Easy CD Creator 3.5C & Windows 2000
Isn't it funny, how the RIAA and it's member labels claim it cost near $10.95 (the minimum selling price at Circuit City for a long time) to make a CD but the artists gets only 10 cents a unit sold. Now, that same CD at Tower or Musicland, Blockbuster Music or Wherehouse Music is $15.95 or higher but yet the artists still gets 10 cents (or less). The artist I am using here is TLC (as featured in VH-1's Behind The Music). TLC got 10 cents a unit on their 2nd CD. No one mentioned what they got on the first CD.
Interestingly, Madonna (Time-Warner: Maverick/Sire/Warner Brothers), Mariah (Sony: Columbia) (Formerly at Sony and Tommy Mottola's ex-wife), Whitney (BMG: Arista), Britney Spears (BMG: Arista), Celine (Sony: EPIC 550), and Christina have NOT come out against mp3 or Napster. For that matter, neither has Alanis (Time-Warner: Maverick/Sire/Warner Brothers).
Here is something else that is interesting...
Tuesday
August 8 12:23 PM ET
States accuse record labels of
price fixing
By Derek Caney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Twenty-eight U.S. states filed suit against the world's five largest record labels on Tuesday, accusing them of fixing prices of compact discs and demanding unspecified damages.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, centers on a policy called "minimum advertised pricing'' (MAP), under which the labels subsidized advertising for retailers that agreed not to sell CDs below a minimum price determined by the labels.
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in a statement, "This illegal action ... has not been music to the ears of the public. Because of these conspiracies, tens of millions of consumers paid inflated prices to buy CD's...''
The suit alleges that the MAP policy increased CD prices in violation of state and federal antitrust law, kept CD prices artificially high, and penalized retailers who did not participate.
The five labels are Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Brothers music group (including Warner, ATCO, Atlantic, WEA, Reprise, Maverick); Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment (including Sony 550, Epic 550, CBS, Columbia, Sony, Legacy); Seagram Co.'s Universal Music Group (including Polygram, UNI, MCA, MCA-Nashville); BMG, the music unit of Bertelsmann AG (including Arista, A&M, BMG, RCA), and EMI Group Plc (including Capital, EMI, CEMA).
Also named as defendants were three retailers: MusicLand Stores Corp., Tower Records, and Trans World Entertainment Corp.. (**Someone forgot Wherehouse Music, Blockbuster Music, and Camelot Music!)
MAP policy originated in the mid-1990s when large department stores and consumer electronics retailers began selling CD's below cost as a "loss leader,'' in an effort to get people into the stores to buy big-ticket items. (**They wouldn't have to do this if they had good customer service; viva l'internet!)
The labels say they started the MAP policy in an effort to help smaller music retailers compete with chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Circuit City Stores Inc. They say smaller retailers do not have the option of offsetting losses from cut-price CD sales with sales of other products. (**This is where customer service should come in!)
The labels say they received no financial gain from the MAP policy. "The wholesale price we charged retailers was the same whether or not they participated in MAP,'' one label executive said.
In a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced in May, the five labels agreed to ban the MAP policy for seven years. The settlement did not require the labels to pay any damages.
Industry executives say CD prices have risen since the May settlement.
Reuters/Variety
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This page was last updated 03/17/06 02:30 AM.
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