End Of Morpheus?

[rushx79]

i hope the record companies do fucking collapse. too many talentless shits making 50 million dollars ..

when napster was around, i never bought a cd i didnt like. i was always able to know what i was getting before i bought it. i actually buy less cd's now that napster is gone. im tired of spending 20 bucks for one or two good songs.

 

[3Vandoo]

dead to the capitalist bastard

 

[Frackal]

Well, he and the rest of the artist's can suck my big balls.

If they didn't make a CD with 1 good song, and 11 shitty songs, I wouldn't have to pirate the music.

Worst case scenario... charge a small fee per month... or charge for a very small fee for each download... and pay the artists with that money generated.

They cry because the days of charging $15 a CD has come to end.

Fuck 'em all I say.
--

Yep...fuck 'em.

 

[VicTusDeuS]

I dont understand how it does add up to twenty. If you add the $2.00 the artist makes per cd shipped plus $3.00 for distributer you get only $5.00. I dont see the need for other costs. Thats Only $8.00, add alittle markup and you are still under $20.00 a piece. It's a rip off. Why are CD's selling for more than cassettes when its a proven fact CD's are cheaper to make??? Thats theft, let them die!

I ran a record store for eight years. Here's how it works ... and sadly, it does add up to $20. For the labels to cry about file sharing is a sham. If anything, it's been helpful. They did the same thing with used CDs, but we found that many customers shop used to intrduce themselves to artists they might not otherwise buy, among other reasons. They then come back to buy other titles new. The same thing is happening with file sharing. Just don't get angry at independent retailers ... 1% net (ie. $0.16 to $0.19 profit after all expenses) from the sale of every CD is considered extremely profitable.

Yes, the cost of manufacturing the item is relatively low. But there are tons of other costs beyond simply burning the disc and putting it in a jewel case. I'm not saying the costs are all justifiable, but they are costs nonetheless. And remember, each hand in the pie has a cost associated with conducting its business.

• 
  Average cost of goods for a frontline CD: $13 (this is what the store pays the distributor ... the store's gross profit is derived from subtracting the cost of goods from their shelf price, so Best Buy sometimes loses money on some CDs. Oh, and get this ... every major label enforces a minimum advertised price at which the stores can sell the CD, thereby making the retailer look like the bad guy when it has to raise prices to make a decent profit. Don't forget, there's a cost of running a store, too, so it's monumentally harder for independent stores to compete with Best Buy and other big boxes. The big boxes can ignore the MAPs and charge whatever they want for CDs because they also sell VERY high profit TVs and appliances and electronics. Indy stores that sell used CDs do so to keep the prices for new CDs competitive with Best Butt et al. Mall rents, btw, are exorbitant. Hence the full list price at mall stores.).

• Artists share: $0.14 (yes, that's cents) to $2 per disc shipped (depends on the artist, but the bigger the artist the bigger the share -- assuming their deal wasn't front end, like Janet Jackson's and REMs. Even then, some of those deals are against future royalties and could have to pay back the difference once the contract expires.)

• Distributor's share: About $2 to $3 (and here's the kicker ... major label distributors are owned by the major labels!)

• Label Share: The rest ... and this is where expense comes in. About 1% of the industry is funding the other 99%. For every Celine Dion (a multi-million record selling artist) there are hundreds of artists signed to labels that never become profitable. Seems like a fucked up business model, but we consumers like variety. So, thanks to Celine Dion, every little band out there you like on a Sony Music Entertainment-affiliated label can get signed, record a CD (studio time and producers/engineers/mixers/musicians cost money, too), and have a marketing budget (covering everything from magazine/radio ads to tour support to maybe a video or two). The labels also provide field support reps who visit stores to build intertest with employees, radio support reps(same deal, but at radio), cover some promotional travel expenses for artists, and some of the tour expenses. And then there are the aforementioned manufacturing costs ... production, printing, packaging and so on. Also, many of these costs are charged back to the artist ... they are in the hole to the label BEFORE the CD ever hits the shelf.

 

[Warik]

I don't know about you, but if a record company thinks I'm going to pay $20 for a compilation of some Mozart masterpieces or for Beethovens 9th Symphony when the composers themselves have been dead for centuries and were never even that rich back then despite their phenomenal musical talent while the talentless pieces of overmarketed SHIT are millionaires, THEN IT IS SERIOUSLY MISTAKEN!

The last compact disc I ever purchased was Metallica's "Re-Load." If you've ever listened to Re-Load, you'll know why it was the last CD I ever purchased. Music sharing on the Internet WILL NEVER DIE. It simply cannot. Shut down one file-swapping service? Others will spawn in its place. They can't kill FTP. They can't kill IRC. It's not cost-effective to be going door to door to give everyone a file-sharing lecture. Fuck with the mp3 format? Another will take its place.

It takes less than a dollar to make a CD, yet they are sold for $15 and up when the artists themselves make less than a dollar per copy. Where does the rest of the money good? Greedy pockets.

This makes me wonder why no one opens up a record company that doesn't rape the consumer. Do they have any idea what kind of profit would be involved? Imagine that you're an aspiring artist and you are faced with two possible choices.

Choice #1: Go to big, fat record label. Make 10 cents off of each CD sale and talk shit about your fans when they download all of your music from Morpheus because it costs them $15 bucks to pay for your 99% shitty music.

Choice #2: Make $1 or $2 per copy with Mr. Joe Blow record label because Mr. Joe Blow is not there for the money - he's out there because he's pissed about getting ripped off for CDs when he was younger. Any CD that comes from Joe Blow Inc only costs the consumer $5.

It's sickening the way some dimwitted businesses operate. Thank God I don't buy CDs.

-Warik