Patrick Sweeney Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Inspired by the comments of Kate Beckinsales leather-clad posterior, I decided I'd see if the "Underworld" DVD was at the local "bigbarn digital crapola store." $36? And the non on sale regular prices were $27-$29? Don't they know you can buy blank DVD's in bulk for a buck each? And they wonder why there is so much piracy? So I decide I'll see what's new in music. Huh? Twelve to fifteen bucks for music? When I might like just one or two tracks? If McDonalds had the same pricing structure, a burger that you could buy the ingredients for for .59$, would be a burger they'd charge a cool $20 for. A happy meal would be $40-50. Would McD wonder why we all stayed home and cooked our own? As a writer and photographer I'm very aware and interested in the protection of intellectual property rights. But how much of that $20-30 for the disk goes to the artist? What is the deal with these people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynn jones Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 patrick, here in memphis, tn., the target stores for the first week a new move comes out on dvd, they put it on sale for around $14.50. after the week it goes up to around $18-19. the new cowboy dvd by kevin costner is out this week i plan to vist target this week. lynn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BSeevers Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 And they wonder why there is so much piracy? When I might like just one or two tracks? What is the deal with these people? Bling Bling If these were gun people the would have a mini gun for each day of the week. Each artist has a different cut but ya gotta understand that Bentleys are real expensive. Especially when you have 3 totally custom ones, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DogmaDog Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 My solution: Pre-viewed DVDs at blockbuster. Got Matrix Reloaded for $9.99 The $10 bin at Wal Mart, with DVDs $10.00, or $14.99 Amazon.com, where my wife bought "The Wizard of Oz" for $7.50 delivered, which worked fine, despite the Chinese characters on the outside of the package. As far as music...haven't bought a CD in awhile. Way too pricey. Just burn copies from friends. DogmaDog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Moore Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Patrick, since you're a writer then maybe you could explain to my why my damn text books cost so much. i mean really should a 200 page text book cost $75, get real. i believe napster will allow you to download, without breaking the law, songs at 99 cents apiece. this way you could burn them on a cd and have exactly what you want and you don't have to worry about the law coming down on you for piracy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeeper Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Patrick, I agree with you 110%. If all this stuff was like 5-$10 then piracy wouldnt exist. Greedy companies and artists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulW Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Working for a multi-media compnay for almost 15 years I can tell you that the cost is NOT incurred during the duplication/replication of the media. The cost are all in producing, artwork, and advertisement. Blank media is cheap, but it's cheap for our clients too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Patrick, since you're a writer then maybe you could explain to my why my damn text books cost so much. i mean really should a 200 page text book cost $75, get real. [True Confessions Mode ON] I'm so torqued at the price of my latest mandated text book purchase, I have rebelled. They expect me to spend $63 + tax for a 192 page paperback! book that contains little to no information. All so the prof doesn't have to put together a set of decent class notes for a lousy one-credit class. Guess what I just spent $7 on at Kinkos....? Textbooks are rip off. I'm paying $120 a whack for problem sets and partial solutions. They're totally unreadable, so that's all they're good for. ----------------------------------------------------------- My real problem with the price of media be it digital or analog: *Somebody* is paying the outrageous prices for it (with their credit card, of course). Otherwise, the price would be less. What I call "credit inflation" has a lot to do with the prices of consumer goods, cars, and homes these days. IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 HEY!!! Do you guys realize that the forum's own... Steve Anderson is the area/regional manager for Cd Warehouse. They buy and sell used CD's and DVD's. What this means to you is that you can go to Amazon and buy from one of the stores Steve manages...and save money while you are at it!!! Steve really got the ball rolling with their online sales... If it says "ships from Ohio" and the seller name ends in "@cddvdgametrader.com", then it is coming from one of Steve's stores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twix Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 Cool. So how do we support our own(SA) and buy our CD's/DVD's from him direct without it turning into a PiTA for him? tommyB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcoliver Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 Piracy is very rampant here. But I have mixed feelings on wether I should rejoice I can get DVD's for less than $2 a pop or feel bad somebody is getting ripped... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalker Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 As a writer and photographer I'm very aware and interested in the protection of intellectual property rights. But how much of that $20-30 for the disk goes to the artist? Dunno about the U.S., but here in Italy most of it goes to a government organization in charge of enforcing intellectual property rights! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 My favorite text book scam is where the professor requires three texts, two of which he has "written". They are usually a collection of notes copied and bound together for................$25, and his new book for..................$55. Then the class is taught by a grad student with a very limited interest in the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Anderson Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 Flex is right. Cds from 1.99 and up DVDs from 5.99 and up Games very cheap. It's not a perfect system, as the product is used and also for sale in our retail stores, but....the price is right! I also do blowout pricing on about one store a week to keep the inventory rolling and boost cash flow. That's where the deals are. Just search amazon for what you want...if it says .....