Wal-Mart Wants $10 CDs

Biggest U.S. record retailer battles record labels over prices


Wal-mart wants every CD you buy to cost less than ten bucks. And the nation's largest retailer -- which moved a quarter of a trillion dollars' worth of goods last year -- usually gets its way. Suppliers who don't accede to Wal-Mart's "everyday low price" mantra often find their products bounced from the chain's stores, excluded from being sold to the 138 million people who shop at a Wal-Mart store every week.

In the past decade, Wal-Mart has quietly emerged as the nation's biggest record store. Wal-Mart now sells an estimated one out of every five major-label albums. It has so much power, industry insiders say, that what it chooses to stock can basically determine what becomes a hit. "If you don't have a Wal-Mart account, you probably won't have a major pop artist," says one label executive.

Along with other giant retailers such as Best Buy and Target, Wal-Mart willingly loses money selling CDs for less than $10 (they buy most hit CDs from distributors for around $12). These companies use bargain CDs to lure consumers to the store, hoping they might also grab a boombox or a DVD player while checking out the music deals.

Less-expensive CDs are something consumers have been demanding for years. But here's the hitch: Wal-Mart is tired of losing money on cheap CDs. It wants to keep selling them for less than $10 -- $9.72, to be exact -- but it wants the record industry to lower the prices at which it purchases them. Last winter, Wal-Mart asked the industry to supply it with choice albums -- from new releases from alternative rockers the Killers to perennial classics such as Beatles 1 -- at favorable prices. According to music-industry sources, Wal-Mart executives hinted that they could reduce Wal-Mart's CD stock and replace it with more lucrative DVDs and video games.

"This wasn't framed as a gentle negotiation," says one label rep. "It's a line in the sand -- you don't do this, then the threat is this." (Wal-Mart denies these claims.) As a result, all of the major labels agreed to supply some popular albums to Wal-Mart's $9.72 program. "We're in such a competitive world, and you can't reach consumers if you're not in Wal-Mart," admits another label executive.

Tensions are not as high now as they were last winter, but making sure Wal-Mart is happy remains one of the music industry's major priorities. That's because if Wal-Mart cut back on music, industry sales would suffer severely -- though Wal-Mart's shareholders would barely bat an eye. While Wal-Mart represents nearly twenty percent of major-label music sales, music represents only about two percent of Wal-Mart's total sales. "If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them," says another label executive. "This keeps me awake at night."

Wal-Mart would not directly comment on tensions with the labels, but Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president and general merchandise manager in charge of the chain's entertainment section, did allude to the dispute about music prices. "The labels price things based on what they believe they can get -- a pricing philosophy a lot of industries have," he says. "But we like to price things as cheaply as we possibly can, rather than charge as much as we can get. It's a big difference in philosophy, and we try to help other people see that." Virtually no industry executives would publicly comment about their company's relationship with Wal-Mart. But off the record, many record-industry executives shared their concerns. "I don't think there is a music supplier in America who really enjoys doing business with Wal-Mart," says one major-label rep.

No one in the music business ever expected Wal-Mart to become the most powerful force in record retailing. In the past, the business was shared among smaller local and regional chains such as Musicland, which once had an estimated ten percent of the market. But as Wal-Mart and other national discount operations such as Target and Best Buy have grown -- approximately half of all major-label music is sold through these three -- an estimated 1,200 record stores have closed in the past two years, according to market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail. Last February, Tower Records, with ninety-three stores, declared bankruptcy and is now up for sale; Musicland has already changed owners, with many local outposts shuttered.

Wal-Mart is like no traditional record seller. Unlike a typical Tower store, which stocks 60,000 titles, an average Wal-Mart carries about 5,000 CDs. That leaves little room on the shelf for developing artists or independent labels. There's also scant space for catalog albums, which now represent about forty percent of all sales. At a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Thorton, Colorado, for example, there were no copies of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street or Nirvana's Nevermind. While most of the latest hits were priced at $13.88, some records -- from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack to the latest by Yellowcard -- were displayed for $9.72. Says Severson, "Paying fifteen dollars for a piece of music is a difficult value equation for customers."

