Music Prices Going Up?

[LethalWolfe]

Then this is just another example of labels pressuring artists into signing away all their rights.

The labels get paid for every play on the radio. That's a huge part of what ASCAP does - collect royalties from radio stations (and Muzak, and dance clubs, and any other public performance of the recording) for distribution to the copyright holders.

Radio play is a revenue stream, whether the artists get a cut or not.

The basic ASCAP/BMI licensing fees are, relaitvey speaking, not very much at all (unless you are a big name band). And most places pay blanket fees (i.e. pay an annual flat fee and not a per use fee). There are different types of licensing each w/their own set of stipulations, but that is a whole other ball of wax. Yes if you are a big name band and your song is used in a movie, big commerical, or TV show you can get a nice chunk of change. But that is a huge, huge exception from the norm. And that is the reason I never brought it up. I was trying to keep the discussion centered around "the average" band and "the average" movie.


Lethal

 

[LethalWolfe]

Anyway, it's safe to say you and I "agree to disagree"

I agree.


Lethal

 

[johngordon]

Are American artists songs costing you the same as artists from the UK? Very curious why that would be. Again, with the internet, there really seems to be no reason I can think of why it should cost you more.

yeah - pretty much. the two main record stores here are virgin and hmv who are basically an oligopoly and charge generally £13-14 for a typical album, but some are as much as £16-17 which is just ridiculous. they quite often do things like 2 for £20 or similar, or sell off older stuff cheaper.

you do get smaller independent stores charging £10-£11 - basically there's really no need for cds to cost more than £10. dvds have been mentioned - it does seem ridiculous that an hour of music on a cd can cost the same as a full movie, plus all the extras - whatever the reasons, costs involved, at the end of the day the consumer just sees a totally out of kilter value for money ratio.

the other thing they've done here is come up with a new kind of cd single which is only allowed to have 2 tracks on it, but can't be sold for more than £1.99. previously cd singles were £3.99 ($6.50ish?) - so if you only want the one track it was pretty expensive -which is probably why singles sales here are so low its hard to imagine them surviving much longer, and why i-tunes is so great where you can pick up that single track for 99c - even 99p seems pretty reasonable.

another thing which happened recently was that online mail order companies were selling cds for £8-9 including shipping, and the record co's got their knickers in a twist because they were shipping from HK - so these companies have had to add on a £2 surcharge now.

Iain