Why don't artists get as mad over the buying & selling of their OFFICIAL music in USED CD stores? Does this NOT take money out of their pockets, also? YES, it should.

Then why don't we hear artists talking more about this, just like they do with the buying & selling of their UN-OFFICIAL music? Shouldn't they ALL be considered the SAME, detrimental to their career & livelyhood?


EXAMPLE:

Someone buys a new Official CD release of Prince in the store. Prince then gets fully paid!

However, that same person sells the CD to a Used CD store the following week.

Someone else comes in and buys it (instead of buying the New copy of the CD). Prince probably gets NO money from the re-sale of the same CD. I would think that THIS should make him as mad as it does when people buy his UN-OFFICIAL music CD releases. Why doesn't he talk about THAT more often or ever (for that matter)???
[Edited 9/7/09 21:19pm]

Ever buy a used car? Should Ford and GM be pissed?

Legal doctrine of First Sale allows you to sell your CD as long as long as you aren't making copies to sell yourself. Same reason you can sell a book to a used bookstore, but you can't print copies of the book to sell or give away (assuming its not in the public domain.)

squirrelgrease said:

It's the same concept that artists have just accepted, but should they? If they do accpet it then they shouldn't be as mad when they don't get paid on un-official releases either. Both take money out of their pocket.

StudioA said:

This stuff was first litigated about 100 years ago, and re-litigated last year. Same result.

They might still care that the horse is dead, but beating it some more won't do anything.

squirrelgrease said:

In addition, cars and other items/objects are different. At least when a car maker has one of their used cars sold, they can still make money off the new owner through official service facilities when the car breaks down, official parts for the car when those break, etc. Plus, new and used cars have a vastly different price tag. New and Used cd's are very close in price. So, there is no justification to HAVE to buy the used copy instead of the new copy. With cars, you almost HAVE to buy the used version because of the price difference.
[Edited 9/7/09 21:08pm]

I buy various artists from used cd stores.

Why should the artists get mad??? CDs were bought brand new by previous person that bought it. So really the artists are not owed anything if it gets sold at some used store.

Later they decide for whatever reason they don't want them. The Used CD store sells them for a nice cheap price. Beats paying the wrecka stow retail price.

So long as the used CD disc is in excellent condition, I'm happy

luv4u said:

And in the case of Prince, he lets his post-Warner Bros catalog go out of print, so the secondary market is the only place for fans to get these discs.

Years ago,Garth Brooks spoke out against this He was pissed that people could buy his CDs used,without him getting a profit.

These artists have plenty of money!

They have no reason to be pissed.

Bring down the cost of new CDs to no more than seven dollars, and I'll buy more.

Well, I tried to trade in my old Beyonce MP3s but iTunes didn't have a "used mp3" section, so...

I guess things have worked themselves out.

I spoke out about this years ago when the whole Napster controversy happened. In my eyes there is no difference. Especially when you have major retailers like Transworld(FYE) selling used product right next to the brand new copies.

I agree it is a tricky thing to litigate, but in the end, it is virtually the same thing as file sharing. The end result is the artist only gets paid once.

As far as the GM/Ford argument, theres no way to bootleg cars, so its a moot point. This argument is comparing file sharing to used shops.

NewPowerToad said:

What? The original poster is talking about used record sales, not file sharing. Previously owned products of any type are fair game and the consumer is protected by laws. The manufacturer and/or artist was paid a retail sum for their product when new. Resold copies of CDs are obviously a breach of copyright laws. Some shops sell Promo-Only CDs as well, and these are not supposed to be sold, as is often stated in stamped gold lettering on the booklet.

Yes, used CDs do take a bite out of the artist's possible profits, and the consumer has a right to decide if they want to support the musician, store and label by buying new. In fact, I make a conscience decision to support artists in this way. Out of print items leave no other option than to go to the secondary market.

My argument stands.

squirrelgrease said:

And ykno, this is another way that artist's potential revenue is diminished... by having popular albums out of print (Rick James, anyone?)

Illogical.

SoulAlive said:

I forgot about that he did, too.

NewPowerToad said:

It's totally different. If I sell you one of my CDs, what happens later on when I want to go home, crack open the CD, check out the package, look at the pictures, read the liner notes and pop it into my CD player?

Nothing happens but regret, because I no longer have the physical CD. At best, I can listen to the music if I've ripped it but the physical CD is long gone.

And if you don't think that the physical product matters, you just try to take my Space maxi-single CD from me. I'll cut you!

Cinnie said:

This is actually the exact reason I don't buy full albums as MP3s -- and also why I'm reluctant to eventually go purely digital -- because you have no recourse to sell anything later on. Not that I sell much, but you never know.

I do recall Prince speaking out against used CDs too - mid 90s. I'll have to try to find that. IIRC, it was a direct answer to a question that was posed to him in an interview -- it was not one of his crusades or anything.

I'm all for used CD IF - and only if - the person selling the CD has not ripped a digital copy for themselves before selling the CD. That is tantamount to just illegally pirating the music in the first place.

who fucking cares..... fuck if as CD is used its going back I hate cd anyway

Good Point! Where else we gonna get out of print (OOP) music when the artist or label chooses not to continue producing it. The IRONIC thang is that that makes the artists and label just as responsible for LESS money in their pocket. So, stop crying and complaining artists, cus people buy music any way they can get it.

PEACE & CHICKEN GREASE

Just do as I do, and treat eBay as one huge lending library...

Buy a used CD; rip it to lossless FLAC using EAC; re-sell it for much the same price.

People... There is a recession on right now!

StudioA said:

Who are you debating against? The artists against used CDs that live in your mind?