For the music industry, having such a dominant retailer is like being stuck in a bad marriage. Whereas traditional music retailers took advertising money from the labels to push new releases in Sunday newspaper circulars, Wal-Mart barely advertises locally. It relies on national campaigns, where it promotes its own low-price policy. "Wal-Mart has no long-term care for an individual artist or marketing plan, unlike the specialty stores, which were a real business partner," says one former distribution executive. "At Wal-Mart, we're a commodity and have to fight for shelf space like Colgate fights for shelf space."

In the same way that Wal-Mart made it difficult for local mom-and-pop retailers to compete with its low prices, it has hurt smaller music stores. "When you're buying CDs for twelve dollars and selling them for ten like Wal-Mart, it makes the rest of us look like we're gouging the customer, when we're not," says Don Van Cleave, head of the Coalition for Independent Music Stores, a retail consortium. "It's supertough to compete with that price point." Even online, Wal-Mart sells songs for eighty-eight cents, compared with ninety-nine cents at the market leader, Apple iTunes Music Store.

Getting Wal-Mart excited about carrying a record is at the top of every label's to-do list, but it's harder than it sounds. There is an immense cultural chasm between slick industry executives and Severson's team of three music buyers at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Only one of the three had ever worked in music retailing -- until that person moved to a new division in August and was replaced by someone who previously bought Wal-Mart's salty snacks. (Wal-Mart also relies on buyers at its two distribution companies, Handleman and Anderson Merchandisers, who purchase records as well as stock the Wal-Mart stores.)

"Content-wise, Wal-Mart is limited about what they sell," says one label chieftain. "Wal-Mart is Middle America's shopping headquarters, with different buying habits and consumer tastes than those who live in Manhattan and L.A." When founder Sam Walton christened the first Wal-Mart in 1962, music was never a priority -- it wasn't an everyday, easy-to-stock product like light bulbs, since the Top Ten changed so much. The chain also had specific objections to music. Walton wanted all stores to remain family-friendly, and in the rural South, rock & roll had the potential to turn away many customers. In 1986, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart led one such campaign to ban music from Wal-Mart, saying rock fostered "adultery, alcoholism, drug abuse, necrophilia, bestiality and you name it." Albums and magazines about rock (including Rolling Stone) were temporarily pulled from the Wal-Mart shelves.

Wal-Mart's wariness about music ended once the music industry adopted a voluntary advisory sticker on albums deemed to contain adult language or sexual content. Today, before any new album is released, someone at each label is charged with asking, "Do we have any Wal-Mart issues?" If an advisory sticker is placed on an album, the label will put out a clean version about ninety percent of the time. Since the edited version of a hit record usually averages only about ten percent of a record's total sales, they do it mostly to keep Wal-Mart happy.

Wal-Mart has loosened up a bit, too. Eminem's albums, stickered or not, are not carried by the chain, but it does sell the 8 Mile soundtrack. And it carries an edited version of 50 Cent's debut. Since the labels are so adept at self-policing, though, censorship controversies are now rare. "There have been examples in the past, but it's not a current issue," says Severson.

Wal-Mart has also urged the labels to create exclusive new products that would lower music prices. In a short-lived test, Universal excerpted seven songs from existing albums by acts such as Sum 41 and Ashanti and sold them at Wal-Mart for $7. Few other labels wanted to participate. "They proposed it to a bunch of artists and managers, but everyone was worried that we are sending a message that instead of the sixteen-track album we sold, those nine extra songs were filler," says a label executive.

