Re: [ARSCLIST] Other memorable record stores

[Mike Richter <mrichter@xxxxxxx>]

Jeffrey Kane wrote:
> What huge record emporia? Tower is bankrupt, Virgin has been closing
> underperforming stores, and the world has moved to downloading content and
> ordering from Amazon. So there's that, and Sam Goody.  Used record stores
> aren't what they used to be either because their best stuff gets put up on
> Ebay. Are we better off? Yes and no. I now have access to music I'd never
> have considering my South Texas locale. Yet, it costs much more than it
> would've had I sought it out on my own.

The argument about increasing cost is questionable at best. Discophile's 
stock was a wonder, but EJS discs there cost fifteen real dollars each 
in the 1960s. Of course, that was a bargain compared with a Caruso 
single-sided 78 at two or three dollars in the teens.

The audio quality of the best transfers comes to you typically at less 
than a dollar a track; in 1965 money, that would be perhaps a dime; in 
1915, a penny or two. The costs of production and replication are so low 
that the only barrier to disseminating those materials widely at even 
lower prices is copyright. Those companies defying copyright (e.g., Gala 
for opera) are proving the point at one-half to one-third the price per 
disc of the majors.

All the usual market forces would ensure that prices were remarkably low 
if not for the absurd extension of copyright to ensure that the 
corporations holding rights to decades-old material maintained their 
monopoly. Since they are remiss in reissues of any but the most popular 
material and unwilling to allow others to do so (with exceptions such as 
Testament), they are destroying the heritage through malign neglect.

Let me cite one instance. In the 1950s, the Metropolitan Opera Record 
Club issued a series of recordings using featured singers and conductors 
who are otherwise almost undocumented. The Met holds the copyright and 
zealously defends it, though I am told on good authority that they not 
only have lost the masters but no longer even have good copies of many 
of the issued LPs. So Kirsten's Tosca, Tucker's Lenski and Mitropoulos's 
(abridged) Walkuere are little more than rumors in terms of legal issues.

Mike
--
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/