|
It's Payback Time
This isn't late breaking news or anything, but with all the napster litigation and controversy about pirating, I'm fed up!
Remember back in the early 90's when CD's were first gaining popularity? There was a small price war that had CD's as low as $9.99. Me and my friends even switched from cassette to CD, because we knew CD's only cost $.10 to make and figured that in five years a full album would only cost $2-3...that was common knowledge at the time. We ALL thought prices would contunie to drop.
About that time the Big 5 record labels (Universal, Sony, Time-Warner, EMI, and BMG) colluded against retailers. In other words, they price fixed...which is SO illegal. To try and skirt the law, the big 5 would pay record stores extravagent advertizing fees (for posters, background music, etc.) and in return the store would have to sell CD's at or above, a MAP (minimum advertised price). If a store were to sell CD's below this price, the corporate advertising would dissappear!
On may 10, 2000, the Federal Trade Commision, finally got wise and forced the big 5 to abandon their market stifling price fixing schemes. Good!
Unfortunately during the 10 years, during which they did fix prices American consumers got ripped off! How much did the record companies steal from us? FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky had this to say:
"The FTC estimates that U.S. consumers may have paid as much as $480 million more than they should have for CDs and other music because of these policies over the last three years. These settlements will eliminate these policies and should help restore much-needed competition to the retail music market, consisting of $15 billion in annual sales. Today's news should be sweet music to the ears of all CD purchasers"
There has been all this whining about pirating and napster...about how it's just wrong, well forget that! They jipped us first. Even if the record industry was losing sales (which they haven't) I wouldn't feel bad for them at all. What about the starving artist you might ask? aren't they getting ripped off by napster too? HAHA, no they are getting ripped off by the Big 5.
If you have a moral dilemma with downloading music, I say get over it. It's time for revenge.
| Links: |
link(www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/cdpres.htm,FTC Release) |
User Comments
(These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)
|
Chad
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 2:57 PM
Wow, you wrote about collusion. Cool.
The organized hiking of prices to increase profits is just insanely wrong. If they had to keep the retail costs this high to keep profitability, then it seems to me that they need a new way of doing business.
I guess I know why the lowest cost store in town has no music posters or anything in it now. Hmm.
`Chad |
|
cincan
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 3:11 PM
Good points made. The industry indeed is making fools of consumers and when they're not able to, propaganda is used to try to make them feel guilty about feeling bitter towards the industry...example:
http://www.soundhub.com/article.asp?id=176 |
|
Anonymous
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 3:14 PM
I wonder if any other comperate types price fix their product!!!
Microsoft, soft drinks industry, the british car industry, hewlett packard, compaq,
notice the problem always comes from the usa.
land of the free! yeah free to be greedy corperate scum and get away with it!!!! |
|
currentband_com
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 3:22 PM
me myself would love to see the "BIG 5" fall. because that would bring the cost of music down "crossing my fingers" in turn would give the consumer more $$$$ to buy more music. also we would not have all this music "crap" down our throats. then just maybe we would have more wide range of music out there. and you wont have all these bands just replicating that same sound all the time just looking for that recored deal.... and in turn Napster is the next best thing
|
|
Anonymous
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 4:01 PM
wooha |
|
Chad
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 4:28 PM
Author: Anonymous (213.120.62.*)
Posted: Jul 11, 2000, 03:14PM
Actually, markup is not the issue..
The issue is that a product costed a certain amount, and over time, the price increased, industry wide.
This would be like every piece of software (including clip art collections) costing 100 dollars evenly.
Individual markup of retail and publisher prices is one thing, and a cross-company organized plan to raise prices is another.
`Chad |
|
-X-
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 4:31 PM
"Thêrê häs bêên äll thïs whïnïng äbøût pïrätïng änd näpstêr...äbøût høw ït's jûst wrøng, wêll førgêt thät! Thêÿ jïppêd ûs fïrst. Ëvên ïf thê rê¢ørd ïndûstrÿ wäs løsïng sälês (whï¢h thêÿ hävên't) Î wøûldn't fêêl bäd før thêm ät äll." - Killer quote from Pohsib - w3rd bro |
|
pohsib
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 5:31 PM
Well right now i am working for a wire comapny, and like most markets, there are only several dominant players. Sometimes one company will raise it's price, and the other companies will notice this and follow suit. However, if one comapny were to call another company and say "Let's raise prices..are you in?" it would be SO illegal.
Regardless, despite the occasional price hike, competition works it magic and prices eventually fall back down...that |
|
pohsib
|
Date: July 11, 2000 @ 5:33 PM
makes all the difference. |
|
roche
|
Date: July 12, 2000 @ 3:24 PM
Yea what he said!
by the way poh...when u are at work you should probably stay off the internet (*.daviswire.com)
Bend some wire or something cmon!!!! |
|
|
Navigation
