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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 162 responses total. |
krj
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response 86 of 162:
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Aug 10 22:44 UTC 2003 |
The newspaper of Tower Records' home town, Sacramento, California, is
running what sure looks like an obituary for the chain. Tower has
until September 30 to come up with a huge pile of money which it owes
its bankers. This money was theoretcially going to come from the sale
of the chain, but there don't appear to be any takers.
(As we previously noted here, Best Buy rid itself of its Musicland
CD retail operations, including the Mediaplay and Sam Goody operations,
for zero dollars a few weeks back.)
The article says Tower was borrowing and expanding aggressively in the
face of the looming crash in music sales.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/story/7190900p-8137801c.html
((referenced via www.dmusic.com))
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krj
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response 87 of 162:
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Aug 12 22:44 UTC 2003 |
Slashdot led me to this absolutely fascinating essay from somebody's
"Legal Theory" blog, too rich and complex for me to summarize
briefly. It's about the RIAA's policy of massive lawsuits and it
speculates on likely follow-on scenarios.
http://lsolum.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_lsolum_archive.html#10597492985814238
4
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gull
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response 88 of 162:
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Aug 13 00:14 UTC 2003 |
Interesting way of looking at it.
A friend of mine suggested today that the motive behind the push to make
copyright violation a felony might be to make sure people who feel
strongly about legalizing file sharing are prevented from voting.
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tod
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response 89 of 162:
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Aug 13 00:16 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gelinas
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response 90 of 162:
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Aug 13 03:36 UTC 2003 |
The essay is "Copynorms and Deterence" and is a bit further down the page that
it was. I found it at
http://lsolum.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_lsolum_archive.html#106057207480148
411
It's disussing the RIAA's new-found penchant for suing people.
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orinoco
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response 91 of 162:
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Aug 13 15:15 UTC 2003 |
Definitely a good article. I wish I'd understood the legal references a bit
better, though.
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tod
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response 92 of 162:
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Aug 13 17:08 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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krj
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response 93 of 162:
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Aug 18 16:40 UTC 2003 |
Random data points on sales:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20030815/D7SUIII00.html
"Country Music Execs Expect Big Late Sales"
> Last year, country was one of the few bright spots in a down year for
> music sales. Country sales grew 12.2 percent, while the recording industry
> overall was down 10.7 percent.
>
> This year, country sales through last month were off about 6 percent
> from the same period a year ago, from 34.6 million units to
> 32.5 million units, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
...
> Even with the slump, country continues to fare better than other genres.
> Overall album sales fell from 358 million units to 328 million units
> through last month, about 8.4 percent - continuing a decline that the
> industry blames on file swapping and the soft economy.
----
Meanwhile, over in Britain, the British Phonographic Institute (BPI; the UK
version of the RIAA trade group) says that unit sales of album-length CDs have
hit a new record high. They report a 12% increase in units sold in the
album length format. The trade group does whine that they had to cut prices
a bit and thus revenue didn't grow much.
http://news.dmusic.com/article/7438
http://www.bpi.co.uk/flashmainindex.html
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krj
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response 94 of 162:
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Aug 18 16:55 UTC 2003 |
... and the sales of MP3 players are surging:
http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=55622
I think these numbers are from 1 January 2003 until the last few weeks.
All MP3 players: unit sales are up 138%, compared to the same period
in 2002.
Headset portable Mp3 players: unit sales are up 202%, dollar sales are up
104% (which means that the price cutting has been ferocious)
In-dash car MP3 players: both unit and dollar sales up 31%
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krj
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response 95 of 162:
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Aug 18 17:17 UTC 2003 |
Text article and opinion on the British CD sales report:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/netmusic/story/0,13368,1020971,00.html
"Music sales defy the doomsayers"
http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,1020948,00.html
"How the pirates became saviours of the record industry"
(summary: by introducing competition and forcing the
British CD firms to lower retail prices)
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keesan
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response 96 of 162:
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Aug 19 19:39 UTC 2003 |
Thanks for the legal stuff. Jim found a printed copy at the library.
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krj
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response 97 of 162:
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Aug 20 00:33 UTC 2003 |
(Sindi might have been commenting on the "Legal Theory" blog I referenced
above, but my best guess is that her response was intended to go in
Agora's "Bummed" item. Best wishes & get well soon, Sindi!)
