Get real
Here is some of the falsehoods and just plain idiocy that is coming from this thread. These are direct quotes from the forum:
"They're a greedy bunch aren't they... "
Yes, they are. And so is Coca-Cola, McDonald's Corp, Ford, GM, the New York Yankees, Microsoft, and, yes, even Apple. Don't you realize it is the first and foremost function of almost every single company that exists to be as profitable and as efficient as possible? Of course, they want to protect their product, of course, they want to maximize their profits, of course, they want to sell their product for as high as price as the market will allow.
"I mean seriously, how can they justify controlling every use of the music when the industry busts its ass to get their music played on the radio and MTV FOR FREE...for that matter, why haven;t they made music broadcasts (TV and Radio)unrecordable?"
The same way every other company justifies trying to control their product. Guys, do you remember Apple licensing their product to third party vendors? Do you remember how they pulled the plug on the clone experiment? Isn't that controlling their product. Also, the music that is played on the radio is free to YOU, but not the radio station. They pay royalties through agencies such as ASCAP and BMI. Oh, and the last I checked, MTV is not a free channel. And another thing, according to the Supreme Court, you have every right to copy audio and video transmissions (i.e. tape a movie off of HBO), as long as your sole purpose is for personal viewing. Record away! (Just don't distribute).
"I actually want them to do it because it will kill them
sales will plumet and they'll be forced to do the same as with BMG's Imbruglia fiasco, repress and replace cd's.
they are finally paying the price for overcharging music"
Supply and demand. If you think a product is overpriced, DON'T BUY IT. You do not have an inalienable right to be able to by Britney Spears music for $3.00. At least I'm pretty sure our forefathers didn't put it into the Constitution (posted with respect to residents of other countries, but I'm guessing it's not in your Constitution, either).
"It just takes a little math knowledge to see how easy this problem is to solve for the major labels. Just let the music free and sell all CD to and affordable price.
F. ex you have to bay about 20 bucks for a pop CD in sweden. Lets say 1 out of 10 will actually buy the CD at this price, and 9 will download it instead.
If the CD would have been 5 bucks, I'm pretty sure they'd have sold more than 4 out of 10, easily."
Except you are forgetting the cost of distribution. Imagine it costs $4 to distribute the CD, then you've gone from a profit of $5 down to a profit of $1. Then you need to sell five times as many CD's to make up for the reduction in price, which of course means there is five times the risk of items being left on the shelf, and five times the losses if the album is a bust. It's the same reason a tie costs as much as a shirt, even though it uses 1/10th of the material.
"Everyone knows that the advent of MP3s (and MP3 swapping) increased sales of audio CDs, and had the big guys only recognized this fact, we might just be looking at a fairer market today"
I would like to know where those facts come from. How is that possibly quantifiable? Are we saying that we're smarter than the people that have been running multi-million dollar companies for years?
"Don't boycott the universal sales; buy copies of each disc they release with the copy protection enabled, and return them immediately. The retailers are so nervous about this, that Universal is backing a full return policy for consumers for these cds at the outset. Dealing with a return costs several times as much as not selling a disc, so this is a much more focused way to express yourself."
Just don't buy the CD's in the first place if you don't want them. You'll waste gas, or your time, and cost yourself as much as you are costing UMG. The retailers will get hurt the most, and they are truly the innocent bystanders in this. Besides, the retailers may very well have shrink wrap machines and have authority to repackage the CD's and put them back on the shelf. In this case, the only "hurt" that will be put on UMG is if the product doesn't ultimately get sold to someone else. Again, just don't buy the product if you don't want it.
"those stupid little bastards"
Oh yeah, that'll get 'em. Good point.
"I say we hang him.....them we kill him!!!
Although he is a genius, he sucks....period. I just have the feeling that he's trying to do as much as he can to have Microsoft monopolize the entire industry, and this is just another road he's taking since their last court battle."
The above is in reference to Bill Gates. I am the first to extol the fact that Bill Gates is the anti-christ, however, he has nothing to do with this. As reported by an intelligent poster, the problem revolves around Apple computers treating the audio CD as a data CD. As an aside to this note, for those of you that think the quality of the music is going to be degraded, and that is your argument - THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THE MP3 FORMAT DOES. It is a compression scheme, it removes some of the information from the disk.
"After all, most bands make way more money off a T-shirt or poster than off of their CD's."
Huh? Most bands? Prove THAT one to me. (Personally, I have over 400 CD's, funny, not a single shirt, poster, mug, tote bag...) And it doesn't matter anyway, because we're not talking about the musician's making money, we're talking about the record companies making money.
"I'll give Universal 2 months after implimentation to realise they did bad"
OK, group, this is for everyone. Any argument made in writing loses 90% of its power when it is expressed with porr spilling and not good grammer. It maks us luk stoopid. It's tough to be poignant without a command of the language. Proofread, spellcheck, whatever. (Bad spellers of the world, untie!)
A couple of final notes. I think people assume that all of the bands, if they are good, make money, at least to some degree. Please read the following: "According to SoundScan (an organization that tracks retail sales of records in stores by their bar codes), 288,591 albums were released during 2000. Fewer than 100 of these albums sold more than 1 million units (platinum); and just over 100 albums sold between 500,000 and 999,000 units (gold). On the other end of the scale, 246,000 albums sold less than 1000 units."
That means that less than 15% of all albums sell more that 1000 copies. I have read in the past (can't verify today's numbers) that around 5% of albums actually make money for the big record labels, but they make so much that they cover all of the losses of the lesser bands. So when we figure that ripping off the latest N'Sync won't be felt in their pocket, well, you're probably right, but there will be some guy who works his ass off making some really inspiring, hip tunes that you'll never get the chance to hear, because the big companies can't afford to take a risk on some unknown because the stakes are too high.
I hope that we as a race start to hold intellectual property with the same reverence we hold material property, and if we simply refuse to make illegal copies, UMG and others will stop trying to encrypt their products. When that happens, all of the cultures of the world will be richly rewarded with an onslaught of new art and artists. Please don't read this as meaning I am against MP3 or copying of the CD's for personal use, I just think that us consumers as a whole have put ourselves in this position.
isregarding MAC users. Obviously, this boycott needs support from Steve jobs. He needs to talk to his industry bitches to make some changes.....
