Entertainment For Lively Minds
Buying the Beatles
I recently popped into one of the few remaining Zavvi stores to see if I could take advantage of the last-ditch-attempt-at-survival-25%-off-everything-offer and score myself a few cheap Beatles albums seeing as I own none but really ought to have at least a couple.
But... I came out with nothing (well, bar a copy of Mario Karts for the Wii which, while incredibly good is not relevant here). the reason? The CDs were £17 which, even with discount is still a fair old whack. A brief scan online shows me that you're going to end up paying at least £12 for any Beatles album which, seeing as I have managed to avoid paying more than £8 for ANY album for the last few years kind of sticks in the throat.
So what's going on? And does anyone know where I can get them for less?
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Yes
Go to Amazon.
Below their price it says 'used and new'. Click on that and buy their albums for a fiver.
I buy all my music like this - it means I can buy ten CDs a month instead of four or five.
second hand from amazon
a mate says amazon will no longer sell 2nd hand to australia
god knows why
Wasn't it Apple
who insisted that the Beatles records should never be discounted or included on anthologies? ( Except their own of course ).
I heard that only two artists
have never had their back catalogue released on budget: The Beatles and Pink Floyd. Floyd's albums are as cheap as £5 now in Fopp.
The Beatles' original contract...
... stated that their records were never to be sold at a discount. Apparently if ever you see them cheap (new rather than 2nd hand of course), it's the retailer taking the hit to the profit margin.
Similarly but unrelated, this reminded me that Nick Drake's contract with Island (drafted by Joe Boyd) stated that his records were never to be deleted.
I think it was...
Chris Blackwell who said he'd never delete Nick Drake's albums
As I understand it
It was a condition which Boyd put in the terms and conditions when he sold Witchseason.
Beatles albums are always expensive, wherever you are...
the 'Blue' and 'Red' compilations are selling in my local record shop here in Florence for €30+.
Can you remember when Billy Bragg albums....
....had a sticker on them saying something like "Do not pay more than £5 for this LP."
Billy Bragg
My old copies of those have that printed on the sleeve, just so crafty record shop owners couldn't try to get away with charging more!
As did Crass
who put something similar on everything they did - boxed double album plus poster plus 12" square booklet - yours for a fiver at the time!
"Luxury ..."
As did the Clash...
but then Joe also said "There will be no six quid Clash album... ever" :-)
£17 for a Beatles album???
Well I suppose they are better than all the others.
It's a tax...
...on laggards.
or the young
....
Most of the Beatles...
Cds sound awful, and they're eventually going to be remastered properly, so you're probably better off holding out for those. If you can't wait there are some very excellent sounding reproductions on tinternet!
Quality control
Is there a single completely satisfying Beatles album which doesn't have either a "comic" song (Yellow Submarine, Maxwell's bloody silver hammer) or George being a millionaire rebel (Taxman) or experimental bollocks on it? And you can rule out anything with silly voices ("Allll togethaaaaaah) and brass bands too.
I was very partial to "Hard Day's Night" as a nipper - I remember my Mum buying it!
Sounds like
you should give up on the Fabs and try Oasis.
Why Oasis?
Why Oasis?
Yellow Submarine
Why does everyone have it in for Yellow Submarine? It's a great song, and everyone in the world knows the words. There aren't enough of those around.
Love it because
It's the only song that mentions my real name...surprise, it's not Beany!
Nice to meet you
Mr Manymoreofthem.
Close
But no cigar. Health & safety - bad for you. Have a Yakult instead.
You had me at the "I own none" bit...
...someone organise a whip-round.
The should replace the Big mac
and or marsbar as the gold standard of the cost of living
I've seen them cheap in the US
Picked up several on CD at $10 a piece a couple of years ago back when it was $2 to £1. Places like Borders, Best Buy etc...
Never seen them discounted over here.
I "obtained" them from the internet
and I don't really feel any guilt. Seeing as two of them are dead and the other two have had quite an affluent income the last forty years.
the ultimate moral quandary how rich does some
one have to be before nicking their family silver is "ok"?
Or
how much of the family needs to be dead before you can take your pick of the family silver.
Well,
not much use for cutleries when one is dead, ehy?
Piracy != Theft
Nobody's stealing anyone's anything. At worst they're violating their copyright.
Which has the direct effect of reducing their income...
...by *exactly* the royalty value of the CD you downloaded.
Correct
But it doesn't deprive them of an object, or mean that nobody else can buy it in the same way that stealing a tangible physical item like a CD or DVD would. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's a different thing.
I'm more than a little tired of the "You wouldn't steal a car..." type adverts at the cinema, patronising me after I've paid my bloody money. It's enough to drive you to download the film at home so you don't have to sit through half an hour of crap. It's a distinction that the copyright holders are paying a lot of money to blur...
what if i was never going to buy the album anyway...
