[boogieordie]

But think about the difference between CDs and cassettes. Who'd want to spend $15 on an outdated, bad quality, high maintence device with no way to skip to other tracks without fast forwarding? Since CDs started becoming popular, very few people these days see cassettes as a viable option, and I'd imagine them to disappear within the decade...

CDs were supposed to become cheaper than casettes, it was one of the advantages to switching from tapedecks to cd players. In fact, the RIAA promised that CDs would become very cheap once the disc became the primary media for music.

Here's a quote from the article where I found the info about the RIAA -

If CD prices were more affordable, piracy may evolve into a non issue. True the margins would be smaller, but didn't the RIAA tell consumers in the early 1980s that CD prices would ultimately drop as adoption of the media gained traction, too?

http://www.servicenetworks.com/SNEdi...p?cat=4&ID=107

Yet here we are today, the CD the primary media for music, and the price is so much more than that of the casette. The CD costs significantly less to produce, and while the quality is better that shouldn't matter because it's now the primary media.

Here is a VERY great article on the subject of casette and CD prices (which I found after writing the above)

Napster part of music history
In all the debate about Napster, one critical angle of the story is being left out: This is not an issue of copyright infringement. It's about money.
Here's a quick lesson in music history. When record albums first appeared for sale on the market in the early 20th century, recording artists did not make much profit from them. The real income for performers of the early Blues and Jazz Age was in concert ticket sales. The sale of records to at-home listeners was a device to promote the music so that when the band played on tour, listeners paid to attend concerts. Money generated from shows was far greater than money generated by selling records.

Then, near mid-century, one revolutionary group of youths from Liverpool changed all that. Selling millions of records worldwide, The Beatles were the first music group in history to generate more money through record sales than concert tours. This has been the way of the music industry ever since. Instead of bands selling records to promote concert ticket sales, bands go on tour to promote the sale of their records. The money today is in the records, tapes and compact discs listeners like you and I buy.

Let's jump to the present day. In the 1980s, when CDs first came out, the average cassette tape cost $8. CD marketers said that the initial price of CDs, which was about $12 then, would soon drop to the point where CDs would be much cheaper to buy than tapes. The high price of $12 was temporary. It only cost the manufacturers about $2 to make CDs (packaging and all), but because CDs were such a new thing, the prices had to be kept high until it had safely caught on. The people bought it, and to this day, we are still waiting for CD prices to fall.

Take a look at your CD rack. How much did you pay for that last Eminem CD you bought? $15? Was it worth it? Or maybe you didn't pay for that CD at all. Maybe you went to Napster.com, downloaded the best songs and burned your own CD with that nifty CD-R drive you got last Christmas. Sure, it was a lot of work to make it, but you saved $15.

If the record industries insist on keeping CD prices artificially high, listeners will find ways to save money. Napster has arisen out of this necessity. Although statistics are against them, some say that people will stop buying CDs altogether and get their music free off the Web. Perhaps we are at the dawn of an age when musicians and performers will once again make more money from concert tickets than record sales. Ah, the good ol' days.

Realistically, this won't happen. But what sites like Napster have done, along with the people who use them, is send a message out to the greedy record industries: You charge too much for CDs. You've been ripping us off long enough. Until CD prices go down to their true value, about $3 - $5 with retail markup, listeners will turn to the Web for music. Napster is an inevitable product of history.

Eva Talmadge is a liberal arts and sciences junior.

http://www.alligator.org/edit/issues...02column15.htm

How many of us would go out and buy basically any CD we wanted if the price was that low? I certainly would.. too bad I probably wouldn't want what they're selling. My point however is that CD sales would skyrocket if the price of CDs were that low.

Take a look at these numbers -

The price of music
yesterday and today
These are typical list prices for albums or CDs at each decade's midpoint, and the prices in 2002 dollars
Decade Cost 2002 value
1960s $4.98 $27.22
1970s $7.98 $19.47
1980s $12.98 $20.97
1990s $15.98 $18.04
Today $18.98 $18.98

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2...usicprices.htm

Ashley