Some record executives think they can survive Wal-Mart's push. They argue that the hottest acts will always command a premium price. "50 Cent sold 7 million copies," says one rep, "and I guarantee that many of those sold for fifteen, sixteen dollars." And they believe that Wal-Mart will want to carry those hits because they draw customers. "If they can't find a record at Wal-Mart, people will go elsewhere," says one executive. "We should play hardball." But each label is watching the others to see if any make major concessions to Wal-Mart's demands for lower prices. A label that gives in could gain shelf space at the expense of another. "If you lose an account, one of your rivals could get more product in the store and get one up on everyone else," says a major-label rep. "You have to tread cautiously."

The tug of war between the labels and Wal-Mart isn't going away soon. The chain is aggressively opening new stores -- fifty-seven in October -- including some in urban areas. So unless it makes good on its threat to cut back on its music section, it will continue to grow as the top record store and become even more powerful. Laments one industry rep, "There is some impending doom associated with us not helping them."

Price War: Does a CD have to cost $15.99?

Major labels insist that the low prices mass retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy demand are impossible for them to achieve. But Best Buy senior vice president Gary Arnold counters, "The record industry needs to refine their business models, because the consumer is the ultimate arbitrator. And the consumer feels music isn't properly priced." Labels point to roster cuts and layoffs as evidence that they can't sell CDs cheaper.

This breakdown of the cost of a typical major-label release by the independent market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail shows where the money goes for a new album with a list price of $15.99.

$0.17 Musicians' unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists' royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

Whew! So many issues, so little time.
For starters, how about this quote:
"The record industry needs to refine their business models, because the consumer is the ultimate arbitrator. And the consumer feels music isn't properly priced."

I rest my case.

If a DVD can sell for $10, a CD should cost much less!!!! If the major labels can't figure this out, something is seriously wrong in Denmark!!!!

I'm of two minds about this:
1. I cheer Wal-Mart for squeezing the bloated nutsack of the record industry to do what should've been done 15 years ago & get retail prices down.

2. I couldn't care more about Wal-Mart getting cheaper RIAA affiliated CDs, since the boycott is still in effect.

Walmart is pushing $1 DVD sales as point of sale (impulse) buys. If they can do that and get away with it, then I don't see this as being a problem for them. Twenty percent of the music sales is a lot, but if that's true (and I'm inclined to think it is) about how music sales accounts for only 2% of Walmarts totals, then they could pull music completely and not suffer. It's definitely a pull though, since people DO go in for a CD and many times leave with a new player, portable or not.
Nice breakdown of the 15.99. I'm guessing the 2.40 for marketing and promotion and the 2.91 for label overhead are the numbers people are talking about when they mention shipping breakage, cost of manufacturing and.. I don't remember what it's called, maybe the cost of return? Still, looks like everyone BUT the artist pulls in a bunch of money. THere has got to be a way to turn this upside down in favor of the artist.
ttmmm

Ah the twist on the 400-pound gorilla joke. Where does a 400lb gorilla sit?

Where the 600lb gorilla tells him too. No, the Association isn't going to like this too much, huh?

Poor babies.

Yep that is the most important quote...

Isn't it funny though that the industry feels it needs to bow to Walmart... I guess there are always bigger fish, and in this case Walmart is that bigger fish...

what does schmoo say?

Let's see... their numbers are full of CRAP!

$0.80 Retail profit
$3.89 Retail overhead
I thought stores like Wal-mart and Best Buy sell CD's at a LOSS! Clearly these numbers can be removed from the $15.99 price.

1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
Yeah right. First off, if your price is too high (as dictated by YOUR CUSTOMERS-see DemandRelevance above) then you cut your profits to stay in business. In addition, you also find cheaper ways to market and promote your products (funny how the internet would work so well for the record labels, but they continue to spurn it), and cut your overhead (stop buying useless executives drugs, for example. Better yet, fire half of them. I'm quite sure the music industry suffers from too many executives and not enough workers). Giving the labels the benefit of the doubt, I'll only reduce these numbers by half-$3.50.

