Walmart trying to force RIAA to lower CD prices

[Helevitia]

This would be cool if this happened

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041014-4313.html

[KvHagedorn]

They do that to everyone. Nobody has the guts to tell WalMart to go screw themselves apparently.

[MultimediaMan]

We simply viewed the MAP scheme as an illegal price-fixing scheme, and are using a Court decision to make our case.

KvH, you are a strange one; anyone here can search your previous postings where you berate the RIAA for price fixing. Now Wal-Mart is doing something about it and now you berate Wal-Mart.

What is your position?

[Helevitia]

He is referring to the fact that Walmart bullies companies into lowering prices on everything even when it hurts the other comanies bottom line. So I assuming his stance is against both of them.

[Umfriend]

...against the rest of the world....

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by MultimediaMan
We simply viewed the MAP scheme as an illegal price-fixing scheme, and are using a Court decision to make our case.

KvH, you are a strange one; anyone here can search your previous postings where you berate the RIAA for price fixing. Now Wal-Mart is doing something about it and now you berate Wal-Mart.

What is your position?

My position is that Wal-Mart needs to go DOWN or this country will become a nation of serfs.. wait, it's already happening! The RIAA are pricks, but who really cares about them? They are powerless pricks.

There needs to be a law that states that any wholesale vendor of goods MUST sell the same good for the same price to every retail vendor, whether it is a single piece or a billion pieces, whether it's Wal-Mart or the Mom and Pop small business. If politicians REALLY want to help small business, they should enact such a law. Legislators are spineless tools of megacorps though, through lobbying and campaign contributions and every other weasely way imaginable. This weak government will have us all in serfdom before we know it's happening.

We all know your position as apologist for the cancerous company you work for, MMM. I don't care what my vested self-interests are, I would never sell out the country I live in for the sake of them. I don't want to live in the Russia of 1800, thank you very much.

[MultimediaMan]

There needs to be a law that states that any wholesale vendor of goods MUST sell the same good for the same price to every retail vendor, whether it is a single piece or a billion pieces, whether it's Wal-Mart or the Mom and Pop small business. If politicians REALLY want to help small business, they should enact such a law.

It wouldn't matter one iota to WM, KvH, and I think WM would even support such a law. You really don't know what the secret of Wal-Mart's success is, do you?

I'll give you a hint:

"Amateurs talk tactics, dilletantes talk strategy, and professionals talk logistics."

The above quotation is an unattributed statement made in many, many military books, and holds very true for business. Especially for Wal-Mart.

Everytime you open your mouth about big business, you show more ignorance in general.

You gleefully pick and choose only those sources of information that support your (delusional) world-view, rather than dig into the facts from all sources to get a clearer picture of whatever the subject happens to be.

But it's not your fault, per se, KvH, it's just your personality type.

[spadnos]

The trouble is that the RIAA members will still want to get the same amount of profit. What would really suck would be if they started selling to Wal-Mart at a low price, and then jacked up the price to everyone else to make up for the income shortfall.

I wouldnt put it past them.

- Steve

[isochar]

The RIAA are pricks, but who really cares about them? They are powerless pricks.

Powerless?! Their lobbying efforts speak otherwise. Do consider that Sony/BMG, Universal, and co. have a significant amount of wealth to shape the world. In fact, their oligopoly is so powerful that it takes a company of Wal-Mart's size to bring up the *possibility* of talking them down in price.

There needs to be a law that states that any wholesale vendor of goods MUST sell the same good for the same price to every retail vendor, whether it is a single piece or a billion pieces, whether it's Wal-Mart or the Mom and Pop small business. If politicians REALLY want to help small business, they should enact such a law. Legislators are spineless tools of megacorps though, through lobbying and campaign contributions and every other weasely way imaginable. This weak government will have us all in serfdom before we know it's happening.

An ideal isn't necessarily the best thing for the real world. I see quite a few problems with a scenario like this, most importantly that suppliers would be less willing to make differentiated versions of their products. Even if the small stores bought at the same price as the large corporations, there is no guarantee they'd be able to compete on price.

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by MultimediaMan
It wouldn't matter one iota to WM, KvH, and I think WM would even support such a law.

Bullshit. It's you who are delusional. I don't think anyone with any sense would agree with this. We all know what your company does.

WM throws Americans out of work and lowers our average wages on a daily basis. That's not a fair exchange for saving a few cents on some bullshit item they want to drop the price of. They are too big and have too much power, and they use it without any sense of decency whatsoever.

Nothing else you say is anything but an unsubstantiated smear against me personally, so for your blind defense of Wal-Mart, I'll just call you a traitor to your countrymen right now and to your face.

[Jon P. Inghram]

KvH, tell us what you really think, stop holding back.

[MultimediaMan]

Have a nice life KvH.

I suggest you colonize a Kuiper Object before we build a Wal-Mart on it...of course, you do realize that shortly after you build your utopia on the outskirts of the Solar System, it will be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass...

In any case, you call me a traitor to my face and things will get very ugly very fast, my friend.

I see things differently than you, plain and simple. You rant at the world instead of participate in it. And until you do participate, no one, and I mean no one, will take you seriously.

If you really want to change something, especially something you despise or have a major beef with then engage yourself and be a part of the change. It may take years, and you may fail, but you just might end up making a difference.

Things are way different when you walk in the other's shoes.

[leech]

Just to add something here... there IS a reason why Wal-Mart is at the top of the companies who always get sued. I don't know why KvH is saying it's leading the country into serfdom... it's ALREADY THERE! Rich keep getting richer, poor keep getting poorer, and corporations keep getting more powerful, many of them are becoming an entity themselves.

Though I do think it's a good thing that Wal-Mart is trying to get the RIAA to lower it's prices, but if they do so, they'd better lower their prices on CD's for EVERYONE equally.

Leech

[Helevitia]

I'd like to add that I just got back from Walmart and I browsed the entire CD collection(which is actually fairly small and caters to country music) and realized that they don't have crap for a selection. It was absolutely the worst selection I have ever seen. It basically holds the top 40 or something close to it, followed by whatever sold well over the last 30 years. Nothing else.

[DGhost]

And to boot they only (last time I checked, at least) sell radio edited CD's. not a big thing, but it does bother me.

yet, wal-mart still is insanely popular and still does a large amount of business...