AlanBarber.Org
Thursday, September 04, 2003
CD price cuts and Colleges offering music subscriptions.
Some big news in the music industry as of late and for once it's good news!First up is the report from CNN that the Universal Music Group, part of Vivendi, is going to be cutting prices of CDs! They'll be bumping the MSRP of most of their high end CDs that were around $18.98 to $12.98.
Well thank you Vivendi! You finally took the first step to get out of the endless loop we've been in. You might just help solve things! No more of the industry saying "we have to charge more because people pirate" and the consumers saying "we pirate because you charge too much".
The best thing we can all do is vote with our wallet so to help show this is a good idea I will be buying two CDs from the artists under a Universal Music label. The price cuts go into effect October 1st so sometime that month I will start buying.
Secondly, Reuters is reporting that several colleges are looking to offer some sort of pay to play music service in dorms. As part of the tuition and fees students would get access to a music library.
It's still early and hard to tell if this will work out but I say it's a good start. As long as the prices are cheap and the libraries are extensive it should prove to be successful. Students want digital music they can download so you might as well give it to them.
So this is why it's been so cold out lately. Hell has frozen over because for once things are going right for consumers!
