Buying Music


Buy new music? Not often since I can hardly afford it.

Don't sweat it. I'm not about to subject you to my music tastes! Hey, I'm pretty boring, anyway. I rarely buy new music because it's so dang expensive. The idiots in the technophobic RIAA decided some time ago that their resources were better spent suing people rather than trying to adapt to current and future technology. Having written that, violating copyright by downloading music is wrong and no amount of screaming "music is free!" will dissuade me. Only the people who create and produce the music get to decide whether it's free.

I remember when I first joined the BMG music group a long time ago. It seems like such a bargain to get 12 for the price of one. Yeah, until you get the bill and see the fees for shipping and handling! I think I calculated the actual price to be about $10US for each CD after all the fees and costs. I dropped it until they sent me an offer to re-up about 6 years ago and with CD prices still astronomical, I went ahead and joined until I fulfilled the agreement and then I dropped it.

The price for new music is ridiculous and this has helped fuel the downloading of music (I think it the Universal group that lowered prices last year?). I now either legally download music or I buy used CD's. We've got a CD Warehouse here in Lincoln, NE and I've had some luck buying music for about $6-7US per CD. I'm also planning on trying Djangos. I happened across the site a year ago while doing a Google search on used CD's. Although I haven't bought anything from them yet, a coworker did and he was happy with their service and prices.

I also use the iTunes music site that Apple runs. I've purchased a few albums and a number of singles. Not long ago Pepsi ran a contest and gave away free singles via the cap in Pepsi bottles. Pepsi screwed up in how they carried out the campaign; however, we were lucky here in Lincoln to get the bottles and I redeemed twelve winning caps for songs. Apple is now offering a free single each week which I've been taking advantage of. As for the online store, I like being able to pick only certain songs for $0.99US each if all I want is a few singles and not the entire album. I play the songs either on my laptop or on my iPod mini. I have a WIndows laptop at work but I haven't installed iTunes on it and I'm not sure if I'm going to since it's a work-supplied computer.

The recording industry is afraid of giving consumers too much choice. I say "bring it on!" RIAA better figure out how they're going to adapt or the world will continue to race right by them.

Posted: Wed - May 12, 2004 at 10:26 PM      

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