Retail Therapy

[jducoeur]

[Happy birthday to anu3bis!]

Unlike many of our friends, msmemory and I are pretty fond of shopping as recreation. Not necessarily *buying* stuff, mind -- simple window shopping is often fine for us.

That said, we don't indulge quite as much as we might wish, for a variety of reasons. The bad economy, and my rather uncertain income, mean that we have to keep the outflow under control. Even more, there's the issue of finding space for stuff -- we're trying to keep this house less cluttered than the old one, so we can't buy stuff willy-nilly, because it all has to go somewhere. And frankly, I'm a novelty-focused lifeform: the mall holds little interest for me, because it's all the same boring stores.

Today, however, was an example of Shopping Doom for us, aided and abetted by a good cause.

This weekend, WUMB is raising some money by selling off much of its huge collection of LPs and CDs. I assume that they've transcribed all this stuff to digital format or something, and are selling the physical media. Prices are quite reasonable ($4 per CD, less for LPs), so we decided to go paw through the 15,000 albums they have on display.

We were doing okay for a while -- there were one or two interesting discs and some that seemed worth buying on spec, on the theory that $4 is low enough to experiment a bit. Then I realized that there was a whole 'nother, smaller section. *That* turned out to be where all the folk music was, and our fate was sealed.

Suffice it to say, we went broke saving money. They had dozens of albums from Folk-Legacy Records, lots of Green Linnet and Rounder, and so on -- it took an effort of will to not buy *everything* from Folk-Legacy. We synergized in the worst way: I went through and picked up half the Christine Lavin, and then she went through that section 20 minutes later and picked up the rest. I took the whole collection of Capitol Steps, because silly political music is always welcome. (And nonetheless, we only managed to replace one of the LPs -- the seminal Turning Towards the Morning by Bok, Trickett and Muir.)

It was outrageous even by our standards: we bought something like 2 years' worth of CDs in just under 2 hours. But the money's going to a good cause (I think we spent our way through a lifetime's worth of pledge breaks), we got a *huge* amount of music for the money, and it'll take us six months to listen to it all. I quite look forward to it...

Comments

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

When you've digitized and are ready to recycle let me know. No reason why you can make back some on your investment.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

I assume you know we were at Brandeis with one of the guys from Capitol Steps?

[jducoeur]

No, actually -- I've only really become aware of the group in the past few years, and still don't know them well. (Strange, I know, but it's been a gap in my education...)

[laurion]

Wow. Darn good thing I didn't know about this. I have a fondness for Green Linnet, Capitol Steps is always worth it, and of course asdr83 grew up on a diet of Bok, Trickett, and Muir. (We saw Bok live a few years ago, still doing a nice job)

I imagine as a radio station (a broadcast station, specifically) they can get away with this because they are exempt from paying royalties and licenses, but anyone else should be wary of selling originals after keeping digital copies.

[jducoeur]

and of course asdr83 grew up on a diet of Bok, Trickett, and Muir.

Me, too. I started attending Fox Hollow, one of the seminal folks festivals, when I was 3 years old. My Dad probably owns most of Folk-Legacy's LPs.

I imagine as a radio station (a broadcast station, specifically) they can get away with this because they are exempt from paying royalties and licenses, but anyone else should be wary of selling originals after keeping digital copies.

To be fair, I am merely surmising about what's going on. I assume WUMB is staying in the folk-music business, so I assume that they must have digitized. But that's just guesswork...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

should be wary of selling originals after keeping digital copies.

Err..

How about, "should be wary of keeping digital copies after selling originals". There's an important distinction there. The act of copying doesn't remove any rights of first sale.

[laurion]

True, and very much an important distinction. Not the straight forward logic, chronologically, but functionally a very different argument. (If A then not B vs. If B then not A where A is keeping digital copies and B is selling originals)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me the relief (in the legal sense) also follows from this distinction. The relief ought to be "Destroy the illegal copies", not "garnish the cash from the sale".

I think that's the reason it caught my eye; the latter is approximately what the RIAA is trying to do -- earn money from a (putatively lost) sale, rather than simply deleting some files...

[laurion]

Well, yes, there's no profit in deleting files, and it requires some sort of post-judgement oversight to ensure compliance. When music revenues are down in general (even once you've factored 'lost sales'), the industry would much rather 'let you keep the music' so long as they get their cut of the pie. Once they've been paid off, they don't argue any more, until it is time to collect again. It's a variation on the old RICO protection racket. :D Besides, deleting the files might lose them promotional exposure and fans.

[johno.livejournal.com]

Ummm... Wow!


We'd love access to a stash like that.

Novelty

[metageek.livejournal.com]

And frankly, I'm a novelty-focused lifeform

I think of it as having a neovore in my skull, which needs to be fed regularly.

[serakit.livejournal.com]

*squeal* Folk music! Folk music!

That sounds like such fun. But shopping so often can be...