OT: Universal Records says "Oops!"

[Brother Ragnarok]

I don't know how many of you pay attention to record industry news, but working in a record shop you tend to hear things.  In the last month or so Universal has announced, presumably in response to all this "Why shouldn't we use Napster, you overcharge us for CD's!?" stuff, that they're dropping the list prices on all their CD's to between $13 and $10 or thereabouts.  Great news for us consumers, right?  Well, while the PR on this little coup was making them look like heroes, what they failed to tell anyone is that they didn't lower the wholesale prices from the standard $12 or $13.  Meaning they expected stores to buy their CD's for $13 and sell them for $10.  Guess who isn't going to do that?  If you said every damn record store in the country, you guessed right.  In fact, AEC (the largest record distributor in the world) and many other smaller distributors flat out refuse to distribute CD's under the Universal umbrella.  Lots of major labels are owned by Universal, so lots of people lost lots of money over this.  So, now there are two choices I can see.  
1.  Universal says "Sorry, we goofed, let's just pretend this didn't happen" and they all run home tails between legs and everyone goes back to paying $20 for a CD.
2.  They bow under the massive weight of their mistake, drop wholesale prices, and pretty soon so does every other record label or run the risk of going bankrupt because no one wants to buy super-expensive CD's anymore.
Let's hope someone owns up to the huge ripoff they've been pulling for years and the customers and fans finally get some  of the respect they deserve.

Brother R

[dean]

hehe sounds interesting.  just imagine; if scenario 2 ever happened, the prices for cd's gets lower and lower, until they are not profitable at all, and therefore the companies slowly stop releasing music.  

a world without music: noone wants to distribute because they can't make any money.  it would be quite funny really. [though completely unfeasible, but hey, i can dream :P ]

[JohnL]

I thought the music industry was recently found quilty of price-fixing for selling $20 CD's? I admit I'm no legal expert, but how does a corporation/industry get found guulty of doing something illegal and is then allowed to just go on doing the same thing?

[Dunners]

'Hot blooded check it and see..." after reading that bulls**t Universal pulled,f**kers.

[Scott]

The same potential of No Music being produced due to no money being made. It could also happen in  the film business.

[raj]

JohnL wrote:
> I admit I'm no legal expert,
> but how does a corporation/industry get found guulty of doing
> something illegal and is then allowed to just go on doing the
> same thing?

Contribute heavily to both political parties.

[Fearless Freep]

I admit I'm no legal expert, but how does a corporation/industry get found guulty of doing something illegal and is then allowed to just go on doing the same thing?

You mean MicroSoft?

[StatCat]

I can't remember buying a universal cd ever, must not be my kind of label. No worries here. They must be like the Paramount (check their prices on dvds- ridiculously high) of the cd world I guess?

[Brother Ragnarok]

Universal pretty much just carries all the big pop names.  Limp Bizkit is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.  In other words, they ain't got nothin' good.

Brother R