..and just downloading it because it was free?
im 41 and never owned a beatles record or CD in my life (even though there are in my blood through radio tv ect)
surely, even though the artist is no better off, how can i have stolen something they'll never have..? but ive now listened to their music and im sure any artist with an ounce of integrity would agree thats the true cause of what set out to do .... cash is just a (very handy) by product that makes lawers, managers and promoters rich of the back of their talent....
tell me im wrong?
Confused
If you were never going to buy it why download it?
its about what its worth to the indiviual
..how much free content have you watched on you tube.. that you've never intended to by the dvd copy?
personally its about time the cash rug was pulled out from underneath the music 'BUSINESS' and the emphasis on money was reduced, its f##ks everything .. even the beatles,
The days of free music and ever more expensive gigs, t-shirts, programmes and refreshments are well and truely on the way.. i can cope with that, being an old fart, as i dont get out much these days anyway....my zimmer get stuck in the mud
You weren't going to buy it...
you were just downloading it because it was free?
How does that differ from saying "I wasn't going to buy a new TV, but I only stole this one because your front door was left open".
Just because something takes no effort to steal, doesn't make it any less theft.
It differs like this
If you walk in and steal the TV, it's gone. Nobody else can watch it but you. What you've actually done is made an atom-perfect replica of the TV, and the owner is none the wiser.
Only if you steal the only copy of a band's master tapes from a studio is it theft. Otherwise it's just copyright infringement, and may or may not be an offence depending on where you live.
thanks archie
..i couldnt have put it better myself
Less income, less alimony...
We're doing the survivors a favour!
Voilating copyright
is taking someones intellectual property and depriving them of financial reward. They will have suffered a loss in the same way as having some tangible property stolen. Your argument is semantically correct. But I think the moral answer is clear (regardless of how loaded or dead the originator of the intangible property is).
Thanks lee
I was going to roll out the tale on the dragons pile of gold how many dabloons do you cheekily sneak with your invisbility cloak on before it's "wrong".....
If it's wrong to "download" Cud's greatest hits it must be much the same for the work "second best drummer in the Beatles".
Fuck me sideways?!?
A Cud reference?! I only just posted a thread about this obscure band half an hour ago!
Also another coincidence this morning (I've been talking about this song yesterday on this website):
"Word" by The Beatles came up on shuffle on my iPod. Amazing coincidence! The song is maybe better than I remembered but it's still nothing great. It is good though.
Cud
They were a typical t-shirt band. Sold many more shirts than records due to a natty logo and some cunning marketing c.f. James
Sadly The Ramones and Motorhead seem to be heading that way for 've kidz' of today
no they weren't see other thread
:-)
You're suggesting that Cud...
DID sell more records than T-shirts??
I'm just suggesting
I'm not valuing the opinion of Cud from a Brinsley Schwartz fan !
It's not opinion... it's a fact (I believe)
that Cud sold more t-shirts than records.
All analogies are dodgy
and the "piracy is theft" one dodgier than most. Copyright holders don't suffer a loss any more than if you'd been browsing in a record shop, seen their product, and opted - as is your constitutional right - not to buy the damn thing: they earn zero pounds either way. The fact that you can listen to the product at your leisure is neither here nor there. Nobody is making any money out of anything.
Here's another analogy. Consider a museum with free entrance on Sundays. If you go on a weekday (=go to a record shop) you pay, or you commit an offence (barrier-jumping = shoplifting). If you go on a Sunday (=download free), you deny the museum (=artist) an opportunity to earn income from you, but it's your choice. Would you have paid to go to the museum on a weekday (=buy the album)? Maybe, maybe not. Should everyone who chooses to go on a Sunday be treated like a criminal because they are "stealing" income from the museum? A resounding no.
I'm not saying downloading is right, but it's neither theft nor depriving anyone of anything - especially if you wouldn't have bought it anyway. I for one would never in a month of Sundays have bought 90% of the stuff I've downloaded for free (I'm in Spain, so I can do it legally).
Like you say archie
analogies are dodgy yours only works if artist choose to give their work away for free(your sunday opening) which isn't the case on this occasion.
and is it really totally legal to download any music , film ,tv programme in spain?
Yes
You can make and keep one copy of anything you like, acquired from any source, provided it's for private, non-profit use. In exchange, we pay a small surcharge on all hardware supports for digital content - blank CDs/DVDs, mp3 players, hard drives and the like.
so is there a record shop left in the land
and do people buy legal downloads
Immoral high ground
Of course, if guilt should ever strike the unlicenced downloader, remember the blogs, like this one, http://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2009/01/duets-two-of-us.html
Technically, of course, this is no less legal, but puts a veneer of respectability on any download, by demonstrating it is purely for this reason :"The purpose of this site is to get people excited about great music. We will only post one song per album and only for a limited time (usually two weeks). If you are the rightsholder and would like a song removed from this site, please send a request to the e-mail address below and we will take it down right away"
Actually, I believe in the principle, but suspect most who read and double click are perhaps not always going to listen and delete, buying if they like. I do buy a lot after perusing the blogs, but not always always, if I am honest.
