Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo OOP CDs, and the music Industry

A few posts back, someone was somewhat lamenting the fact that sharing music downloads with everyone on the internet was not only illegal, but getting risky.
There have been a few of these posts before, and I thought then,the same as now....stealing is stealing.

But........BrenR brought up an interesting point.

What about CD music that is, or has always been out of print, or extremely hard to find?

I still hold the same view on this too, but....I find it ironic that a music industry that's so worried about profits, and suposedly the artist's rights and royalties, has been madly deleting many artist's entire catalogs for decades.

Ever since they carted off the LP records, and replaced them with cds....cd titles of all, but the most "popular" releases, or "classic albums" have either been in print only a short time, a budget release, or in way too many cases, not available on cd at all.

Now, I know they are interested in "million sellers" only, and by now, some of the older bands and artists might only sell cds in the "hundreds"......but, this cd title shortage has been going on for decades, whole bins of albums deleted, in some cases...forever.

I would say, for an industry so worried about profits.........that's a lot of money "left on the table".

I suspect many of the artists, and bands would have liked to have had many more royalty checks over the years, too.
I think they are the one's who have suffered the most, with many of their catalogs either totally deleted, or only a "best of" cd available.
To top it off, the record companies apparently "sit" on the rights to most of the out of print music...so the artists (nor anyone else) can release the music.

In fact, if the record companies didn't discover they could make money with re-mastered cds........there would be an even bigger void.

Anyway, I thought that it was interesting to look at this subject a little deeper.

been getting lots of used disks from here, and they say the pay the artist %20

Thanks for the info.

I haven't bought too many used cds, over the years because I'm so anal about scuffs, and scratches (even if the cd plays ok).
I still don't understand the music industry....with many OOP cds, and Japan only imports, selling for big bucks on Ebay, plus the demand for used cds......you would think they would jump at the chance to market and sell their own "niche" cds.

They should do it soon............before all the rock 'n' rollers are too old to care.

Larry,

There is a place in Crest Hill called Disc Replay that has really good deals on used cds. I have bought quite a few from them, never had a problem.

Rick,

Surprisingly enough, I found that place when I first arrived here, and was looking for the Crow's nest.
(which, after at least 30 years.... is now closed)
Now, THAT was a record store!

I do (finally) have quite a large cd collection... but, it took over twenty years (and a lot of searching) for the manufacturers to get around to making them all.

Larry

I remember when the Crows Nest closed down. I couldn't believe it, I loved going in there and its closing was a sad day. There is still a Crows Nest store in Naperville though I haven't been there yet. Just yesterday I went to Audio Consultants in Hinsdale to check out a set of Magnepan 1.6s.

Very interesting topic.

How can the artist expect you to pay royalties if the product is not available.

In Canada the copywrite law allows us to make copies for media for our own personal usage. It doesn't matter what the media is (cassette tape, CD, DVD, MP3, 8 trak, etc). The last time I checked it was not illegal to download from P2P in Canada, however it is Illegal to upload. There is no restriction on what the media type is that you download from (tape, CD, MP3, LP, etc).

The question is how many times should the artist expect to get payed for their work? I own many record albums wich I have purchased over the years. However records are not practical to my lifestyle today. I can't play them in the car, or at work, or when I am jogging. So I buy a protable CD player and replace my albums with CD's. I now pay the full price again (in many cases more). So the artist and record company now have twice the profit for the same material. I have paid double for the same material just because I needed it on a different medium. At this point I should just be charged for the new media format, the artis should get no additional money(s) as I have alreday payed them the 1st time I bought the album. How many of us out there ahave spent 100's if not 1000s of dallars replacing exisiting records and tapes with CD's or VHS (and Beta) tapes with DVD's. It's about to happen again with BlueRAY or DHDVD! You can bet the whole industry loves new formats. Software companies like Microsoft make their money by selling upgrades. However usually they don't charge full price for the upgrade. But the record companies do! And thats not right!!!

So is it illegal for me to borrow a CD and rip it? What if I bought a used CD. What if I buy a used CD and rip it, then sell it the next person does the same, and so on and so on. Is that illegal. The record companies and artists don't make any money then. Do they view this as losed profits?

Sort of, sort of (copyright infringement is not a legal matter, it's a civil one. Breaking encryption is now a legal matter.), and yes.

"The question is how many times should the artist expect to get payed for their work? I own many record albums wich I have purchased over the years. However records are not practical to my lifestyle today. I can't play them in the car, or at work, or when I am jogging. So I buy a protable CD player and replace my albums with CD's. I now pay the full price again (in many cases more). So the artist and record company now have twice the profit for the same material. I have paid double for the same material just because I needed it on a different medium. At this point I should just be charged for the new media format, the artis should get no additional money(s) as I have alreday payed them the 1st time I bought the album. How many of us out there ahave spent 100's if not 1000s of dallars replacing exisiting records and tapes with CD's or VHS (and Beta) tapes with DVD's."

Not sure if this argument quite holds up. When you buy a car and drive it around a few years, then decide you want a newer model with better features, you pay the full price for the most part. You don't just pay for the new features. You can save some cash by selling your car and using that to buy the new one.

I'm not a fan of the industry and don't like drm whatsoever. I don't care for the industry trying to sell us digital downloads that are inferior to the quality of the cd. If they allowed us to buy a CD online in whatever format/quality we wanted, free of drm, then I'd be supporting them totally. Until then...

Over the years, the recording industry has often complained about consumers "copying" music, going back to the old "reel to reel" days.
Right is right, but how hypocritical it is, when they have done far more damage to their own industry over the years.....................than consumers with cassette recorders, and such.

For me, the worst part has been the poor quality, and Availability of cds over the years.

People should do what's right, but sadly, the industry has brought much of this on themselves..........poor sales, illegal downloads, bootleg cds, and all.