchase and transportation of fruit on an
individual basis.  The real question is what is actually a reasonable
fee for having a CD in a store?  In the paperback market, when you buy a
paperback, you aren't actually purchasing just one book, but several --
the ones you didn't buy are the ones that get pulped (curtesy of the
"magazine" model having overtaken the book industry in the 70's), so in
essence you are buying at least $1-$2 worth of paper -- and they still
manage to make a profit at "only" $6.95.

Another completely independent way of coming up with roughly the same
figure is to look at the cost of "naked" software bought in Taiwan.  In
this market, untrammelled by any real copyright restrictions, you can
purchase virtually any software title you please for only $5.  You
aren't paying anything to microsoft, so the costs you pay are 100%
production and distribution.  The major risk (ie, additional cost to you
the consumer) is that the police might stage a raid and seize some
product, but this is low because they usually telephone ahead and warn
the vendors.  $5 is close enough to the going rate for paperback books
that I think this is pretty obviously the "right" price.  If anything,
this is generous, perhaps the price should be lower.

So this $18 / CD is clearly a ripoff.  I found it annoying that in this
recent agreement in which the record companies and distributers did not
admit they had been practicing price fixing, that the corrective actions
agreed to did not include lower prices.  Apparently nobody representing
the real injured party, the american consumer, was properly represented
in court.

response 33 of 160:

Oct 2 13:39 UTC 2002

        I'm not clear on how record companies set the price on CDs, and how
they've managed to maintain such a consistent price range of $16-18 even in
the case of artists recording on a label that they control (Ani DiFranco on
Righteous Babe or the Toasters on Moon Ska, for instance).  Does anyone have
a good idea on how this is done?

response 35 of 160:

Oct 2 20:07 UTC 2002

Remember DataPlay, the new quarter-sized format which resists user
copying?  The music industry said they loved it, but apparently it 
wasn't loved enough: the DataPlay company has shut down while it tries
to come up with a few million dollars in additional funding.
They're broke for now.
 
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960514.html?tag=fd_top

response 37 of 160:

Oct 3 12:10 UTC 2002

Um, I've never assumed the word "California" is any kind of promise of
freshness, just a vaguely interesting hint of where the food came from.
I wouldn't pay extra for it.  Local produce *might* be fresher (or it
might not).  Mostly I judge quality by the store.  Some clearly seem
better at getting fresh produce on their shelves than others.

response 39 of 160:

Oct 3 19:39 UTC 2002

Hmmm. Most of the ones I have cost between $15 and $18 (the filk cds). Most
of them in recent years have cost $17 or $18, but since it's such a small
print-run (the last time I checked, a small print run CD for an independent
band was around $10/cd (friend's band made just enough CDs to pass out demos
and to sell to friends, that was the absolute rock bottom price for such a
small run) so I don't mind covering that cost AND giving some cash to the
artist) I figured that those costs were kosher.

response 41 of 160:

Oct 4 13:39 UTC 2002

Rep. Boucher has introduced a bill called the "Digital Media Consumers'
Rights Act of 2002".  The full text of the bill is here:

http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/BOUCHE_025.pdf

Most of it deals with requiring labelling of copy-protected CDs, but section
5 is the part that interests me:

---

SEC. 5 FAIR USE AMENDMENTS

        (a) Scientific Research -- Subsections (a)(2)(A) and (b)(1)(A) of
section 1201 of title 17, United States Code, are each amended by inserting
after "title" in subsection (a)(2)(A) and after "thereof" in subsection
(b)(1)(A) the following: "unless the person is acting solely in furtherance
of scientific research into technological protection measures".
        (b) Fair Use Restoration -- Section 1201(c) of title 17, United
States Code, is amended --
                (1) in paragraph (1), by inserting before the period at the
end the following: "and it is not a violation of this section to circumvent
a technological measure in connection with access to, or the use of, a work
if such circumvention does not result in an infringement of the copyright in
the work"; and
                (2) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
"(5) It shall not be a violation of this title to manufacture, distribute,
or make noninfringing use of a hardware or software product capable of
enabling significant noninfringing use of a copyrighted work.".