1.60 Artists' royalties
Yeah right. Since when has the RIAA properly paid ANY artists royalties. And the way contracts are typically written for most artists, it's obvious this figure is HUGELY inflated. I'd reduce it by AT LEAST $1.00

TOTAL INFLATED NUMBERS $9.19

So if you allow some money for the retailer to make a living, the price of CD's could EASILY be reduced by $8.00. So $15.99 less $8.00 means that the price of a CD should come in around $7.99. No wonder Walmart is bitching.

On another note:

"Suppliers who don't accede to Wal-Mart's "everyday low price" mantra often find their products bounced from the chain's stores, excluded from being sold to the 138 million people who shop at a Wal-Mart store every week.

In the past decade, Wal-Mart has quietly emerged as the nation's biggest record store. Wal-Mart now sells an estimated one out of every five major-label albums. "

So why aren't they being prosecuted under the Sherman Anti-Trust act. Seems to me some of their pricing policies that end up putting businesses OUT OF BUSINESS are clearly against this act.

"an estimated 1,200 record stores have closed in the past two years, according to market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail. Last February, Tower Records, with ninety-three stores, declared bankruptcy and is now up for sale; Musicland has already changed owners, with many local outposts shuttered."

Not only should chains like Walmart and Bestbuy be held accountable for this, but so should the RIAA and it's pricing policies.

INeedaLover,

I don't really think that Wal-Mart is the real villain here. In fact, I applaud them for standing up to the big labels.

Yes, it is true that the record stores are being squeezed, and I'm sure that some of those 1,200 store owners may blame Wal-Mart for the fact that they undercut prices, but really all Wal-Mart is doing here is, in effect, selling content at a loss so that they can sell the players of that content for a profit. This is very good for consumers.

The real villains here (if there are any) are the labels for over-pricing their CDs at the wholesale level. If they charged lower prices, then the other record stores could in turn lower their prices and be more competitive. And, since the content selection at Wal-Mart is rather limited, specialty record stores could perhaps profit by selling those albums which cannot be bought at Wal-Mart.

I wonder if the RIAA will try to sue Walmart for selling CD's at lower prices. They would say that pricing the CD's fairly is illegal.

i wouldnt be a bit surprised. these are the same people who sued a 12 year old girl for downloading stuff like the family matters theme

when i saw the headline i had to laugh.

I would love to laud Wal-Mart for it's alleged stand, but it's nothing more than a way to look good in the eyes of the consumer. This is the same company that outsourced numerous jobs, knowingly, to companies that used illegal immigrants. And let's not even get started on how the company feels about unions.

This is a case of which is the lesser of two evils. It doesn't matter because they are both evil.

this is funny. one villian using strong arm muscle against another villian. Like watching King Kong Vs. Godzilla.

Give the customer what they want. Walmart is right on target. Retailers are the ones that services the people. Not the RIAA. RIAA is too top heavy.

I enjoy seeing the market place at work.
Let Walmart fight with the labels to get the big name cds for cheap. I will get my cd's from Amazon.

"It's a line in the sand -- you don't do this, then the threat is this." If it isn't a line in the sand, it should be. I hope Wal-Mart stands firm, even though I've never bought a CD there. Now, if we could just get Apple (don't own one, don't want one) on the bandwagon, there would be some real pressure to lower prices to a fair level.

Let 'em go at each other. I hate Wal*Mart - I never shop there - and I hate the RIAA.

I get my music from DMusic and I get the goods I need at Costco.

:-:~ Phantom

Yep, this vilain batlle is so nice
Its like when i read that Apple dont give a f*** about RIAA cause they have more lawyers lol

Yeah, seeing wall-mart trying to cut prices off is very nice.

The only thing that we, the customers, have to lose in this case, is the diversity of CDs we can purchase. The more and more CDs Wall-Mart sells, the more independant little stores will close. And as mentionned above, a Wall-Mart has 2-3 times less CDs that a music store.
So, more Britney, more Justin..... Scary isnt it?

