Joseph wrote:
> Perhaps if the recording companies weren't so greedy charging $18 for
> a disc of music and perhaps if the recording companies shared a bigger
> portion of profits from CDs people would see it differently.
Well then, what would be an appropriate royalty for musicians and
price for CDs? Well-known recording artists seem to be living quite
well. Stuff by the Beatles done 40 years ago is still selling new at
full price. ['course then there's people like me who buy that stuff
used for 50c at yard sales.]
Actually, in thinking about it, the price of album when I was a kid is
lower today considering inflation. (The cost of a 'single', if you
can even find one, is much more.)
While I can't help but suspect CD prices should be lower, in fairness
to the record companies, they have their unseen costs as well. They
go to plenty of expense to select new talent and market and distribute
it. Often times a CD doesn't sell and that expense is wasted. They
also have to deal with tempermental artists, fickle consumer tastes,
normal distribution channel issues, investors, and basic business
issues.
There's a hopeful singer Analise van der Pol. She did a pop song
"Over It" that got repeated play, but she was not signed for a record
deal. I think she's very talented, but the mass market obviously
didn't think so. So it goes.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not only are the Beatles still doing
okay on their work from forty years ago, but lots of the very old
classical music stuff -- from the 78 rpm era and the very early 33 rpm
era is now getting re-issued on CD and selling pretty well. I had some
ancient 78 rpm and 33 rpm 'long playing' records of Virgil Fox which
were lost in the tragic fire Bill Pfieffer endured in the mid
1990's. I just assumed I would never see them again. They dated back
to the early 1950's and late 1940's, when LP records were very heavy
in the old fashioned cardboard sleeves. Well, you can imagine my
surprise when I received a very small box of CDs the other day
including all those ancient recordings now on Compact Disk, re-issued,
including a newer DVD-style disk which had a bunch of other old things
of Fox on it, including a thirty minute 'Quick Time' movie file of Fox
from his 1964 visit to the Wanamaker store in Philadelphia and one of
his performances there. Lisa H, you said you have visited Lord and
Taylor in recent years. Would you like a copy of that DVD of Fox from
when it was Wanamaker's? PAT]
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com