Re: Re: OT: CD Prices at CD WOW

["Mark Harrison \(Yahoo!\)" <mph@xxxxxxx>]

> I still can't see how cdwow was held to ransom. If an artist releases
> internationally, why can't we buy from abroad? The record company
> still gets their money. What is their problem with people legitimately
> buying their music?


OK, what follows is an explanation of the rationale. I'm NOT trying to
defend it (I think it's an anachronism), only to explain.... (I'll actually
say WHY it's an anachronism at the end, though :-) )


The fundamental premise of copyright law is that the producer of an
original
work (song, movie, book, painting) has the right to determine how and where
it is released.

By purchasing (licencing) a single copy of the work, the consumer receives
only the rights that the artist is prepared to give over.

For commercial artists, they face a number of decisions. What is their
motivation? Is it to make money, or to spread the benefits of something.
For
example, I've written a fair bit of software over the years. Some of this
is
available to anyone who asks, free of charge, because I want them to use
it.
Some of it is only available at frighteningly high per-seat licence costs.

In choosing which model to follow, I have to weigh up the options open to
me. For something like music, the question is one of distribution rights:

The first company I ever founded, Dervorguilla ltd., [Note 1] back in 1992,
was a small independant classical label (long since shut down - I found I
liked IT a lot more :-) )

One of the CDs I'd recorded (The Golden Age Restor'd - lute music of John
and Robert Johnson, played by Linda Sayce) was offered a distribution deal
in Canada. In order to get the best profit, both for ourselves and Linda,
we
were offered a deal whereby the Canadian distributor offered us a higher
price per unit in exchange for "sole distribution rights." That
is to say
that we would not sell to anyone else in Canada AND place restrictions on
the sales to other distributors that THEY couldn't sell to Canada....

Now in the case of specialist music, this has a valuable purpose. There are
about 1000 members of UKHA_D. I would be surprised if more than 2 of them
have actually ever purchased a CD of lute music. You can safely assume that
Linda Sayce is NOT rolling in gobs of cash because of the valuable
royalties
>from

In the case of mass-produced commercial pulp, the same rules apply. The
artist enters into a commercial agreement with a  record company. The
record
company attempts to secure the maximum revenue for them and the artist, and
attempts to put in place mechanisms to do this.

The various multi-nationals who control 90% of commercial music have
(rightly) determined that they will maximise their revenue by selling at a
higher price in Market A, than in Market B. This is NOT obvious... the
trade-off is how many MORE sales they'd get if they dropped the price in
Market A... In order to maximise this revenue, they have to enforce
separation of markets... but there are international legal mechanisms
enshrining their right to do so.

Now... why do I think this is an anachronism?

It's NOT about "consumer rights". There is nothing sacred about
your
so-called RIGHT to receive a copy of my music, or read my book. There is
nothing sacred about your so-called RIGHT to get hold of copies of these at
the same price as anyone else. The whole principle of western society is
built on different people selling the same thing for different prices...
for
example, Screwfix sell screws. They don't make them, they buy them in, mark
them up, and sell them on.

The reason I think that it's an anachronism is that fundamentally, there IS
a difference between screws and music tracks. The difference is in the
costs
of distribution. Shipping one hundred screws from a factory in China to a
home in Sussex isn't cost-effective. Shipping one hundred thousand screws
>from
small batches at shipping out a hundred to a house in Sussex IS
cost-effective.

This isn't the case with music. When I buy a CD, I typically make a digital
copy in some appropriate format onto my server. The CD itself is NOT what
I'm after. The CD is the PACKAGING MATERIAL, not the content. The content,
which is what I actually want, would be far better shipped to me digitally
down my broadband connection.

Now, the way the Internet's set up, there isn't a material difference in
cost between downloading a file from a server in California straight to my
house, or downloading it to a server in Hayes, and THEN onto my house. In
fact, depending on which ISP I use, and how they interconnect, it may
actually be MORE efficient to download (ship) direct from California.

Without the "friction" caused by shipping physical product, there
isn't a
need for massive distribution channels. Record distributors have no
so-called RIGHT to exist. They will only continue to exist if they add
value, and do something that means the customer is prepared to pay a higher
price for receiving from them... it's no longer clear what that added value
is....

To put things in perspective, the ONLY place in which the record companies
are doing well is the courts. They aren't doing well commercially. They
aren't doing well from a public-relations standpoint (with a few small
exceptions, who have genuinely managed to do something interesting...) They
are fighting a dying struggle and using every resource at their disposal to
do this. The forces arrayed against them are legion - hardware
manufacturers
would love to release more products based around digital formats. Consumers
fundamentally don't like paying a higher price for off-the-shelf,
mass-produced, music as they would pay for specialist stuff where they
respect the fact that a lot more time / customer has gone into the
production.

Regards,

Mark


[Note 1] If you can guess WHY I might have called it that, then you are
probably correct...and the answer to the obvious question is "Yes, I
was".
Contact me offlist. If you can't guess why I might have called it that,
then
don't worry - you're missing something too obscure even for this lst :-)


UK Home Automation Meet 2004 - BOOK NOW!
http://www.ukha2004.com

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
Post message: ukha_d@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:  ukha_d-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:  ukha_d-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner:  ukha_d-owner@yahoogroups.com