Bufo...

I agree, Walmart isn't the villan here, I was just making a general observation about Walmart itself.

I agree completely that the real villans are the RIAA labels, with their overpricing policies. It's a shame such policies have contributed to the elimination of many independent and MUSIC ONLY stores. And my point was also that Walmart could afford to price CD's low enough to lose money but lure customers. A MUSIC ONLY store never had that option, and the RIAA labels let them drown. Why? Because they didn't want to deal with them. The RIAA labels would love nothing better than to deal with only a few retailers. They just didn't count on Walmart giving them such a hard time.

After reading this article I don't know whether to laugh or to cry...

Talk about the lesser of two evils...

Dear RIAA,

We here at Wallmart have decided our future course of business with your association. In order for us to maintain business ties with you and offer your product in our stores, you must cease and desist your current litigation tactics against your consumers. Furthermore, you must repay any monies you have accepted from settlements, to the original defendants. A consumer company such as Wallmart will not promote the product of industries and groups who seek to punish the very consumers who make their existence possible. Starting today we will no longer purchase your product for sale on our shelves. We will re-examine your position on litigation in six months, and decide whether or not to stock your product at that time.

Thank You
Wallmart

You can learn it from numerous tactical texts.. or you can learn it from the popular microsoft/bungie game HALO....
The best way to win is to get your enemies to fight amongst themselves.

"You can learn it from numerous tactical texts.. or you can learn it from the popular microsoft/bungie game HALO...."

I see you weren't able to name the "tactical texts", but you were able to name the game "HALO". LOL

here are the costs that can be trimmed to make music cheaper in the digital market.

$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.90 Distribution
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

that adds to 12.60 savings.

subtract from 15.99 and you get:

$3.39 an album, or 33.9 cents a song.

Simple math.

"Ah the twist on the 400-pound gorilla joke. Where does a 400lb gorilla sit?
Where the 600lb gorilla tells him too."

EXACTLY!!! The question is... which is playing the 600 lb gorilla? Personally, I see no difference between the RIAA and WalMart. They both rip people off and suck the life out of everyone they come across.

I have to say that the majors have made this problem for themselves and you can see it in the article above. Here is the reason that music majors are doing so poorly, not because of p2p and piracy. The p2p is just a scapegoat to cover the tracks of those that made bad decisions.

"...an estimated 1,200 record stores have closed in the past two years..."

The majors are so interested in keeping their major retailer that they have let the majority of the record stores suffer by not giving them the same price breaks they gave Walmart. No one in their right mind is going to pay 18 bucks for a cd they can get at Walmart for 9.72; duh. By not keeping the price feild level, the main source of income that came through all these different record stores across the nation, dried up and went under, leaving the labels having to deal with the chains.

"...Unlike a typical Tower store, which stocks 60,000 titles, an average Wal-Mart carries about 5,000 CDs..."

By doing exclusive business deals with Walmart, they limited how much they can put out to the customer. The customer wants choice and good prices. Walmart supplies one, not the other. It is the hope of the majors that if you don't find it at Walmart you will buy it elsewhere. I don't think that is the case. I think that if they don't find it and do find it elsewhere, they will say the price is to high and isn't worth it when they could have something else more popular, cheaper, at Walmart. Through dealing with Walmart they have changed the customers expectations of what music should cost, and it isn't in the 18 dollar range. After all, they have reached 1/5 of the national sales this way. You can't tell me that message didn't reach the customer.

"Paying fifteen dollars for a piece of music is a difficult value equation for customers."

Because of the sweethart deals with the chain outlets (reducing prices of cds) and the tendacy of people like AOL putting out several million cds everytime they have a minor upgrade for free, people no longer see the cd as having as much value as they did when they first came out. You don't see the same things with dvds and movies to the same extent but it is coming. Already, MPAA and BSA are active in trying to shut down what they see as the source of their problems, the p2p issue. The real issue is that prices in major chains reflect the price that customers expect to see everywhere, mom and pop stores incuded.


