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I have not been able to confirm this but after seeing major releases uch as A.K.A. Pella being delayed (only available for download outside the US presently) and ybc’s acapella amongst others I can only conclude that Sameach has decided to delay their mp3 releases because they were cannibalizing their cd sales. I personally think this is a major step backwards for them and I hope that the other major labels do not follow suit. I am curious to know what other posters here think about this.
I agree jbaldy. I will not give a penny of mine to greedy music producers, who try their best to make an album with only one half-professional musical effort on there, package it up with 10 “songs” that sound like they were recorded using a potato, in order to sell a plastic case filled with another strip of plastic that in essence, might be worth 25c more than the actual music that comes with it.
So, yeh, until they actually let you listen to the songs and pick the ones you like, the quality ain’t gonna get any better, as they know that they’ll be able to throw it all down your throat so you can you listen to their self procalimed “hit song”.
/rant
Then they wonder why people copy.
CD’s have been going extinct for over a decade already. Any of these stores that are trying to juice out whatever they can from the CD business is only going to hurt their reputation. Time for these Judaica stores to refocus, and time for the Jewish music stores to face the reality that the Jewish music monopoly will not last forever.
I, personally have decided a cuople years ago to not buy any song or album that is not available digitally online. If everyone else would join in with me, I think we would see rapid change.
Sameach may not make the music available for download, but sometimes the artist do. YBC Amein is available via YBC’s website:
Living in EY, we don’t get albums as quickly as you do in the states and they often cost a bit more. MP3 version on Mostly Music are always more affordable and many albums are even cheaper on Amazon.com. Music no longer retails for $17 an album in the secular world, and I am not in a position to be spending 70-90 shekel on an album.
This doesn’t mean I pirate, it simply means that I’ve stopped buying new music from the stores until the prices come back down. I will still buy from artists directly, such as at concerts. In EY, most artists sell their albums at significant discounts at concerts.
The music publication field is in bad shape. It is costly to produce a cd. There are huge expenses for the performance of the music and singing, the recording, the arranging, the mixing and mastering, followed by the duplication/packaging and the advertising. Some singers who put out cd’s are investing in their popularity, and the cd is just an expensive business card. Regardless, the costs are quite high, and without charging the $15 or more, there is no way to recoup costs. There is no profit in this industry. So the concerns begin with the financial aspect, and then, of course, whether one wants the music to spread in popularity. For the latter, there is good reason to have mp3 versions sold. Otherwise, doing it that way is a loss.
TLIK: There are plenty of indie bands that are thriving off a combination of digital and physical album sales, concerts, and merchandising. Any Jewish singer worth his salt, can sell plenty of digital and physical albums to recoup costs and take away a small profit, rake in over a hundred thousand dollars from chasunas, and pull in more extra money from concerts and events. Throw in some merchandising (why not?)- because I’m sure people would buy tshirts, stickers and other nonsense with names or faces of Shwekey, Fried or MBD- and they’re raking in much more money than they deserve for the amount of effort that they put into a CD.
If nobody copied music then I’m sure all new albums would have mp3 versions available immediately. The sad reality is that they can’t do this…
42: Shaychos? You can copy it even if there is no mp3 sold – straight off the CD.
YW Moderator-42: Wrong. It has been determined and proven time and again, that the foremost reason that people pirate music is CONVENIENCE. Either they can get it from their friends iPod when comes over. Or you can shlep to the music store to hear a copy of the new CD, buy a copy and bring it home, try converting into their iTunes so they can get it on their iPod, and then that fails because of skipping in the cd and quality issues. Then the CD cracks unfortunately and you have to shlep to buy the cd again or just suffer it out and wait until the friend with the loaded iPod returns.
Or you can offer the consumer an easy, not-as-pricy but much cheaper to distribute digital song, with no expensive physical goods to produce. The user goes online and within minutes has it on their iTunes and iPod.
Should make you think twice before blaming people for being so ruthless when its really just human nature to end up doing the laziest process possible when it hasn’t been 100% accepted amongst the poskim as assur.
If the price is so high that the potential customer would not have bought it at all, Rav Zeff Leff shlita paskens that it is muttar to copy. (Zeh nehne vzeh lo chaser.)
hello99: Exactly. Kinda like how the victim Tnuva got boycotted for no reason last summer. Then, due to financial issues they had to raise their prices to make ends meet. Oh whats that you say? Tnuva was boycotted for price fixing? And the boycott didn’t make them raise their prices rather lower them? So too music producers have always been overcharging, way before the first mp3 player made it big, and people “stealing” music is the equivalent of a boycott.
The producers have been stealing from Jewish victims for so long, who have had no other choice but to buy a highly overpriced package that usually includes only one decent song, as this is one of the only viable forms of Jewish entertainment or relaxation. The original victim in this battle is US, not the music producers, as they are only victims of our tendency of relying on kulos, which were naturally formed after being bullied for so long.
Therefore I proclaim YAY to the producers who stoke the flames even more by charging an even more ridiculous price, and YAY for still not offering digital downloads. With a strategy like that, there would be more success by shooting yourselves in the foot. And one last YAY for the new generation of producers that will have to be different, hopefully sometime in the near future.
derszoger: Zeh nehne vzeh lo chaser is ASSUR, just not obligated to repay.
uneeq, you just proved my point.
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