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In my opniion, the music industry, (the one that exploits artists and sucks them dry for profit, while ignoring hordes of unprofitable, creative talent) created its own problems and is trying to make everyone else pay, and pay, and pay for their greedy blunders.
Back in the day, and just before the manufactured "oil crisis" became a good excuse to raise the price of vinyl, you could go to the record store and get a good month's supply of albums. There was no "downloading" but that was alright, because the average Joe could build a collection so large, over a short period of time, that your major financial concern was what to buy or build to put them all in. Yes, I am talking hundreds of albums.
Then came CD's. They are not analog and therefore there is certainly the issue of listener fatigue, (because of technical considerations vs. price back then). After all, what you hear is a bunch of broken, digital pieces, rather than a smooth, connected piece. Compact Discs came into the market at a dear cost. The high price brought with it several benefits and was justified, early on, not by the cost of the plastic and foil they were created with, but the tooling up and expense of the industry that produced them. Most of us might agree with that justification and let the "early adopters" with lots of disposable buckolas foot the bill and grease the wheels.
The benefits of CD's were somewhat good and beguiling. No snap, crackle, and pops that vinyl would reveal in a direct and inverse proportion to the price tag of your turntable and cartridge. It was far easier to scratch a 33 and a 1/3rd in various ways than a CD, and a CD was far more forgiving of most minor scratches. No problems with dust or wear from too many plays. Of course, many of us realized that CD's should have come in a floppy-like cartridge and they would have been rather invincible, but then it seems that invincible means you would be less likely to buy a replacement for your favorites if they were damaged. Even if that cartridge had started out a bit bulky and streamlined, it would have made a world of difference. And if the sample rate had been right, listener fatigue would not have been much of an issue at all. But I digress ...
The cost of a new release CD is far too high in relation to average wages for people to choose that route. The initial tool-up price did not go down over time -- it just stayed pretty much the same and lay in waiting as more and more people bought into them, even though real wages have never even come close to catching-up. So, in very unrealistic attempt to corner their market with cheap, easy to reproduce, plastic and foil disks, in a World where wages go stagnant and disposable income gets to be more and more of a luxury for more and more people, they are losing their bet. Even the attempts to bring those cheap little plastic, music clones to ten bucks from certain, brave and innovative publishers, was far too late and still over-priced, (keeping in mind that the artist only sees a buck per disc or so). CD's are way over-priced and nobody seemed to notice why or how the greedy fuckers who formed the RIAA where still on a feeding frenzy based on the popularity and cult status of recorded music-at-large in Western culture. The price should have gradually gone down, (free market my ass!) over time so that buying a bunch of CD's was not a major investment and the record-buying publicoid could be happy, entertained, while still being able to eat and pay rent.
And so, much profit was made, and lo, they were made rich and fat. But alas, it was not to be for more than a time and a time-and-a-half. Keep in mind that back in the day, the early VHS movies you could buy could cost you $100 bucks or so. What does a movie on DVD cost today? Do you see the discrepancy and deception here?
Now, add to that the fact that the list of bills and purchases has trebled since the early 70's to the point that anybody who is not wealthy or upper-middle-class has to pick and choose their media opiates, (from Satellite TV to cell phones, to Satellite radio, to Internet service, etc.) there is of course, a diminished amount of money that can be spent. And of course, the propaganda of the music industry, (as they turn music more and more into a mush of freeze-dried cornflake MickyD's, molded, mass-marketed crap) is that the fault lies solely with -- isn't this amazing -- their very customers -- the ones who payed out their neither regions to get the CD's in the first place, always waiting for that expected price drop after the fact. The price drop never came, and now we see a bunch of white-collar criminals crying in their cocaine and breaking out their Ginsu Knife lawyers to attack and belittle their clientèle. Why not treat your host like a bunch of opium addicts and break their legs if they don't pay up when the tend to act like said?
Well, the Net brought a new way to get music and the addicts found some methadone. The RIAA, being the ultimate totem for corporate Fascism in the music sector, didn't like the compeitition -- considering it had set itself in the cement of its past victories and, like the spoiled, fat brat it had become, would accept nothing but the total subjugation of its music-addicted devotees.
The cult of music has come full-circle! The masters of the game are calling the shots and doing their best to intimidate, harass, destroy, and demand from those who still pay homage to the suits behind the making of an artificial hit and talent. Yet, there is an apocalypse at hand. Just like the days when our Forefathers understood that copyright was merely an incentive for an author to profit for a time from a work, but not into perpetuity and without concern for the public domain, the balance has come in a strange and yet empowering way. File sharing, trading, and the various ways that digital copies have forged have done wonders for the common person.
There are far more benefits to music and the culture to be had from the dissemination of the so-called copyrighted works, (in other words, signed over to the record labels by the real creators in hopes of ever making it) than can ever be justified by the people who own and run the industry and are the first and foremost to profit from it. IF they had their way, all musical creativity would be locked in their lustful grasp for ever and ever, amen.
Thankfully, the people who share and are no longer buying-into the artificially high prices of CD's have managed, bravely and with gusto, to balance this unjust equation, and they will continue to do so with the power of numbers, despite the delusions of the industry that lays claim to the creativity and those who truly produce it.
If they lowered the prices of CD's to a realistic level, then there would be an increase in sales and it might just be more affordable and convenient to get the original with the case and graphics. But that does not seem to be a viable option, and, as they oppose the digital replication that has been like a comet descending on the dinosaurs, they turn music into a capitalistic nightmare with every lumbering step they take, closer to the tar pits in which they are likely to end up.
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