Cheaper CDs

Nice, but what's going to get cheaper is 99% major label hogwash.

i'll buy more cds when more music stops sucking. there are people over age 18 that want to hear new music that not all whining or talkin vulgar but sex and stuff. whys noone mainstream to that market?

What I worry about is that you will only be able to download temporary music files that can only be played a certain number of times before you have to pay for them again.

Okay, here's my take:

I'm glad to see that CD prices will drop, it's at least a start, but until the industry cuts the "seek and destroy" mentality on the public's pocketbook for questions of "ethics" and "sainthood", I'm not going to invest in "ANY" CD's 'til it stops. If I do buy anything at this juncture; it'll be a cheaper "like new" USED CD for $7.99 that has already seen it's $ go to the RIAA labels, and thereby support some small mom and pop shop that could use the extra $ to stay alive. I suggest "EVERYONE" does the same, as the labels need to learn the lesson more than the people. There's tons of great deals at these small stores, and they actually won't bend you over the counter and holler "THIEF" for pulling the CD out and playing it for you, dare you ask to let them publically play it through *gasp* airwaves inside a public place, and dare I hear the entire product before purchase; rather than rely on radio to play the 2 "decent" songs and leave us with 8 songs that the wannabe tenor at the local Karaoke bar can beat on talent after a 1/5th of Goldschlager.

I for one do agree with what Robert has said. If the industry wants us to buy CD's for x amount of $'s, then give me a "CD's worth" of good music, and don't engulf us in crap that none of us are "STUPID" enough to buy. The minute the industry could take artists like Dave Matthews and Metallica and the like and homogenize them into crap with moronic lyrics and cheesy riffs compared to previous talented efforts is the minute that the "power" of the RIAA goes to show that you can't please everybody with one band, but you can please everybody with a ton of niche bands that remain "TRUE" to their roots.

Just please (labels), for Christ's sakes, expand your horizon's and don't rape and pillage the truly creative artists/bands for a few extra $'s worth of sales. PLEEEEEASE!! Otherwise, you "WILL" lose sales. Mark my words.

Part of why I even downloaded in the first place was because 1) I'd never be able to buy all of that which I heard anyways (which didn't cut into their sales, and actually helped them by making me aware of artists I'd otherwise "NEVER" have heard of), and 2) if I liked the roster of tracks enough in entirety... I'd buy the "ENTIRE" CD, much as my dad and I have well over 300 CD's a piece. Start cutting down on my usability and ability to discern crap from quality; and I won't buy it at all. If I have to flick through multiple tracks on a CD that 1) has only 1 good song, and 2) is a subscription hunk of crap that expires after x # of uses screw it altogether. I'll just quit buying CD's and end up doing "EXACTLY" what the RIAA is worried about, and that is *gasp* contribute to a loss of sales.

To me, downloading an MP3 is like recording off of the radio (something I've not seen anyone in modern times get lynched for) onto a cassette, reel-to-reel, etc. etc. only in a more "modern" form. It's still lossy, it's less perfect than the original, and dare I say mention this; you can output a XM or Sirius feed via the mic port or an audio out (RCA) into many consumer desktop PC's, and with a 250 gig drive or 2 or 3, record a few hours of audio uncompressed and "FULL QUALITY". Compress it to MP3/AAC/OGG/WMA and you have an "untraceable" form of piracy. Want to force all of this into the underground? Keep up the witchhunts; it won't do you a damn bit of good, and likely hurt you more in the end.

Can you say **MORONS**? I know you can.

That said, I won't download anything anymore, and have deleted and security erased with Military Level deletion (re-writing the empty space with 0's or some text pattern) every MP3 I've obtained. Those days are gone 'til the RIAA and the assorted labels can pull their heads out of their rectums, and find a better way than "witchhunts". It's not helping their CD sales with me, and it won't 'til they can rectify the problem.

Remember, they tried Witchhunts in Salem and to my best recollection, the Quakers and Shakers are a miniscule portion of the U.S. population. *gasp*

Great public relations when you're going after your "potential customers" with lawsuits. I'm just waiting 'til they find a way to go "Big Brother" on all of us and find out when we record something off the radio, which "EXACTLY" like the MP3/WMA/OGG/AAC qualms *gasp* is a copyright infringement, but is breaking the law via stalking, chasing, and espionage that violates Constitutional rights.

Granted, that's why radio has a "royalty" system, which I'll come back to later, as I really think the past generation of RIAA members had something known as a "CLUE". The current crop couldn't be more braindead if they all lacked a pulse.

I'm not for invasion of privacy either, as going "Big Brother" on "We the People of the much raped Constitution of the United States of America..." is "NOT" the answer. Granted, I do agree the RIAA, MPAA, Software vendors, and the assorted labels needed to do something, and for that I cull up a word for them to think about.

innovation.

Real simple, find a better way to recoup any losses than cryptic and usability circumventing DRM tactics. I made a suggestion on the radio the other day, and I firmly attest; you have the government on your side, but if you screw the pooch on this, there goes your public relations. That's probably the #1 reason your sales are down in the first place.

Comprende? Habla es panol? Or is English good enough?

How do I suggest fixing the problem?

You have the U.S. Government on your sides. Ever think of taxation of digital media, broadband and dial-up connections, and hardware like CD and DVD burners, Compact Flash, MMC, small-size hard discs used in MP3 players like the iPod, CD-R's and CD-RW's playable in computers, DVD players, etc. etc. and the like? If you even get say: an extra $.50 per CD-R/RW, $1 per DVD-R/+R, $.10 per gig on a hard disc (compact or not), $5 per month extra on your bill on a highspeed connection, etc. etc. It'll add up in the end and pay for that which is a lower-quality thieving of a "compressed/lossy" format item. Ethics or not, I don't see the police firing off tickets to people that heinously break into the 56 mph barrier too often. Such heathens should be locked in jail for life according to the RIAA's take. Yet if the RIAA did tax us on all manner of components that together, in individual sale, combine together to rob $ from their pockets; they could leave the P2P industry as it is, and reap the rewards via greater awareness, chop their CD prices down to $9.99-13.99; and people will actually look at the viability of "PURCHASING" pre-packaged higher quality variations, while those that thieve explicitly without purchase will pay for a 128k MP3 that's lesser quality, unpackaged, via their CD-R, hard disk, processor, motherboard, tower case, MP3 player purchase, stereo components, etc. etc. Small taxes on a whole roster of components put together I'm sure can add up to the $9.99-13.99 overall CD sale, for a product that is essentially... inferior.

As far as the tax deal:

Call it "The Digital Frontier" tax or some other Bushism and be done with it. Smart Digital cards, MMC's, Compact Flash, CD-R's and CD-RW's, DVD-R/+R's (drives and media), Motherboards, Processors, RAM, etc. etc. It's a "NO BRAINER" and it saves publically chasing people down and calling them witches and then crippling them with lawsuits and public defamation so they have no desire to support the artists you're trying to sell to them again.

Once again "MORONS", wake up and smell the coffee.

I'll take my latte with Jim Beam.

*hiccup*

The Drunken Master has spoken.

Hey, that new Ween album is pretty good.

Did anyone read that whole thing? and understand? I noticed that too, see my idea is they just sell mp3's. Everyone has one and you could just like have a nice computer with like a million songs on it and then plug in your mp3 player so you wont have to wait either, even having cable or dsl can be a bother to download. I would just like being able to have an extra buck and run to walmart and grab two songs, because how many cds do u have that u actually like every song on it?