Comments on: ‘Pirates’ and files sharers

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 01:09:00 +0000

I think, probably like most of you, that the music industry should adjust their CD prices. It’s right to say most CD will cost you around 15$ but from my own experience when I’m trying to get some unknown artist, CD prices usually go up to 25$ an album…which is a total rip off considering the percentage of that amount the artist is getting. I’d say if prices would be around 5-8$ an album and that big CD store would have more than U2 or Jessica Simpson’s album I’d buy cd’s more often. But it seems those stores are not ready to do that move anytime soon. Once again p2p help people to get music they never heard of, which most of the time is way better than most cd’s you’ll find at your HMV store. By cutting prices and getting more music available in store, more people would buy it more often, so that would cover the the losses from dropping prices. Plus, buyers will end up with a better quality product that when downloading mp3’s (that’s what they say though)….

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 05:08:26 +0000

holy crap! relax already.

where i live – and in many other european countries – it’s been policy at all CD shops for decades to allow any person to listen to any (and as many) CDs as they wish, whether or not they intend to buy them.

no one is forced to listen to them, and no one is forced to first pay for them.

it should be a standard policy also in america, but i guess it isn’t.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 03:11:19 +0000

It has always been a sticking point with me that the cartel’s won’t give customers the simple ability of most other businesses of allowing refunds to customers for whatever reason they are unhappy with the product. Almost any reputable business will offer no-strings-attached refunds for customers unsatisfied with a purchase on the thought that a a happy customer will be a repeat customer through good will.

There is no such for dealing with media, music, or software. You open it, even if it is defective, you don’t get your money back.

Those cds don’t have the offical cd logo on them for a reason. They don’t meet the interchangability standards that are required to be a real cd. It was one of the purposes of having the logo on the case. It was the assurance that if you purchased that product, it would play at home, in your car, or in your portable player, without exception. That flies in the face of what the cartels wish to do, which is lock up the music. I am not going to buy a new player everytime the cartels think they have the latest snake oil cure to anticopy. One could go through several players a year doing that with no ability to ever collect a workable library of works for ones enjoyment, defeating one of the very reasons folks would pay to own.

Rather than a refund (which the cartels would choose over allowing file sharing) I want the ability to sample at will. Currently there is nowhere one can do that with any reasonable expectation. I want to hear it on MY STEREO, not the showroom floor that has entirely different acoustic sound setups and most probably will not be setup with the optimal sound listening as the primary goal.

Two of the members of the cartel have already been found guilty of still participating in payolla. The other two are still under investigation. The effect of payolla has been to make the radio landscape a vast wasteland for hearing new music with any frequency. Certainly, you aren’t going to hear indies. They got off far too lightly in their fines and it should have been that the results would have allowed indies into access to broadcast so that the listeners would have a way to hear and be exposed to new music. As it is now, p2p serves that purpose. You can hear of artists you never knew existed, you hear blends that are not the common hit maker themes and much of it is quite appealing to the ear.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 02:51:44 +0000

I said “can”, that gives the person who is not quite sure which cd they want can be sure. I am not for tying customers to chairs and making them listen to a whole cd before purchase. If you know what you want go for it.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 00:45:06 +0000

Well I think it was more so along the lines of being able to sample anything (or everything) on a CD before deciding to purchase it, and not just selected tracks.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 00:28:50 +0000

“I feel that any cd that is for sell should be where a person can listen to the whole thing before the purchase. ”

I should have to sit in a store for 45 minutes to listen to the cd before I decide to purchase it? What if I am purchasing several cd’s? I should expect to spend 1 hr/cd I want to purchase?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 00:18:15 +0000

I feel that any cd that is for sell should be where a person can listen to the whole thing before the purchase. Then the ony reason for a return would be the cd is defective and should ony be replaced. Along these lines the cd’s must be made playable on computers and cd players as well.