I been picking up some used Cd's from Amazon lately. They are like $3 plus two dollars shipping, cheaper than buying off of a download service. But when I think about it, the artist aren't getting any royalties are they (the Cd's come from 3 parties that seem like just people not businesses) ? Then why isn't the RIAA suing Amazon the same way they sue P2P companies?
You know I have never thought of it like this. I buy used CDs from time to time off Amazon but mainly if a CD is out of print or it is going to take like 6 weeks for Amazon to get a copy. I tend to stay away from them because I am a little anal about having CDs that have scratches on them. And used CDs seem to have a better chance of having a scratch on them than one that is brand new.
When the CD was originally purchased, a royalty was paid. Why should an artist get a double royalty? If I buy a car from GM, then sell it after six years, would I pay GM again? Now if someone is selling copied CD's, then a royalty has never been paid on that CD, so the artist is entitled to some money.
I agree, I havent bought very many used cds in my lifetime. I'm afraid they will have scratches on them, so I just go with a new one to avoid it.
No i think what they mean is that instead of having a potential buyer of the artist's CD and making money off of them, the buyer goes out and gets the used CD instead and the potential sales of the artist's CD is cut...although i think not by much
Thanks St. louie, I didn't think of the used car angle. I haven't run into any scratches but the non-degrading nature of CD's vs. old vinyl could be as big a reason record sales are dropping as P2P. It's like every CD ever made is still availble on the marketplace/
What about BOOKS? AND books on tape? And books on CD? Man, WTF... I have Hannibal on tape, and listened to it often. Freakin' author reads that sh*t so well, I'm scared even though it's daylight. So, anyway, what do you do with used books? Can you re-sell them? A cruel thing I do with my wife's books I sell is tear off maybe 3 or 4 pages out of the middle of the book. Surprise!
why would this be an issue. If the cd was purchased brand new, then the artist would have been paid for it initially. no double dipping
bobrek: very true. I end up giving all my computer-related and Sports Illustrated magazines to the local library. I don't need them.
Because of my Soulseek guilt. I download a lot of music just to see what it sounds like and I have some guilt because the artist need to make a living for their efforts but 99% of it I would never buy and never listen to if it weren't free. I'd just listen to less music. The difference between downloading free music and used CD's seemed blurry in that sense because the artist is not getting any benefit from entertaining me, no royalties, no credit for sales volume. But the per unit compensation, like the used car, seems to make some sense, because the artist has been compensated for the unit vs. free downloads where he may have only been compensated once for a million copied units. Just thinkin.
The music industry has managed to skew your view on what is legitimate business and what is not into their favor. That said, the people you are buy used cds from have most likely burnt themselves a copy.
You can go one cheaper than that. Check out CDs from your local library, copy them, and then return them.
Actually a car is not a very good analogy to a CD. When you buy a car you actually OWN the car. You can do whatever you want with it. You can paint it, modify it, reverse engineer it, whatever.... When you buy a CD you are not purchasing anything technically... you are actually paying for a license to USE the material on the CD in a limited way. You don't OWN the songs on a CD; you own the rights to play the songs for personal use. You can't even play the song on your office's hold system legally even if you purchased the CD because that's a whole different set of rules. Radio stations have to pay license fees to play music over the air. I'm not sure where used CD's fall legally but clearly they are legal. Interestingly artists generally don't get much if any money from on-line, legal download services (like iTunes) but someone does (ASCAP or BMI?). So, it's not really about the artists revieving the money as it is about the record company getting the money. Crazy stuff....
I see it as a transfer of rights. The right of personal use is transfered to the buyer. The CD could then be used as proof of ownership (when all receipts are not available...). Therefore, I give up my rights of fair use with the songs I burned on my iPod. Technically, I should delete any songs on the CD I have sold.