GirlBrother said:

There is a recession right now - doesn't justify pirating music, especially using EAC for a bit-perfect lossless copy. What you are doing is no different than downloading straight from PirateBay or BitTorrent.

Your choice though. Personally I don't enjoy music as much if I don't buy it . . . to me I'm not really "invested" in it the same. I'm more apt to dismiss a free CD rather than give it its proper repeat listen(s).

On another note - do you rip as one file with a cuesheet, or rip individual tracks? I'm using XLD and I've been ripping individual tracks. I'm not really that much of a CD purist where I need to exact gap lengths intact. I like having tracks in lossless (I use Apple Lossless).

Se7en said:

I only do this when there's no other option. There's loads of CDs which are out of print.

Cases in point...

Grace Jones' Fame album. You can currently expect to pay at least $500.00 for a new copy of this on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/...463&sr=1-1

Aretha Franklin's Aretha (1985) album. $40.00 for a new copy.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/...585&sr=1-1

How much of that money goes to the artists anyway? Zero.

I bought a used copy of Fame on eBay for $100.00, ripped it and sold it on for $105.00. The Aretha album I got dirt-cheap - I think ten dollars for a used copy. I made a slight loss when selling it on too. However, I paid around $10.00 in all, for perfect copies of both albums. That's a more realistic price for around 100 minutes of music, than $540.00 plus shipping.

If I could have found lossless copies on the torrent trackers at the time, I wouldn't have paid a penny. Both albums are still out of print.

Se7en said:

Separate tracks - plus a cuesheet. I always use FLAC. I might convert all my FLACs to lossless MP3HD in the near future.

Hell, it's been purchased already and the artist has already gotten paid. Once you buy something, it is your's to do with as you please and if you get sick of it, you have the right to sell it just like you do with your car, your house, your clothes or any other item that you have. If you make copies of it and sell the copies (please note the word sell the copies) then you are bootlegging and breaking the law. But as far as making a copy for yourself or even giving a copy to a friend, that's fine. But as for selling the physical album that you bought, hell that's your's because you paid for it. You can throw the damn thing around in the yard as a frisbee if you want and pick up dog shit with cover if you want to because that product belongs to you.

And what if you shut down all the used record stores? How are these artists losing money from the used record stores? And even if people were stupid enough to pay the artist for each and every time that used product has been sold, how are they going to do it? When a record store that is selling new products runs out of that particular product, they order more. How would they order more, the damn product is out of print. Not only that, they don't make it on vinyl anymore anyway so how can they order more? Oh....I see....y'all must be arguing about used CDs. Well, I come from the old school and this new generation has become so used to lowering their standards and being happy with things like copies rather than originals. I come from the vinyl generation and I never truly feel like I actually own the song unless I have it on vinyl, even if I have it on an official totally legal CD, it just doesn't feel like I own the product because a CD is something you can make yourself. I felt the same way about tapes back in the day. I refused to buy something I could make myself and when vinyl was phased out, even though I was buying a brand new cassette, I felt like I was buying a copy of something because I could easily make it myself. I felt the same way about CDs when CD burners came out. Oh well, it doesn't bother me and I could care less because if they had not phased out vinyl, they wouldn't be having this problem today.

The best way to do it is to think of the songs themselves as the physical item. Sure, the disc is too (obviously), but isn't that what the labels and movie firms like to do? Say "downloading a song is the same as stealing something off the shelf"?

Well, if I bought a song, I can sell it. If I can sell a car, a television, a radio, a book... then what makes music different?

I'd wager this is why movie rental places are allowed. After all, they buy a copy of a movie once and make money off of it many times over, because they aren't renting out a copy, but giving the physical property out. If someone steals it, they are out of their copy.

So yeah.. I don't see the problem.

What does it matter? That person may have the music but they don't have the original packaging that it came in or the image that is printed on the actual CD itself. All that person has is a generic round disc with some recorded music on it. Their little generic disc is not worth anything because it's homemade. It's almost like they recorded it off the radio like we used to do back in the day with tapes. We weren't just happy with a recording from the radio and people still bought records even though they had recorded it from the radio because it just wasn't the same. The recording didn't even sound as good as the original. Oh....nowadays, the copy of the CD sounds as good as the original CD? Oh well, like I said before, if they had left vinyl alone, they wouldn't be having that problem today.

I never saw them as a good alternative to vinyl anyway especially when they first came out. You know how much I love mixing and before they made the CD players with pitch control, there was no way to mix them unless you found two tracks that were at the exact, I do mean the exact same speed and stayed at that same speed long enough to blend them. I used to wonder where the clubs were getting their vinyl from since there sure wasn't any in the record stores until I actually DJ'd in a club once for a few months. They had to order the vinyl and the place they ordered from only sold to clubs and not individuals. But even after they made CD players with pitch control, you still couldn't manipulate the speed with your finger like you can with vinyl. A lot of us vinyl lovers get bored with just listening to music because we like to create something ourselves.

And also the "portable" aspect of CDs turned me off from day one. I'm from the generation where bigger was better, louder, and more powerful and that sticks in your head no matter how old you get. I can remember having cassette tapes and playing them on a portable boom box. I didn't feel like I had something until I had the vinyl which could be played on my mother's big loud ass console stereo that disturbed the neighbors because they didn't make stereos with cassette players on them (at least not affordable ones anyway). When CDs took over, then I started seeing boom boxes with CD players on them and that stuck in my head also thinking about the old days of listening to cassettes on something weak and portable. You sure didn't see record players on portable things to drag around. And the CD cases even resembled cassette cases. When people brag about things being smaller these days, it turns me off because I like everything, and I do mean "everything" bigger. Bigger things just have more power to them.
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[Edited 9/9/09 19:16pm]