Does the record industry owe you $20?
Forget for a moment the hours worth of free music you’ve got idling away on your computer – the senseless collection designed more by your friends and neighbors than your own personal taste. Ignore the bills you’ve already (and temporarily, of course) stashed back into your purse while sampling a new album – you know, giving it some time to “grow.” I agree with you, but let’s pretend for a minute that the companies churning out formless pop – whose sales are seemingly and often equivalent to the amount of skin flashed on the cover – are the only ones in bad form. Hold that, uncomfortable as it may be, and think:
An alleged suit raised by the Attorney Generals of 43 states is calling for widespread compensation for consumers who purchased vinyl, cassettes or CDs from Jan. 1, 1995 through Dec. 22, 2000. It alleges that a combination of five music distributors and three retailers came together and implemented Minimum Advertised Price policies, in violation of state and federal laws. I’ll spare the details in this brief space, should the legitimacy of the outwardly paper-thin case dissolve altogether. However, legit or not, it’s an interesting and relevant question to raise, and I remain struck at how the finer print of the suit becomes a virtual byproduct when stacked next to the eventual – and substantial – outcome the case could play its way into.
Record companies have long taken measures to stiff the consumers they so mightily pander to. In the late 70s, while Tom Petty was busy releasing “You’re Gonna Get It” and “Damn the Torpedoes,” his label proposed a $9.98 street tag for the follow-up, a price that, at the time, cleared the accepted ceiling by a full dollar. Petty swung back, threatened to dub the album $8.98 regardless of price, and the suits relented. It was a minor victory, however, in a front that’s only grown financially stronger and more relentless. Companies tag team with chain outlets to overprice, then “slash” down during sale periods to prices that still clear the top shelf of what an ethical shop would allow.
Which is, of course, common sense. Broken down even just a step further, the numbers do an extraordinary amount of talking. In the late 60s, let’s say, one of the few times rock was taking a breath out of passion rather than for commerce, $20 in any given record store would have allowed you the freedom to take home – a moderate guess here – five to six albums. In that day, there was a credible pool to draw from: The Beatles, a still creative Rolling Stones and The Who, about to the seminal “Tommy.” In 2003, the same $20 will get you a couple bucks back in change – maybe. Double album? Forget it. No wonder we resort to anonymous thievery; a guilty conscience weighs far less at the end of the day – and month – than the debt you go about quietly amassing in the legalized whorehouse that is your local record shop.
Still, that plundering nature isn’t entirely a reason to rally the villagers for a mere 20 spot. True, they should have to cough something up – but I don’t want my hands on it. Do you? If the suit plays out as legitimate (the numbers say no, but again – play along) and sends these record companies digging down some $67,375,000 into their wallets, then we as consumers should not be the ones to bear the hefty payout. Chances are, if you’ve made one of the appropriate purchases to qualify for the payback, there’s more than enough allowance in your budget to let this pass – and probably an equal or greater amount still waiting to be spent. Instead, as the $5 and under proposition in the settlement rightly suggests, why not have all refunds pointed squarely at non-profit agencies or charities, so they can prosper proportionally according to how much dime the corporations cough up?
These are times when bigger things than the music industry are directly hampering our ability to live – and think – freely without fear of both minor and widespread repercussions. A corporate pay out to a network of Save the Music Programs, endowments to art enrichment initiatives or the rehabilitation of worn music venues will breed a more welcome environment for aspiring artists and for the young – always and still the most valuable asset we have in any shift toward future prosperity.
Some consider music in all of its forms a superficial pursuit, but if thoughts can change the world, then music is capable of the same – the best of it, at least, those same thoughts tuned to three chords and the truth. The world is a bigger place than $20 dollar checks falling from the ubiquitous hands of Sony or RCA back into ours. Perhaps it’s naive, but placing more of that green back at the ground level can only help things grow.
Matthew Despres is a Collegian Columnist.