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dbratman
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response 98 of 162:
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Aug 21 06:06 UTC 2003 |
The Sacramento Bee "pre-obituary" article on Tower Records mentions the
bankruptcy of Wherehouse. (I believe we've established here before
that there is a store or chain in Michigan by that name which is not
the one the SacBee and I are talking about.)
There were several small Wherehouse outlets in my area, but I hadn't
been in one in years, because they were very lowest-denominator and
didn't carry much that I might be interested in. (A far cry from 30-35
years ago, when I cut my musical-collecting teeth on Wherehouse's
meticulously-organized classical LP section, long before Tower made it
south of San Francisco in the Bay Area.)
The result of Wherehouse's bankruptcy has been people standing on major
street corners - here in Silicon Valley at least, and I saw one in San
Luis Obispo last month - waving signs announcing final clearance sales
at nearby Wherehouse outlets.
So I went. I found virtually no music I wanted to buy. (I got that
copy of the Stones' "Forty Licks" at one, but "wanted" is an
exaggeration for how I felt about that.) Instead, I bought mostly
DVDs, which was easy for me because I've only recently gotten
interested in movie-collecting at all.
That was June, July. Now there are a lot of vacant husks of buildings
sitting around with the word "Wherehouse" on their facades.
If Tower goes the same way - there are 5 stores in the Bay Area which
together account for 90% of my off-line music purchases - I'll be in
line, as I was for the demise of the independent classical retailers 10-
15 years ago. And then I guess I'll go to haunting Borders and B&N.
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scott
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response 99 of 162:
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Aug 21 12:48 UTC 2003 |
On somewhat of an aside, I've been tipped off to "Tape-Op" magazine, a pretty
cool and non-fluffy recording/engineering magazine. I'm on my second issue,
and I'm pretty interested in tracking down some of the bands mentioned.
Mostly I've never even heard of them, but somehow they've gotten several
records out each. Must be *something* good about them.
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gregb
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response 100 of 162:
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Aug 21 14:05 UTC 2003 |
Hope their mag is better than their Website. Just paid it a visit and
it sucks. I hadn't heard of TapeOp so I was hoping to learn more about
it.
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scott
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response 101 of 162:
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Aug 21 15:17 UTC 2003 |
Well, the website doesn't seem to have the article text, which of course the
magazine has. Apparently this is a pretty small operation.
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goose
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response 102 of 162:
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Aug 21 18:38 UTC 2003 |
TapeOp rocks...been a subscriber from issue 2, when it was stilla Xeroxed
'zine. What did you find wrong with their website Greg?
you also can't beat the subscription price: $0.00 (for 3rd class delivery)
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gregb
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response 103 of 162:
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Aug 23 17:08 UTC 2003 |
I found it rather bare-bones, in terms of info. There should be a
section that explains what the mag is about, who their target audience
is, etc. What also would be nice if they archived some of their past
issues/articles so people can get a feel for the material.
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other
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response 104 of 162:
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Aug 26 22:15 UTC 2003 |
With those subscription rates, that'sd a lot to ask!
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krj
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response 105 of 162:
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Aug 31 17:03 UTC 2003 |
This one's kind of funny. Sharman Networks, the proprietor of Kazaa,
has issued a DMCA "Notice and Takedown" order to Google, demanding that
Google stop returning information on KazaaLite distributors, because
Kazaa Lite infringes on the Kazaa copyrights.
(Kazaa Lite is the filesharing program Kazaa with the spyware and advertising
stuff removed.)
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/08/31/1349214.shtml?tid=153&tid=99
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=789
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remmers
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response 106 of 162:
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Aug 31 19:00 UTC 2003 |
That one's funny on several levels.
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jaklumen
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response 107 of 162:
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Aug 31 22:23 UTC 2003 |
Sharman Networks is now offering a Kazaa Platinum that axes the
spyware and ads, plus has some additional features that I can't
remember. I use Kazaa Lite myself, which features a DAT viewer--
which is helpful if the file didn't download completely. This does
smack of hypocrisy, yes, but I suppose the company is attempting to
ensure their "Platinum" version sells somehow.
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jep
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response 108 of 162:
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Sep 1 00:57 UTC 2003 |
I'd never heard of Kazaa Lite but am downloading it now. Thanks,
Kazaa!
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krj
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response 109 of 162:
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Sep 1 11:07 UTC 2003 |
(What does DAT mean in the context of resp:107 ?)
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tod
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response 110 of 162:
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Sep 1 14:41 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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