Our heros at TheRecordIndustry.com have asked us to write a series of articles, covering current issues in the industry that we just love to hate. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful relationship. How could we say no? Below is the first of many ramblings to come.
Used CD Stores Under Fire
by JaGoFF
So you have filled up your iPod/MP3 Player and have decided to clean out the closet to get rid of all that dead weight. Piles of old CD that haven't seen the light of day for years, much of the music you've outgrown a decade ago. So you bust out the broom, cut open the cardboard boxes and sift thru the mess. Some of the CDs you decide to keep, most are going to the second hand store to fill up the tank with $4/gallon gas and rent money. You lug your way to the used CD store and place the box of cds on the counter. Not so fast .
The stoned store clerk, asks to see your ID, collects your personal information and prompts you for your fingerprints. Your eyes dart around the room and wait for the S.W.A.T. team to bust thru the door ... to add insult to injury, you are then informed that you cannot receive any cash for the transaction and must settle for an in-store credit - you know you gotta line some pockets. Somebody needs a royalty and daddy needs a new pair of alligator shoes.
Sound ridiculous? Well, it would if it wasn't happening. It seems that our friends in the "recording industry" have finally gotten what they have been gunning for. After failed attempts to collect royalties on second-hand CD sales and never content with "first-sale doctrine" - they have been squeezing the balls of Mom & Pop and CD resale shops for years.
Facing declining CD sales coupled with years of resistance to adopt a consumer friendly format, not to be outdone by suing everybody under the sun - . the recording industry has added a new low to their bag of dirty tricks, (under the guise of piracy - naturally). Pawn shop laws "designed" to stop the sale of bootleg and stolen merchandise are now rearing their ugly head in Florida, Utah, Rhode Island, Wisconsin. In some cases, taking it to the extreme forcing resellers to pay a $10,000 bond and hold the CDs for a "waiting period" of 30 days until they can be resold. One of my favorite record stores (in Chicago's Hyde Park) closed their doors a couple of years ago, as a direct result of this ridiculousness.
Never mind that the CD is over a quarter century old and is on it's deathbed. Never mind that we are now in a digital singles driven market and ringtone sales are thru the roof. Never mind that there is an entire, post-Napster, generation who have never bought a CD in their lives and view them, as my generation did the cassette tape and 8-track. Never mind the fact that music buying is purely a disposable income purchase, that now finds itself competing with movies, DVDs, tech gadgets and video games - which will all make it to the crap pile faster than you can say Colecovision. And oh yes, then there that thing known as the cost of living.
This new legislation will, no doubt, wipe out whatever exists of the brick and mortar, mom & pops and leave responsibilities of selling to the big box stores, sporting an ever shrinking selection of music to the consumer. This, in turn, will only drive down sales further, at which point, they will have to find a new scape goat. Sooner or later they are going to run out of boogie men.
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Support indie music or be force-fed crap.
- JaGoFF
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