[CLUE-Talk] music and such

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Wed, 2003-06-25 at 17:14, Evan Widger wrote:

*snip*

> I've stopped using Gnucleus and K-Lite for the meantime, but havent'
> bought a CD in a month, either. The radio is sufficent for now, and
> the CD's/MP3's I already have are good, but it gets old fast and ads
> on the radio are annoying, plus they tend to play the same stuff over
> and over with little new material. Any suggestions on how to legally
> aquire music without feeding the already super-rich? 

Well... if you must stick with the artists on major labels, you can try
to find their stuff used rather than buying it new. It's legal, no
additional money goes to the RIAA member companies -- but none of the
money goes to the artist, either. 

But, as far as I know, there's no way for you to buy music directly from
the artists to bypass the music companies when you're going for the
bands who are signed to the major labels -- which is what the crackdown
on MP3s is *really* about. The music companies aren't really losing that
much money to downloads -- they're losing money because they've lost the
lock on distribution. 

You're right -- the musicians *are* still getting screwed through the
online services, which puts the lie to the music companies' claims that
they can't pay more to the artists because of the costs of distribution
and such. 

As with using Linux & Open Source software vs. Windows & proprietary
software, you have a choice. Continue to buy proprietary software and
continue to support an industry that basically treats its customers like
a baby treats a diaper, or suck it up and support the alternative even
if it doesn't offer all the features you want right now. 

Though I don't see this actually happening in one fell swoop, it'd be
great if a large majority of music lovers were to stop using the P2P
clients to get their music, and turn to alternative labels rather than
going back to the major labels for their tunes. It would demonstrate the
real problem -- which is not "piracy," but an industry that isn't
meeting the needs or wants of its audience. 

I still firmly believe that [most] people are more than willing to pay
for their music, when it's priced reasonably -- $18 a CD is *not*
reasonable, $13 a CD is *not* reasonable ($18.99 being the normal MSRP
on most discs, $13.99 being the price most stores actually charge...).
$9 a CD is getting closer, but I'd be willing to bet that the record
companies and artists could make MORE money by selling them for about $7
a disc. They'd make a much smaller profit margin per disc, but I believe
the end total would be greater -- and people would be able to get more
music for their money and not feel it so necessary to augment their
collections by downloading music. 

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net