kyler13
Is your fiber grounded?
join:2006-12-12
Arnold, MD
1 edit | Sounds like a good blueprint from the RIAA
I'm gonna go ahead and sue the RIAA for $1 million for overcharging me on CD sales for the last 10 years. Sure it was less than a 100 CDs, but had I invested those few bucks in 1999 prior to the internet stock boom, sold in 2000, shorted after 9/11, reinvested prior to the housing boom, shorted again a year ago, and then reinvested right now, I'd probably would have had $1 million....and another $3 million on the horizon. Make that lawsuit $4 million. We can settle out of court for $2.5 million since the possibility exists I could have made a few errant trades. |
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itsbry
join:2001-02-22
Fernandina Beach, FL | Right on.
We're gonna need to take out a loan to pay the retainer... |
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Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY
 ·Qwest.net
| reply to kyler13
The thing I have always felt was illegal was the fact the minions of the RIAA act as judge, Jury, and executioner. The only difference between the RIAA and East African Pirates is their methods.
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I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption |
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Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
 ·Comcast
·Embarq
| reply to kyler13
 I agree with kyler13 on this issue, but consumers have been screwed for 25 years not 10 years. I spoke to a representative from Philips in 1979 at a HI-FI Show in Atlanta. Philips displayed a prototype Compact Disc Player. I asked specifically how much a Compact Disc would cost, the representative stated it was the objective of the record labels to set a maximum MSRP of $12.98 for premium priced CD's.
When the CD was introduced in 1983, it seems that there was such a demand for them, that even though the record labels had set a maximum price of $12.98 for premium Compact Discs like Telarc products, the record stores marked them up to from $16.95 to $18.95. What you might not be aware of, is that around 1984 the recording artists sued the record labels for insufficient compensation for their work. The artists prevailed and the music industry raised the list price of Compact Discs to $16.95. Music is one of the few products where the consumer was screwed by the music industry distribution network and paid more than list price for their products. |
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kirbyj2
join:2008-02-21
Fort Dodge, IA
| Don't forget inflation. Using two separate inflation calculators (see links below), $12.98 in 1979 is $17.81 in 1983. So retailers were well within the original MSRP.
The same $12.98 in 1979 would be $37.07 in 2007 dollars according to the first site, and $36.62 in 2007 dollars according to the second site. The second site doesn't adjust to 2008 so I went with 2007.
The $16.95 MSRP in 1984 is $33.83 and $33.42 for sites 1 and 2 respectively.
I'm only guessing at the actual 2007 cost of a CD being $15-$25; I haven't bought a CD since 1995. So it looks like a relative bargain.
Of course this is assuming your MSRP figures are accurate. I'm not disputing them by the way; for all I know you could have been the one to set them! This doesn't take into consideration the decreased cost of pressing a CD either, which has to be extremely cheap today compared to 1979. Nor does it factor in that I think music is way overpriced to begin with. Especially the shit record companies try to pass off as music these days.
Oh, almost forgot the inflation calculators:
1) »data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
2) »www.westegg.com/inflation/
I don't know how accurate either of these are, just found them on Google. |
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Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
·Comcast
·Embarq
|  The $12.98 figure that I used is the maximum list price for Compact Discs shown in the Schawan Record Catalog in 1983. It is also the MSRP for Compact Discs in the Record Labels own catalogs. The objective of the record companies was to offer compact discs at the same price as digitally mastered Vinyl Records. The Philips representative that I spoke with indicated that Philips believed that the cost for a compact disc would be higher than a vinyl record when CD's were first put into production, because of low yield. Philips projected that the cost for a CD would be a fraction of the cost for a vinyl record in less than five years. Remember Vinyl is made from petroleum. Thanks for the links to the inflation calculators. |
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