Hawkwind MP3's

[Jon Jarrett]

On Mon, 11 Nov 2002, M Holmes wrote:

> Michael Blackman writes:
>
> > True.  It sucks balls.  But where else can anyone get Warrior on the edge of
> > time or ASAM and several others.  Hawkwind certainly wouldn't get any
> > royalties from ebay sales.
>
> In the strict sense that's true. However on deeper analysis it's clear
> that as with cars, part of the sale value of CD's takes account of the
> resale value. Therefore if the band are on a percentage royalty then a
> healthy secondhand market does add to their income. Basic piracy
> obviously doesn't unless it serves to bring new buyers into the process.

        Mike, is this actually true at all? It seems to me that if it were
to be then someone would have to be surveying all second-hand outlets to
have an idea of which artists were selling and which weren't, and I find
it very unlikely that sort of information's available to high-street
retailers, or even that they'd let it affect their prices if it
were. Surely high-street prices are effectively set by the distributors
plus management policy. For example, the HMV in Cambridge recently seems
to have found itself hurt by the fact that a FOPP has opened up three
doors down from the central supermarket. They're doing all right, have
driven one of the two actually-independent record shops in the town out of
business (and, for what it's worth their pricing policy is sufficiently
structured that I doubt this kind of subtlety could be contained in it),
and HMV appears to be suffering. The symptom of this is that they've put
*everything* in the store up to about £15.99, give or take a quid, except
stuff in their now-permanent sale. Now surely what goes into the sale is
going to be based on their supply and what *they* find to be shifting,
not what someone else does.

        I mean, I'd love to think that by picking up stuff second-hand I
was still doing the band some good, but I can't believe the case you make
here. Do set me right if I'm missing something obvious. Yours,
                                                                Jon

ObLP: Golden Earring - _Moontan_
--
"I recognise that I have transgressed many of the precepts of the divine
law, and that I am subjected by various vices and iniquities, disobedient
to the words of the divine mystery brought unto me and a worshipper of the
delights of this military age." Marquis Borrell of Barcelona, 955 A.D.

             (Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College London)