John C. Dvorak the well known columnist for PC Magazine has an editorial that says the true price of a CD should be $1.40. With CD prices hovering around $16 that is a revolutionary statement.
Now I'm not fan of the music industry. I think they missed the boat on dealing with Napster. I think they produce and promote a ton of absolute dreck. Of course producing and promoting dreck is nothing new. For every all time classic record like Sgt. Peppers there were probably dozens of blessedly forgotten nuggets of dreck. But I digress. As bad as the music industry is I think some of Dvorak's arguments are questionable to say the least.
Dvorak starts by quoting statistics that the RIAA has been trumpeting:
It's rampant. The new P2P systems, such as KaZaA and Morpheus, have picked up where Napster left off, and blank CDs now outsell prerecorded discs. The trend is clear: concern not for the law but for economics. This happens with disruptive technologies.
Dvorak makes the same mistake with this statistic as the RIAA does. He assumes that all of those CD blanks are being used for ripping music. No firm evidence exists on how many of those blanks are being used for music and how many contain software or backed up files. I'm sure Dvorak himself has a spindle of blanks sitting around and that he probably uses more of them for software than for music.
Dvorak next stresses that economics is driving music piracy:
Likewise, too many people are asking why they should buy a CD for $16 when they can copy one for 35 cents. We are a mercantile culture, and this is a pure cost/benefits analysis. It has nothing to do with laws. There are laws against public kissing in many cities, too. Who cares? It's about economics, plain and simple.
Well I can steal a Lexus for a lot less than I could buy one. It's economics, plain and simple.
Of course a copy of a $16 CD will not have a nice booklet or cover art but then again that never stopped all my college friends from making tape copies of everything (this was the 1980's mind you- no CD blanks then).
Another Dvorak argument is about the true cost of making a CD:
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
OK, fine. So instead of $1.40, call it $3. Fair enough.
2 - Stephen S. Power
Re "Dvorak makes the same mistake with this statistic as the RIAA does. He
assumes that all of those CD blanks are being used for ripping music."
Wasn't this same assumption made regarding blank tapes and, as a result, don't blank tape makers kick over a royalty to the music industry?
3 - Chris Daley
Yep- I think blank tapes have that royalty attached. The problem with the CD blanks is that they are dual use. So you have the "music" CD-R's that have the royalty and the "computer" CD-R's that don't. Of course you can record music on the "computer" CD-R's just fine.
I guess the flip side of that is that you used to be able to use blank tapes to record computer programs as well. I actually had some games that came that way and with an adapter they would play on Atari game consoles.
4 - Tiffany
As a recipient of royalty checks due to the sales and play of CDs I think a lot is missing from this equation. Yes, like stated before, the cost given here is just for the medium but what about others involved in the creation? What about the songwriters who only get up to $0.08 on the dollar for each CD sold? What about the musicians, co-writers, engineers, etc? It's not the medium that is being ripped off it is the work of the "creative geniuses." The intellectual property ON the media that is being stolen. $1.40? HA!! That would cover the cost of the CD itself, pay the songwriter (if there is only one), possibly the artist BUT what about the label, publishers, people who write the liner notes, the artists who create the sleeves, studio mixers, etc? They HAVE to make a profit to keep puting out music. Then what about the retail stores that are selling them? Should they only make $0.05 or so on the sale of a CD? Get Real!!