I bought a used compact disc. I'll admit it, I'm guilty.
No, Garth, I didn't pick up your Ropin' the Wind album or your enchanting Christmas compilation. I bought Sonic Youth's Goo for $8.99 at City Lights on June 17, 1991. Why do I remember the exact date? I don't know, maybe it was because I got such a good deal. I don't remember ever leaving the record store thinking, "Wow, I just ripped off the record companies. What a deal!"
Before you start sending donations to the Save Sonic Youth From Poverty Foundation, understand that the record industry is the most bloated enterprise in the United States except for our own government. Sonic Youth's record company, DGC, would probably spend it on limosine service to haul the band to and from its next video shoot.
Record execs and Garth Brooks (Frank Black's evil twin?) are trying to lay a guilt complex on the public and its free-thinking, independent record stores. Brooks comes on that classy television show "Entertainment Tonight," confiding to Mary Hart how he just wants his record label to make a profit, he's looking out for his label's best interest in denouncing used CDs. I thought he was going to cry -- I thought I was going to puke. Instead, I just muted the cowboy.
I think we can all rest easy knowing Brooks and Sonic Youth make enough money to open up their own record stores if they want to. The consumer always pays for the whims of the artists and the corporations that own them.
It should be the other way around, it is the bigwigs up at WEA (made up of Warner Bros. Records, Elektra Records, Alantic Records and others) and Sony who deserve a fat slab of guilt. I urge you to write WEA and Sony and ask them why they list the suggested retail price of CDs at $16.98 and plan to mark them up to $17.98 when they cost about a buck to make.
Music, especially rock 'n' roll, should be affordable to the mass public. With a recession still in bloom, most people I know can only afford to get their rocks off to the used variety. Used CDs are a cheap alternative to people who need quick cash and don't feel like spending corporate prices. Heck, where else can you get three bucks for that Europe disc you bought in the seventh grade?
Contrary to what Brooks and the labels would have you believe, it is legal.
Once a new CD is bought, the royalties are paid to the artist. The CD is then the property of its owner. The owner can do what he wants with it. He or she can sell it back, use it as a coaster, it doesn't matter. Garth having royalty rights on used CDs is like Sears going to the Salvation Army and asking for a cut on its resold products.
It is typical of major labels to bitch about royalties when it concerns them. I don't see record execs complain that Bo Diddley lived in a Florida trailer park during the '80s because he was never compensated for his royalties.
The smartest thing a consumer can do is buy used CDs -- maybe it will drive the inflated price of new CDs down. Until labels stop putting out Trixter and John Tesh albums, there will always be used CDs.