If I were paid
every month, for the work I did ten years ago, I'd have a lot more sympathy for the copyright laws and the royalties system. But I'm not. So I don't. I think the period for which copyright endures should probably be reduced to five years. I think that's long enough to continue being paid every time somebody buys a copy of one of your works.
Fair point
But the law is designed to encourage people to put effort into creative enterprise. It could be that the time-scales are wrong but for an artist who has sold a little, but regularly, I think 5 years may not be adequate. For every rule there will be someone who benefits greatly (Beatles, Oasis)but the rule is designed to protect artists who sell a little less. And I think that is worthwhile.
I wish I got paid...
...For every line of VBscript I've written - it's a creative enterprise, it's in use every day, it underpins a large UK company's laptop and desktop deployment strategy.
Difficult to hum, though.
But you could be getting paid like that...
...write a product that will sell, find a software publisher, negotiate a royalty and you're sorted
Your current situation is more akin to a musician producing library music on a 'one off payment' basis where the copyright resides with the publisher.
Big Pharma companies.
would swoon with envy at the length of the exclusive exploitation rights enjoyed by musos and record companies. If they're lucky and can offset some of the long periods of time - often decades - spent on R&D before a patent is ready to be registered, they can generally count on no more than 15 years max to milk a product before it becomes generic.
Generally even less than that...
...isn't it? Usually closer to 5 years than 15
Just a small point on big Pharma companies
They have bigger marketing budgets than R&D budgets. Not sure of the point I'm making but the copyright protection does allow them to recuperate the whole cost not just the R&D.
Maybe that's why
Drugs are so expensive that poorer countries can't afford them - as seen in the African AIDS epidemic. If drug companies were allowed a longer period of exclusivity perhaps they could make them available more cheaply. I haven't really thought this through so please don't tear that argument apart. But, if recording artists only had 5 years to make money out of their work, would they price the work higher or make it much more cheaply using, for example, a synthesiser instead of a band or orchestra?
Personally, I don't do illegal downloading but if those who do are making it necessary for people actually to have to perform live to make any money then that is probably a good thing.
Without tearing your argument too much
The only thing that will make a drug company sell drugs more cheaply is competition. If they have the cure for aids, they won't give it away, they are designed to maximise profits. The issue is exclusivity which is a different issue to music.
For example, the cure for aids is only available from 1 company. You have no choice but to buy or suffer. The Beatles CD's are more expensive than you feel is right. You can buy someone else's music.
high prices
I believe it is a clause in the Fab's contract, as renegotiated by Ron Decline or whatever his real name was. Their albums are stipulated as being 'Deluxe price'. The status of the red and blue albums as double discs is also in there somewhere I suspect.
No idea about the mighty Floyd, but then I have seen their albums discounted on occasion. It might just be the fear of Roger Waters composing an opera about seeing one of their CDs at sale price that stops retailers from doing it?
I'll make you a tape
Just send me a C90 - or stick some bits of chewed up paper in the holes on the top of that Bon Jovi casette under your car seat you haven't listened to since 1989.
£6.99
I got Sgt Pepper on CD for £6.99 in a Virgin Megastore about five years ago. I think they also had Abbey Road for that price. It's the only time I've ever seen them in a sale though.
Probe Records in Liverpool
Had a vinyl copy of the White Album for GBP 15.99 back in the mid-90s. A member of staff had attached a note to the cover saying something along the lines of "Don't complain to us, it's just the record lable being greedy bastards!"
You can get them
cheaper than full whack, just not as cheaply as most back catalogue. I picked up a few through eBay for a fiver each and I've seen some (including Red & Blue) for £8 in Tesco. I also bought all three Anthology cd sets for £9 each at a popular Guernsey based DVD site a couple of years ago. Strangely most Beatles stuff seems to have gone back up to full(ish) price lately.
To try and maximise revenue Zavvi are creating a bit of a false sale here by ramping up most of their prices to full price then discounting back down again (the full price of a back catalogue cd is shocking unless it's a "Nice Price" one). Woolies did the same thing before they finally went under - at Christmas I remember seeing a copy of the recent King Kong film on DVD in my local Woolies priced at £20 with a 30% discount on top. The same disc was sat in HMV's sale for £3 at the same time!
I'd hang on until the remasters come out (hopefully) later in the year. Hopefully they'll do a decent and sympathetic job based on how Love and Yellow Submarine Songtrack sound and they may finally do a decent package instead of the rather vanilla discs released 20 years ago. I couldn't be any less excited about the prospect of it being available for downlaod - I just want a decent CD package put together.
Lot of help that was!
Well that's great! Thought I'd take a look to find a discount for Rubber Soul & Magical Mystery Tour, but all that's on here is rants about where you used to get them on the cheap or recommendations for Amazon. I hate online shopping.... Sorry fans I'm just annoyed cause the fabs are so pricey & I wont download or copy them.... That's sacriligious!! Same as Floyd really I suppose.
Sorry for the "rant".
Sorry for the "rant". Still, at least you got Mario Kart, eh - can't find that for toffee round my neck of the woods!