"Keith G" wrote in message
. ..

"Iain M Churches" wrote in message
...

"Keith G" wrote in message
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From a few feet? You need to be more discerning that that:-)

I am, mine was the real one... ;-)
Thank God foir that:-)

Go to Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Tallinn, Vilna, Moscow,
St Petersburg, you will find nothing but counterfeit CDs in most record
shops. It's a huge multi-million business. In KL, they have one of each
CD on the stand, and then burn you a clone, and colour copy the inlay
card while you wait.

OK. All I can say to that is 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap...'
I am pretty sure if you were on the other side of the fence, and
were the one being cheated, then your outlook would change.

But, it may be that your stance is just to generate a good
discussion. That's fine too. It's working:-)



Very few people can differentiate between a
genuine and counterfeit CD.

I disagree but irrelevant anyway...

Even experts find it extremely difficult. The packaging is usually
flawed in some way - which is a clue.


OK, fine. Note that I don't *know* from personal experience - the only
*certain* bootleg I have is a record I bought from eBay....

eBay is full of them. 5000 offers were "withdrawn" from E.Bay UK last
year. That is probably only the tip of the iceberg. I have bought four
counterfeit CD's in the past year, and one bootleg. In all cases, the
vendor claimed total innocence. One refunded the cost of the
CD (a James Taylor rarity!) and postage, plus a fiver for goodwill.
One could make a profit at buying and returning counterfeits

Sure. No-one inside the MI (including you) wants to consider there may hve
been a better way than *greed*....

The problem is that you must regard the industry as an entity, and not
judge it by the sales of just a few records. There are many recording, like
classical works that are very expensive to make, and have slow sales.
Many recordings, including a huge percentage of pop records don't
reach the break-even figure.


And the way consumerism works is that if summat is too expensive (or
deemed to be overpriced) then it will get ripped off - that's the way of
the world. Your own cited examples demonstrate just how much of a market
there is for 'knock offs'....

People only by these counterfeit CDs because they are so cheap,

Producing records is (presumably) pleasant and easy work

It is indeed pleasant work - but involves very long hours, and much
dedication. You can't knock of at 1700 because there's something
good on 'telly:-))

(nothing to plough, nothing to lift and haul), it's also very rewarding
(while stifling a lot of real talent, I gather).

Many hopeful artists make no money at all, and the record company
meets the loss on poor sales. This is of course counterbalanced by
good sales on other recordings.

Salaries as far as musicians and recording staff are concerned
are appropriate for the level of skills required. It's a lot more
involved than most people think:-)

A very pretty young female journalist, with short skirt and very
sharp pencil, visiting Decca once asked me "How many album
do you record in a day?"

Interesting that the strongest defenders of such an obviously flawed
system in this group are those that are connected and derived financial
benefit from it, isn't it?

Not surprising. That's how we make a living.

I've said it a thousand times - pitch a music CD (*any* music CD) at say
1.99 a go and work back from that in terms of payments/royalties or
whatever and this whole piracy thing would melt away under the heading of
'who can be arsed?' but that wouldn't suit the MI at all would it?

It's like asking the breweries to produce good beer at 1p per pint, or
farmers to sell prime beef at 50p/kilo :-))


Iain