---

So in other words, this would prevent the DMCA from being used to prosecute
people for fair use of copy-protected material.  This bill is bound to get
heavy opposition from the RIAA and other powerful industry groups.  It needs
your support.  Write your representative.

response 43 of 160:

Oct 4 23:44 UTC 2002

        We are lucky to see a filk CD for $15 on a dealers table.  Most
are sold at full "list" of $17 or $18.  Ask Juanita Coulson if she
offers a discount for buying a large amount (like 4 for $60 instead
of $66 or $70).  Roper does not talk discount no matter how many you
buy at one time, so might as well only buy one or two and wait on
the reaction the ones you just don't know about.
        However, Roper's stock of 'Divine Intervention' CD by Julia
Ecklar (now digitally remastered, restored, etc) should sell out
on Friday night of ConFusion at $18.  Prometheous music reports that
only packaging work remains (new artwork for the CD).  They woudl be
luck to have stock for OVFF November 1st.
        Some filk artists will sell their CDs direct at a concert
for $15, but have learned not to uncut the dealers at a con.
        Meanwhile, the funnymusicians including Power Salad, Throwing
Toasters, Luke Ski, Tony Goldmark have put out full length CDs at 
$10 or $12.  They want product in people's hands more than they want
to make money.  They also don't seem to be paying themselves
royalties.  They should be priced more like $12 and $15.  Shows
me that a filk CD need not be more than $15 on a dealers table.  The
same would apply, for me, to other artists who have 1000-3000 unit
runs of their CD made.  And I have a lot of those 'small run' CDs
in my collection.

response 45 of 160:

Oct 9 23:47 UTC 2002

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Eldred case today.
Links to early reports can be found on Slashdot.org; the best
summary I have seen says that the plaintiffs' side, the 
Forces of Truth and Justice :), did not appear to do well.

response 47 of 160:

Oct 10 04:35 UTC 2002

Do people listen to dance music anywhere near as much as they used to?
It seems to me the market may be more a victim of changing taste than
anything else.

response 49 of 160:

Oct 11 00:12 UTC 2002

Re #47:  I doubt that the general public bought dance singles, if
they were running $12 each.  That would make them a specialty item,
and if the specialists change their technology to something else
you would expect sales to collapse.

(Serves the record companies right for being late with a horribly
overpriced product, too.  Hmmm, sounds almost like a list-price CD...)

response 51 of 160:

Oct 11 15:43 UTC 2002

  Actually, I think that's a totally bogus argument and I believe it's
  got things almost exactly backwards..

  To begin with, the issue isn't whether works will pass "sooner" into the
  public domain but whether they will *ever* do so or whether existing
  copyrights will essentially be extended forever, twenty years at a time.
  Additionally, the extensions cover far more than just books -- they also
  cover film, music, visual artwork, and much more.  And finally, less
  popular and lesser-known books written seventy-some years ago (which
  is the time period we're talking about) simply aren't available to
  "curl up" with -- they're long out of print and there's nowhere you
  can count on getting a copy.

  If a work is still popular after seventy years there'll be someone 
  fulfilling the market demand for it in any case and it will be cheaper
  and other artists will be free to make derivative works if it has passed
  into the public domain.  If it's not popular enough to be money-making,
  passing into the public domain, where it can be distributed almost without
  cost, is the best hope a work has of reaching people who might appreciate
  it.

response 53 of 160:

Oct 11 19:18 UTC 2002

I agree that that's a problem.  I have a lot of out of print material that's
no longer available from any commercial source but is still illegal for me
to duplicate.

I think the argument's relevent, though, because the MPAA has been giving a
version of it.  They asked whether anyone would have gone to the trouble of
restoring and re-releasing _Citizen Kane_ if it had been in the public
domain.  That's a good question; there are a fair number of early cartoons
and such that actually are public domain, and you don't often see copies of
them for sale.  Commercially anything public domain seems to be considered a
dead end, fit only for the dumpster.

That aside, I'd like to see the Supreme Court declare the 1988 law
unconstitutional but I don't think they will.  I think it'd be a bit of a
stretch, because the term *is* still limited, the limit is just longer than
most of us would like.  It's hard to say exactly what *would* violate the
wording of the Constitution except for a law that explicitly declared a
perpeptual copyright.