From the Newsletter of the
Common People Using Computers (CPUC) user group
The End of Record Companies?
Opinion by Karl R. Witsman
Do you listen to music?
Of course you do! Your music listening habits might change in the future, however,
in ways we would not have imagined even five years ago. I was recently sent a link
to a website of MP3 files; something which nobody had even heard of a few years ago.
I had read about the MP3 players in superstore brochures, and how people could download
music files from the Internet, but I had not thought of trying it myself.
After listening to these music files from Internet or from the hard drive of my laptop, I can say that I now understand why recording artists and music companies are getting nervous. The copyright issues alone are daunting, and the ease of copying must scare them half to death!
Back when they actually were RECORD companies, copying an album was something that only the most sophisticated pirate could do. It took a truckload of highly sophisticated equipment to copy and print albums. It was easy to catch the copiers and put them out of business. Then came along 8-tracks, which were easier for the sophisticated pirates to copy, but still out of the reach of the average consumer.
Then Came Better
Tapes
The next generation of music media was cassettes, which were a nightmare for the
music labels. Just about anyone with a decent home stereo could make a decent and
salable copy from an original album within minutes. Dual-cassette decks even had
a "speed-copy" feature which I used to use to make back-ups of lecture
tapes (my own).
I imagine that the music companies were happy when CDs came out, as they were again out of the range of the average Joe to copy. At first, writable CD-ROM drives cost so much that it wasn't worth the cost to try to copy music. Pirates concentrated on data CDs and copying bootleg Microsoft Windows. Now the drives are cheap enough and the MP3 format allows small file sizes.
Just for a test, I copied an MP3 file to my hard drive (and promptly erased it) and found it only took a moment. The sound quality was incredible; every nuance was captured from the original. My laptop speakers weren't great, but headphones made it incredible! And most folks now have better speakers on their computers than on their stereos.
So is this where Karl gets on his "Don't Copy That Floppy" soapbox? No, you've heard that enough. My message today is for the music industry.
Karl's Conclusion
The fact that people are copying music files so freely, and putting them on their
websites should be a clue to the music industry. I don't worry about the artists,
because even though they seem rich, they really don't make much money off albums.
They make most of their money from concerts, merchandising, and radio airplay. The
songwriters typically get ripped off by the record companies too. The folks who own
the CD-printers and distribution networks are the ones who make the big bucks in
all this. Have you priced a CD recently?
I know from my own research that it costs less than a dollar to actually print a CD. Some others have suggested that it costs about 60 cents when done in bulk. The fancy disk labels and jewel cases probably cost more than the actual media. The artist probably gets a dollar, the songwriter 20 cents, etc. For a $20 CD, the store keeps about half of it.
So Waves or Musicland keeps $10 and the music company still pockets $7-8. (Don't talk about publicity as they write much of that off taxes anyway). Hopefully both the music industry AND the retail stores will learn that they have to compete with the websites, etc. They need to lower their prices and not be so greedy. This way, the honest people will stay honest.
Think about it this way; you come out of a movie and really liked the soundtrack. You would like to own it. You stop by the music store while still at the mall and find it will cost you $24.95 for the CD. Yikes! Is it any wonder that folks go right home and download their favorite tracks from the web? Wouldn't it be better if the movie had a website at the end where you could pay $5 to download the whole soundtrack? Or even buy a disk full of songs with your popcorn at the theater?
Yes, this puts the music stores out of business. You can buy albums just about anywhere for less, like Target, Walmart, K-Mart, etc. Once true downloadable tunes are on the Internet, you don't need a gum-snapping teenage clerk to offend you in person. Just download the song you want. Do those music stores ever really have the album which you are looking for, anyway? I think we can do without them now; the industry has nearly outgrown them.
Again, I do not condone copying any type of intellectual property. I am a writer and don't want my work used without compensation. But let's realize that the people who do most of the work don't get most of the money. It's time for a change in the pricing and structure of music distribution. Perhaps the music industry will even embrace the MP3 and Internet wave and charge $5 per album download. No CD to print, no costly jewel case and printed material, no music store in the middle, little advertising costs other than for their webpages. At least I ask them to think about it. And let me know your opinion via e-mail by clicking below!
Karl R.
Witsman
Common People
Using Computers
126 Greenwood Cemetery Road
Danville, IL 61832
Copyright © 1999
User groups and vendors may use this article as long as copyright information and credit is given and a copy of the usage is sent to the author at: 126 Greenwood Cemetery Rd., Danville, IL 61832.
Please note that Karl's opinions are not the opinions of everyone
in the CPU Computer User Group, nor are they representative of reasonable people
anywhere. They are the products of a deranged mind and should be taken as such.
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