Everyone loves to attack big business. I'm not a big business attacker, for the record. (An unintended pun, btw.) I have noticed something peculiar with the music industry.
Sure, there's movie pirating. And software pirating. But both are so relatively affordable (depending on the program and purpose I suppose.) We can buy our favorite movie at Walmart for five dollars. What savings! And I even got a swell movie at Circuit City for three dollars -- a brand new "Charade" with Audrey Hepburn. Nifty.
It was only a matter of time before someone started offering affordable music. Albeit, "affordable" can't mean free, as Napster proved the first time around. But a buck a song is grand. And just about right. But what is this 20.00 for a CD of 10 to 12 songs on it? I live in a part of the country that enjoys one of the lowest costs of living in the entire US, I'm thankful to say. And I know my way around the internet. I don' t pay that much for cds. I also have a great used cd store I adore. However, the outrageously priced cd is out there. And you're buying it.
I had the fantastic opportunity to interview an Austin musician named Jack Ingram. (www.jackingram.net). He is such an amazing guy, with a degree in psychology and the whole works. We spoke a little about the music industry. He told me that as a fan, he wished all music could be cheap as dirt, but as an artist, a cd priced at five hundred dollars would appeal to him greatly. And there you have the dilemma. But he loves the revolution began by napster. He thinks a buck a song is fair. So he priced all his albums accordingly. After a long disertation on why the industry is now stuck with all this pirating and how they deserve it for gouging fans for so long, I began to really appreciate his point of view. He said, "The movie industry figured it out. I'm not buying a vhs tape or a dvd if it costs me too much. Why do I want to buy an over-priced cd?"
Lately I've noticed a drop in some cd prices at some stores. Has anyone else seen a similar trend where s/he lives?