What Price Music?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
> Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 11:17:44 +0200
> From: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow <geoff () beat net>
> Subject: What Price Music?
> To: Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber <dave () farber net>
>
> What Price Music?
> By AMY HARMON
> The New York Times
>
> Published: October 12, 2003
>
> Since the introduction of vinyl records after World War II, recorded music
> has assumed many shapes and sizes, each one coming with a higher price tag
> than the last. Eight-track tapes cost a dollar more than LP's when they rose
> to popularity in the late 1960's and cassettes commanded a premium over
> eight-tracks. When CD's debuted in the mid-1980's, record labels sold the
> shiny discs for $18, more than double the price of what they charged for the
> same music on LP's and cassettes that cost more to manufacture.
>
> Unlike these formats, which the industry adopted voluntarily and marketed
> vigorously, the latest shift— to digitized versions of songs that can be
> distributed online— have been thrust upon it, the outgrowth of a technology
> it could not control. Battered by a sales slump it attributes largely to
> digital piracy and heartened by a limited test with Apple computer owners,
> this fall the record industry is trying to catch up with its file-swapping
> customers: the major labels and many independents have agreed to deconstruct
> the album, allowing anyone with a computer to buy any of hundreds of
> thousands of individual songs. Soon huge catalogs of every genre of music
> will be available for sale on the Internet from over a dozen retailers,
> bearing the blessing and license agreements of the major record labels.
>
> No one knows what all the effects will be. But one will certainly be on
> price; music in the new format will cost at least a little less than it did
> in the old. The standard charge has become 99 cents a track. Albums that
> cost between $12 and $18 on CD now sell for about $10 online. The labels
> have also authorized several services to offer a kind of online lease
> program for music: subscribers pay a flat $10 a month to listen to as many
> as half a million tracks as often as they want over the Internet, rather
> than storing them on a computer or burning them to a CD.
>
> --snip--
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/12/arts/music/12HARM.html?pagewanted=all&posi
> tion=
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> geoff.goodfellow () iconia com * Prague - CZ * telephone +420 603 706 558
> "success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html
> http://blogging.cz

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