@cddvdgametrader.com, that's us. PM me if you have ANY issues with your transaction. SA And, I must disagree about prices stopping piracy. Had the industry dropped prices sooner, it may have kept some people from trying the online thing...but nothing can be cheap enough to beat free for the core downloaders. They believe they're entitled to free entertainment because..... ??????? If a retail store leaves the doors unlocked at night and the whole town knows it, how cheap would they have to be to get you wait til the sun comes up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Sweeney Posted January 16, 2004 Author Share Posted January 16, 2004 Yea, some people would download and burn pirated stuff even if they'd just won the lottery. As for textbooks, I looked into that a while ago. (I figured at $80 per, I could make some money.) It turns out school boards are deathly afraid of being accused of using "out of date books." So they require the publishers update them every few years. (Apparently more than three years old on the copyright is the kiss of death.) So, to satisfy the squirrely board members, it gets a slight re-write and new copyright date. Then, you get some boards meddling with content. More women, more minorities, more of the "disadvantaged who have been previously overlooked" (like the Matabele culture has made any progress in particle physics in the last century?) and less of the dates and places stuff. They end up with 5, 10, 20 versions of a textbook, that have to be updated every few years, and print runs so small they can't make money unless they charge huge buck-o's. As for the "Professors book" that is a famous scam. (I live in a University town.) The prof is probably turning it over to the department for bidding by local printers/copy shops. If, however, he is dealing directly with the shop, and squeezing them for "royalty payments" he's probably breaking University regs, if not State law. Drop a dime on him to the department, and see if anything happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Boudrie Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 Piracy is very rampant here. But I have mixed feelings on wether I should rejoice I can get DVD's for less than $2 a pop or feel bad somebody is getting ripped... Nobody is getting ripped if the sale is indeed "Used CDs" and not "unauthorized copies". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORCA Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 The price of new CD's and DVD's is rediculous. If it's a new movie I really want I'll pick it up the first week it's out while it's on sale. I usually buy used CD's at the local Record Exchange store. If at all possible I'll always buy a used text book, the price is usually a third of the cost of a new one and it's been highlighted. My personal experience with the most outrageous text book is a $80 small book first printing (no used ones floating around) that the professor used about 20-30 pages of the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greyrelic Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 I debated with myself for quite a while whether I should stick my nose in this, but here goes. My qualifications: I have owned a video rental business for the past ten years. Patrick's query was about CD/DVD, but there is more to it than just CD/DVD. Until three or four years ago, I paid $50 to $75 PER COPY for VHS tapes(wholesale price). Retaill prices were around $100. These prices were the norm in the industry. The studios also released titles at "Sell Through". Sell through titles retailed at $12 to $30. Then came DVD. The studios brought DVD movies to market at sell through pricing, largely to encourage market penetration by the new medium. The DVD format has gained public acceptance much faster than any other medium ever, partly because of picture and sound quality and partly because of the pricing structure. There has been a lot of speculation in the retail trade that the studios, after reaching a given level of market penetration by DVD. would raise prices to the levels of VHS. So far, this hasn't happened and I hope that it won't. So what does it cost to actually manufacture a movie on DVD? Cost of materials, duplication and packaging? Depends of which source you listen to. Probably less the $3 per copy, probably less. The real cost of the product is in studio costs to actually make the movie. God alone only knows what that cost is. The bottom line, I think, is that the motion picture industry only has a short time window to recover their costs. Theater runs don't last much more than 90 days although that varies. Then the movie either goes to rental or sell through. Rental product also has a fairly short window for cost recovery(generally about 60 days). At sell through pricing, it is not unusual that I can buy DVDs cheaper at K-Mart, Walmart and the large retailers than I can from the wholesale distributor. The large retailers buy 'em by the box car load, I almost never buy more than 30 copies, so they can get them a lot cheaper than I can. The reason for the short profitability windows? The viewing public. New movies come out every week, lots of them. Some are good and some are stinkers, but lots of movies hit the theaters and retail outlets every week. The viewing public wants to see the new releases and that is what drives the entire industry. Do I like the pricing structure? No. Do I like that the public has a short attention span and only wants to see the latest movies? No. Can I change iit? No. The fact is that since the introduction of the DVD format retail pricing is mudh more realistic than it ever was with the VHS format. It still ain't good, but its a damn sight better than it was 5 of 6 years ago. The movie and music industries pretty much had things their own way for 50 years. Now, with the advent of the internet and the availability of copying software, both industries are doing everything they can to close off competition and retain exclusive rights to their product The times they are a changin' and I think that the consumer will be the ultimate winner. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulW Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 To actually replicate a DVD, depending on quantity, usually runs around $.40 to $.90, this is disc only. Pretty damn cheap. This is also for a DVD-5, DVD-9's are a little higher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 $55......$85 for a textbook?!! You guys are sh*tting me right? Where can I find such bargains? Average price for new engineering textbook STARTS at $120. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORCA Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 I'm telling my age I guess by the price of the books. I'm thinking of going back to school though... I'm a engineer too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayonaise Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 I'm in the music business. Raw manufacturing cost of DVD's and CD's amounts to about $.65. A typical CD the artist's royalties are about $3. Major Label artists are advanced huge sums on records. The label fronts all the cost of recording, promotion, video etc... In the end the Lable OWNS the recording. Quality artists own their own songs (publishing). It costs 5 times more to promote a successful disc than it costs to create. Nothing comes free. There are cost all along the way before it ever makes it to the store. $12 too much for a CD that lasts forever? Even if you don't like it you trade it in at a used record store for at least $5. Not a bad deal. The artist gets paid, distribution gets paid, retailer gets paid and the label gets paid. Using Kaaza etc... to DL songs is stealing plain and simple. The bottom line is it's a moral issue. As bootlegging and illegal DL'ing and burning grows there is cause and effect. People in our industry lose jobs, the price of concert tickets and movies rise disproportionately. Someone pays the price. Everyone who steals has a way of justifying their deed. "CD's cost too much", "there's only one good song", "Dave Mathews is rich, it doesn't affect him" blah blah blah. Just excuses for stealing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeeper Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 EricW, I feel your pain with books. I spent over $600 today on mine. kinda felt like a punch in the kidneys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Every $18 CD sold subsidizes the publishing of few more artists that don't sell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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