Hilary Rosen, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the interests of recording companies, cautioned that lowering the price of CD's would not solve the industry's problems and that it would serve only to reduce revenue even further. The problems need to be tackled in other ways, she said, by communicating better with music buyers.
No, no, says Hilary, soundtracks SHOULD cost more than the DVD from which they are derived, which has the entire movie in surround sound, bonus material, and will shine your shoes; people should always pay more for less when it comes to music, it just has to be EXPLAINED to them.
This is, of course, idiocy. File-swapping and the rise of DVDs have combined to expose the outrageous rip that are retail CD prices - people will buy more if they think they are getting a good deal: paying more for the soundtrack than the DVD is not what the consumer considers a good deal. Cut the retail price in half and we'll talk.
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
I had two thoughts in reading this article.
1) the majors business model isn't based on selling music to retailers, it is based on selling audio carriers (shiny happy plastic discs) to retailers. And accounting fraud.
2) most people don't seem to realize that the people who head trade organizations do so because they are failures at the business itself, but are successful at getting and holding a phoney-baloney job.
2 - Mark Saleski
what really drives me crazy about most articles related to cd sales is that they almost never mention the fact that we've been in a recession during the same time period....as if somehow the two things are not related.