August 30, 2006 by A.S. Van Dorston

Regarding the reported 20% drop in CD sales, it’s really hard to discuss this stuff when everyone takes for granted the data presented by the RIAA . They distort their data and often just lie, and they get away with it because hack journalists take their spoonfeedings without any fact checking.

Here’s a couple articles that investigate this problem:

Nielsen Rating System At Odds With RIAA ’s Claim Of “Lost Sales”
RIAA says sales are down. Soundscan says “Wha..?” Who should you believe?

RIAA an undemocratic, unelected, overpowerful regime

Regarding the future of digital music, I still buy a lot of CDs. I will never pay a dime for downloaded music until the following things happen:

1) The industry agrees upon a new standard codec. Right now the most universally supported codecs in hardware are MP3 and WMA . MP3 is over 15 years old, and is not very good. WMA is better, but there’s many good reasons not to want to rely on a Microsoft codec. Apple’s MP4 AAC and lossless codecs are decent, but only for iPod and iTunes users (I’m not one of them. There are so many better values out there—check out anythingbutipod.com). Plus, I’m not down with Apple’s DRM (my files should not disappear!). Were I to pay money to download an album, it would have to be available in a usable lossless codec along with uncompressed .wav files. Why pay unless I can get a pristine, master copy?

2) It would have to be a reasonable price. I would not pay more than $5 for an album, and no more than 50 cents for a song, because it’s cutting out manufacturing, printing, distributing and retail costs. After 20 years of being raped over inflated CD prices, consumers should benefit from those savings, not label executives. If I bought directly from an artist or their indie label, I might be willing to pay an extra dollar or so, knowing they’ll actually see the money.

3) They need to make up for the fact that you’re not getting anything to store the music on. Meaning, not just being cheaper than CDs, but offering extra value. Each downloaded album costs the consumer extra money for hard drive space and backups. So what about the art, lyrics and liner notes? A password/key should be provided to access all that online, so we don’t have to store that crap ourselves.

4) I’m tired of paying for the same album more than once. Once I buy an album, I should have the right to acquire new versions at a very low cost. For example, I bought Are You Experienced three times, because it was remastered at least twice. I should have been able to download the new version free by providing the UPC code of the original one I bought. And if I wanted the new disc and liner notes, I should pay only a dollar or two for the materials. If it’s a deluxe reissue with more extras, I’d pay maybe $5. But not $18, not $25, not $32.

Posted in: Rants