Just as I was about to give up on the music industry as a whole…
“The world’s five largest music companies and the three largest music retailers will pay $143.1 million to settle a CD price fixing case launched by New York and Florida two years ago, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Monday. In August 2000, most U.S. states joined in a lawsuit alleging that an industry practice called “minimum advertised pricing” (MAP) artificially inflated the price of CDs between 1995 and 2000, violating federal and state anti-trust laws. Under MAP, the labels subsidized advertising for retailers that agreed not to sell CDs below a certain price.”
Yah… you can suck it now. Oh, and just so that you know… you STILL aren’t getting my MP3s you ass-hats. I wonder if CD prices might actually go back down now. I doubt it.
They already did in 2000 when they stopped the artificial price inflation.
The claim against the industry was filed in 2000, yes. All that means is that they stopped jacking up the prices for the last two years, which is true, prices have hovered at the $12-15 range. But what about before 2000? I don’t remember what the average price of a CD was in 1997, but I’d bet it was cheaper than $15. I’d still like to see them adopt a realistic price system in general. Maybe not $1.50 like was mentioned a few posts ago, but how about $5.00. That sounds reasonable to me. It gives a large enough kick back to the artists, it covers the $1.50 cost of production, and is just right for most younger consumers. That way, when an artist sells a million copies, it actually means something again. Maybe it would start a trend and I could go to a movie for less than $20 or buy bread at the store for less than $2. Maybe, but I doubt it.
“retailers will pay $143.1 million to settle a CD price fixing case launched by New York and Florida two years ago, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Monday.”
note:
“launched two years ago” and “said on Monday”
it just sounds like you thought it was two year old news instead of something that happened just a few days ago.
$12-$15 for a cd? man, you haven’t been to satan’s cd store FYE anytime soon, have you? you’ll be lucky if you can get any decent (ie not pop-crap) for less than $18 for a single, $24 for a double.
well damn son, what on earth are you doing in a FYE? You could order it from Amazon AND pay for overnight for less than that.
But in your original snippit of quoted text, it states “an industry practice called “minimum advertised pricing” (MAP) artificially inflated the price of CDs between 1995 and 2000″. That implies the price fixing stopped in 2000.
yes, it certainly does. but it doesn’t imply that anything was done about it until recently which would explain why we still pay boats loads for CDs. that was my only point.