Re: [newbie] [OT] more BS from RIAA (was longer)
On Thursday 11 Jul 2002 2:27 am, you wrote: July 6, 2002 03:56 am, Anne Wilson wrote: snip As an aside - I was a teenager in the late '50s. An article I read recently highlighted the lifestyle cost in comparative terms. I found that the simple record player I bought then cost the equivalent of £833. I could never afford LP records. The reason was simple - a 2x20 min. LP cost the equivalent of £189. Suddenly CDs at £15 don't look so expensive :-) Anne Good points Anne. The problem is that something you (I also) want to hear more than just once is worth what you're (I'm) willing/able to pay for it. The same applies to movies in my opinion. However if you can't even preview the material how are consumers (me too) supposed to judge? In the interest of retaining my title of Canadian looney of the modern age; isn't the (inflation adjusted) price of that record player on the close order of a 'generic utility' type PC? Hell, no - we're talking pounds sterling here. A basic PC can be had for just over half that. Also; the price (adjusted) of that recording, roughly the cost of a hard drive and decent speakers/sound card? Or sound card and graphics adapter at least? :-) Something like that. You're right, though. I want to be able to preview software, music and the like, but I'm willing to pay if has lasting value. Anne Just a (severely bent) thought. Totally flawed analogy of course; but that's my specialty. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] [OT] more BS from RIAA (was longer)
July 6, 2002 03:56 am, Anne Wilson wrote: snip As an aside - I was a teenager in the late '50s. An article I read recently highlighted the lifestyle cost in comparative terms. I found that the simple record player I bought then cost the equivalent of £833. I could never afford LP records. The reason was simple - a 2x20 min. LP cost the equivalent of £189. Suddenly CDs at £15 don't look so expensive :-) Anne Good points Anne. The problem is that something you (I also) want to hear more than just once is worth what you're (I'm) willing/able to pay for it. The same applies to movies in my opinion. However if you can't even preview the material how are consumers (me too) supposed to judge? In the interest of retaining my title of Canadian looney of the modern age; isn't the (inflation adjusted) price of that record player on the close order of a 'generic utility' type PC? Also; the price (adjusted) of that recording, roughly the cost of a hard drive and decent speakers/sound card? Or sound card and graphics adapter at least? :-) Just a (severely bent) thought. Totally flawed analogy of course; but that's my specialty. -- Charlie Edmonton,AB,Canada Registered user 244963 at http://counter.li.org A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail. -- Jerry Ogdin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] [OT] more BS from RIAA (was longer)
Good point, except that the price pretty much stabilised in the 1970's. What changed was production costs - it is now laughably cheap to produce Amen to that. 50 cents (or less) per blank CD and a few minutes' time is all that is required to produce a CD. Blank/recordable CD's for music are higher but no different than the disks for 'computer' use. The blank music CDs are artificially higher because of piracy scares. Even so, that's nothing compared to the cost to 'stamp' a vinyl or master a CD not too long ago - manufacturing might make the per-cd or per-LP cost cheap, but only in bulk, and only after amortizing the cost for expensive duplicating equipment. 1982, any more than, were anyone to make one, a 100MHz CPU should cost the same as one from that era. Which doesn't cost all that much to make - at least not in quantity. Most of the cost is in development. Interesting tidbit - back in October 2000 I paid about US $165 for a 30 gig hard drive. Not nearly a great deal by today's standards, but that's about 1500 (!) 20 meg drives, of which I bought 1 (my first HD) in 1986, for about $300. Sir Robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] [OT] more BS from RIAA (was longer)
July 5, 2002 01:13 pm, Todd Slater wrote: snip While I'm all for sharing and sticking it to the RIAA, MPAA, and the man, I tend to side with the artist on this issue. It would be nice to see a distribution system in which the artist could reap the benefits of his/her labor more than the record label. It's great to share as in free software, but you are projecting your ideas about sharing onto others. How do you make your living? Shall we all of a sudden decide that your labor should be shared for free, without any input from you? People who develop free software do so willingly. I don't think it's fair to project that onto others so you don't have to spend $15 on a crummy CD. Lately I'm having a hard time finding music I want to purchase anyway. That's the fault of the record labels and FM radio. Blah!! I know this will be an unpopular position on this list, so let me practice moving side to side and ducking . . . Todd I'm with you Todd. I never swap movie or music files, but the few people that I associate with that do buy just as many disks as they ever did. If they're worth buying in the first place. The only disks that I've bought in roughly the past year were replacements for scratched or otherwise damaged ones. Or ones my kids swiped and wouldn't give back. :-) Most of the replacements came from bookswap/recycled CD bins at the local exchanges since most of the stuff was rather old. Like me. I laugh when I read that swapping files is responsible for the decline in sales. Seems to me it's the ridiculous prices and arrogance of the jerks running the studios and labels. The (musicians) artists mostly get a pittance for their creativity anyway until they become a name; at which point they don't usually have anything to offer that I want to hear. Artists I'll support, and that includes software developers working on projects I believe in. Drones/clones that work on a 'business model' that insists on 'all the traffic will bear' can find a hole to crawl, in then pull it in behind themselves for all I care. If the decisions they made to pay so much for so little (think Mariah Carey among others) hadn't happened the costs wouldn't be out of line. Their model isn't working, nor should they be with that level of thought in their planning. The world doesn't need them. Or me. :-) -- Charlie Edmonton,AB,Canada Registered user 244963 at http://counter.li.org Center meeting at 4pm in 2C-543. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
