Evil downloaders beware.....

My original comment was that the record companies had been pricing cd's at an artificially inflated price for over a decade and they are just getting what they deserve.

You said that they can price it any way they want. I gave the analogy of the gas stations agreeing to all raise prices. You said there wasn't anything wrong with that.

I said it was price fixing, was illegal and proved that the record companies were illegally price fixing, with the article. That is why I said that the record companies are getting what they deserve after, a court of law decided that they overcharged consumers around 480 million dollars, at about $5 per cd.

I understand economics. Price fixing isn't a legal part of a free market economy, and supply and demand. If all the companies agree to charge more for an item, to artificially increase their profits, and they are the only place you can get the item, it is illegal.

I have purchased over 300 cd's. At $5 overcharge a piece, that's $1,500 of my money that they illegally got from me. So forgive me if I am not very sympathetic to them claiming they are losing money to the p2p users.

 

And I countered with showing how a mercades has a large profit margin but you don't steal them.

Stealing is stealing, profit margin does not change that fact.

No, I said they can ask for any pricew they want, it is their product. Such as the MSRP on millions of products all over the world. You are trying to mix open markets with price fixing, that is a completely different discussion, but still does not make stealing right.

It is only price fixing if people conspire to control prices, not if they just ask a higher price. Anyway, even if they did ask for $5 extra per cd, fine, get your refund, but being as you never spent a penny, how can you complain about them? You say they are wrong for asking for too much money for their product but at least the consumer got something for their money but you, you took something without paying for it so that is ten times more wrong and dishonest then what you are claiming the record companins did.

It is their property in the first place, maybe it is overpriced, but it is still theirs, not yours.

Do you think anything is offered in the market without a certain degree of price fixing?

Like oil?

That is why I gave the example of bread being priced about the same reguardless of the cost to produce it from one producer to the next.

You would not have spent that money if you though it was not worth it. Supply and demand, without the demand, the record companies would have made changes. The way to fight things like this is to stop buying their music (not stealing it either because that makes you worse then them) and let them decisde to either lower prices or stop producing music.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

 

My contention is that it?s like the airwaves. You can?t criminalize or shouldn?t, copying music off the radio, same thing.

 

I never said it wasn't stealing. I said it was karma giving the record companies what they deserve for raping the consumer for more than a decade with overpriced cd's.

MSRP has nothing to do with this discussion. It is a suggestion from one company. The dealers, distributors, stores can sell it for whatever they want.

First off, the record companies did conspire to keep the price of cd's artificially inflated. The market didn't set the price. The record companies forced the stores to sell the cd's at or above a certain price by using minimum-advertised pricing (MAP) not MSRP.

Second, I hope you aren't referring to me as "you" when you said "Anyway, even if they did ask for $5 extra per cd, fine, get your refund, but being as you never spent a penny, how can you complain about them?", because I already said that I don't use p2p sites or download shared music files.

Again, this has nothing to do with the discussion. In the bread thing, the market dictated the price. The bread companies didn't tell the stores that they had to sell the bread at or above a certain price.

It is not supply and demand, when the companies conspire to set a higher price and then force the retailers to sell the product at or above that price. That is not a free market.

 

Actually the price is set by the law of supply and demand. Both the customer and the supplier influence prices. If profit margins are excessive new suppliers will enter the market. If profits are too low suppliers will leave the market. Each individual consumer has his own demand curve for a product. The price will tend to be equal to average costs plus a fair profit margin which depends upon risk factors.

 

I think one of the biggest problems people have with buying CD's is that there may be one or two good songs on the CD and the rest is just 'filler crap'. I have known a few people that have downloaded music that didn't want the other 10 or 11 crappy songs they just wanted the one song. One of these individuals uses the downloading software to searchs for new groups and music that he would not have found through any other means (don't play it on the radio) and if he finds that he likes more than three of their songs he will go out and buy the whole CD. In some ways illegal downloading is making money for the music companies, but I have never heard anyone mention that.

 

It is their product, they own it. I agree price fixing is wrong but if you made somethign with your own hands, who am I to tell you what your creation should be sold for?

You ask for what you want and the consumer either agrees or does not buy.

It "helps" to set the standard, even Wal-Mart is selling PS3's at MSRP.

So you are saying that the price would not have changed if consumers stopped buying the records?


That is the part you are missing, even if a company sets an unfair price through price fixing, it is still up to the consumer to let go of his money to buy the product and with all the sales that were made, I have to say that the consumer spoke and said it was worth it even if it was set higher then it needed to be.

Like my example of a Mercades, there is a higher profit margin for a mercades than a ford, that is because the makers of the Mercades feels their product should demand a greater profit. It is the consumer that tells them if their correct or not through their spending.

It was a general "you" speaking on anyone who feels they should steal music based on their feelings that they paid too much.

In some cases they do. That is why Wal-mart sells bread for the same price as Publix, that is why I used the example of bread. Bread companies will not allow one store to undersell neighboring stores by very much before they stop supplying that store with product. Places like Wal-mart like to sell below cost to run other businesses out of business then raise prices. Many companies know this and will not allow their products to be used in that way.

I witnessed local bread companies do this at my Wal-mart. There was no bread in my local Wal-Mart for over a week until they agreed to not sell bread below a reasonable profit, so in a way, that is price fixing, but in the long run, it is to protect consumers.

I agree that it is wrong for all record lables to get together and set prices, but as with my Wal-Mart example, somethimes price fixing can protect consumers.

I agree, but with all products, it is still the consumer that must decide what they are willing to pay. For example, solar panels are a great idea but also very expensive. The reason all Americans do not have them mounted on their homes is because it costs too much no matter what margin you put on it.

You can have the best product in the world and only set a 5% margin over true cost and still not find consumers who are willing to buy your product, that is why I say consumers set all prices.