As you’ve probably gathered, I’m a huge music fan. However, I still find it difficult to justify paying £15 for a CD given that I may buy 3 or 4 CD’s in a month. Until recently I’ve been subsidising my interest in music by buying from somewhat ‘ethically dubious’ sites such as AllofMP3.
I do however continue to buy the music of bands I’m really into either in the shops or more commonly direct from the artist. Also, given that I’m a bit of a rock dinosaur, I’m not overly experimental with new bands so a lot of what I’m purchasing is already owned by me on vinyl or on cassette (!!!).
The thing is, I want to support the artist but I find myself asking a few questions. If I already own the album in another format and have previously paid for it, is it wrong to download it? I guess the purists would say yes. Also, if I’m downloading music that I wouldn’t have otherwise purchased due to an exorbitantly priced CD then is anyone any the worse off?
Finally, if I download a bands album from say 2004, like it and then subsequently legitimately purchase every subsequent album the band releases, go to see them on tour, buy the t-shirt etc etc, are they effectively ’speculating to accumulate’ by taking the hit on the purchase price of the 2004 album in return for a better monetary return in the future.
When Metallica launched their court case on Napster all those years back, I was in their camp. However as legitimate downloads become more commonplace these days, I find myself wondering exactly why the price of a download album is still not significantly lower than that of a solid CD.
I purchased the new Porcupine Tree album from iTunes for £7.99. I could have bought it on the HMV website for £8.99. Only £1.00 of a difference yet I receive no jewel case, no booklet with artwork. Nothing. Furthermore, I can only use the track on a total of 5 PC’s. Now, in principle I agree with this because they need to prevent piracy. The problem is that if you change your operating system (as I recently did) iTunes views this as another PC (even though it’s the same one) and you lose a ‘life’. Lose 5 ‘lives’ and you are buying the music again.
I am more than willing to pay £4 for an album as a legitimate download. I think that would be a fair price. £7.99 is not an acceptable download price for a non-physical product in my opinion.
I will always support bands who give me a huge amount of joy. I always buy direct from Marillion for instance and don’t mind the cost because I get so much enjoyment. For me to have to pay £16 for a Beatles album from the 60’s just because the record stores know that Beatles albums will sell at any price is just not right.
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