It's all about the Benjamins
In skimming the 21 October 2002 issue of Newsweek over coffee this morning, I came across a rather disingenuous article about CD bootleggers. "Napster may be dead, but bootlegging is thriving" reads the subtitle, and like many pieces on the subject it's depressingly one-sided. The article goes on and on about how easy it is to make counterfeit CDs and the steps various artists are taking to combat said counterfeiting (Dre, for instance, has a healthy dose of paranoia).
What's missing from the article, however, is any explanation of why consumers buy these counterfeits. Curtis Harris, the article's author, mentions one possible reason only obliquely when he writes "The Recording Industry Association of America estimates that record companies lose more than $300 million a year to the streets, where knockoff CDs can go for $2.50." Well, boo hoo for the poor record companies. Has no one told Harris that Sam Goody is selling new releases for $20 these days? Good luck getting more than one or two good singles off one of said releases, too. It's pretty obvious why Best Buy typically makes a killing off CDs during the opening weeks of a new store location: they sell new releases for $10-$12 apiece.
I'm not that I'm complaining about the article because I think CDs are too expensive. Heck, the sum of my yearly CD purchases probably exceeds the GDP of some island nations. I'm complaining about the article because it only relates one side of the issue. And after a number of editorials in which Steven Levy lambasted both the RIAA and the MPAA for their dirty pool, I'm surprised to see an article like this in Newsweek at all.
Posted by ned at October 16, 2002 11:16 AM