Are DVDs Stealing Sales From CDs?
from the look-at-your-own-industry dept
The music industry has been blaming all of their woes on people who download music. However, this article suggests that they should probably be looking at their counterparts in the movie industry for stealing sales. DVDs are the hot items to buy these days, as consumers prefer to get all the extra features that come with a DVD. DVDs keep getting cheaper and cheaper, while CDs have gotten much more expensive. When you compare what you get between a DVD and a CD for approximately the same price, it's amazing anyone buys CDs anymore. The music industry, of course, scoffs at these claims, and says the movie industry will be in just as much trouble once everyone is simply downloading all of their movies. The "proof" in the article was one exec asking his 12-year-old son if he would stop downloading music if he was given as much money as he needed to buy every CD he ever wanted. The son said he wasn't interested. Beyond just being a single anecdotal data point, this leaves out the fact that MP3s are much more useful for many people than CDs, since they allow you to get rid of the crappy extra songs and make playlists of what you want to hear. It also ignores the ability of music sharers to experiment and try out music, which is much more difficult to do if you're buying CDs (even if money is no object).
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Evil son?
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Re: Evil son?
But seriously...the article, for the little facts it presented, it made some really good points: 1. Record Industry Executives are idiots, the fact that nobody in the recording industry has researched (or even just looked at a newspaper or magazine lately,) consumer attitude shows that they are so completely clueless and detached from the rest of the world; 2. That people really want music in a format *they* have control over, not one that the music industry has control over, as in MP3 format (not DVD, which is even more restrictive); and 3. That the CONSUMER will continue to gravitate to doing what THEY want to with THEIR money, despite what a bunch of greedy morons want or persuade the government to enforce.
Oh, and I am now charging $2,000 per word for anyone reading my intellectual property posted to this website. So you owe me $1 billion, and I expect it by tomorrow morning or I'll get the FBI to come and shake you up, or even worse, call a lawyer, sue you, and take everything you own. (Just kidding, but isn't this what the MPAA and RIAA really want?)
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