Atlantis Alumni

Friday, October 12, 2007

What's Happened With The Recording Industry?

I went into Borders yesterday to buy a Handel CD to listen to and to add to the music library out at the beach. The selection of classical CDs was meager, and most of them were priced extremely low: $5.99, $7.99, etc. I found some nice bargains including a couple of CD featuring Holst as well as the Handel I was looking for. However, I was alarmed at the paltry selection and the low prices. What has happened to the whole idea of purchasing and owning music in some hard format other than digital?

Tower records went out of business recently. A few years ago I would have thought that Tower would never go under. I used to love to browse in their stores and buy CDs from time to time. Recenly, the Recording Industry group, RIAA I think, sued a woman for something like a quarter of a million dollars for sharing copyrighted music on the internet. They won. A rock group recenly announced that you could pay what you want for their music, or not pay at all for it, presumably.

What will be the effect of all of this? I worry about the future availability of music, particularly classical, jazz, and the other less wildly popular types of music. Is the record business caput? If so, what will that mean for artists, orchestras, etc.? Or, is digital somehow going to ride in and save the day?

Jim

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