"...Wal-Mart made it difficult for local mom-and-pop retailers to compete with its low prices, it has hurt smaller music stores. "When you're buying CDs for twelve dollars and selling them for ten like Wal-Mart, it makes the rest of us look like we're gouging the customer, when we're not..."

As was mentioned earlier, the majors are gouging the mom and pops in oblivation by not giving the same deals to them they give to the chains. People won't buy a higher priced product when they can get the same product elsewere cheaper. The apparent value of music has changed in the customers eye and they are not going to pay more, on the whole.


"Labels point to roster cuts and layoffs as evidence that they can't sell CDs cheaper."

Labels have been doing this point to their figures forever. At the same time they hide the accessablility to those same figures that would shoot holes in the very claims they make. They are hiding them for a reason. Should every artist be able to get their hands on those true figures it is likely it could be proved that much of those figures are bogus in one form or another and you would have bankrupt labels on your newspaper headlines. Freeing that same data would also result in seeing that so much of what the majors are using is hogwash.

The cuts and layoffs are a result of shrinking retail markets and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Leflaw wrote: 
"What does Shmoo say?"

Yoo-hoo, Shmoo, where are you?

Walmart may not be the villian in the struggle for cheaper music but they are a villian in other ways. those of us who's worked for them and seen the inside minipulation (not just door greeters and clerks who are happy with their lot) knows better, but that's another site.

Having said that, even with the lower prices we're still talking about the quality of the selection. They sell big name pop artists, not always quality.

Which demon is worse? RIAA or Wally World?

Why would anyone in their right mind buy a CD from Wal-Mart, anyway?

As long as Wal-Mart sells C-E-N-S-O-R-E-D, non- stickered music, most of which is RIAA label music, what is the big deal?

"Friends do not let friends buy music at Wal-Mart"

The Irony:
Wal-Mart will not sell you a CD that has a naughty word on it, but they will sell you a gun, or a DVD like "Dawn of The Dead" where you can watch flesh eating zombies munching on sheep intestines that they pull from their hapless victims.

The Message:
Violence is OK. Saying the F-word is not. Some message. Just another bunch of bible belt hypocrites.

Certain doom for the RIAA....perhaps....It would be nice to see them backed into a corner for once!

i agree karotechia. cussing is one of those darn blasted 1st amendment things. damn those framers of the constitution. sarcasm

karotechia, think a minute about what you're saying. A gun is not immoral. It may be used for immoral purposes, but so can a kitchen knife. It can also be used to protect innocent life. Selling guns is not sending a message that violence is OK. People have a right to protect themselves -- that is not immoral.

And there is nothing immoral about zombies eating sheep guts, either.

I see no inconsistency or hypocrisy in Wal-Mart's policies. They have a right to run a family friendly store. And you have a right to shop elsewhere.

Great thread, as usual, folks.. but don't forget to boycott the RIAA-crack music. As for Wal-Mart, I haven't been in there for a while, either. Fun to read this, just the same; it was, indeed, inevitable..

Since we're on the topic of Wal-Mart and censorship, has anyone attempted to purchase a case of IBC Root Beer (with the glass bottles) and get carded for it? LOL

Also, go in and attempt to purchase a PG-13 movie (for those of you under 17) and see if they'll let you buy it. WONT HAPPEN.... TO Wal-Mart, a PG-13 Movie = R Movie.

*sigh*

RocketGib

autodidact--A kitchen knife does have other uses--does a gun? Maybe tenderizing meat? Words don't kill--guns do. Point your finger at someone, any finger you want, and go "Bang!" Nothing happens. Point knife, and the same thing happens. But point a gun, and pull that trigger, and something does happen. Something that is usually irreversible, and often irrepairable. And exactly what moral thing is a gun used for? Protection? If there were no guns, and we were all reduced to say, baseball bats and kitchen knives, the number of lives lost would still be a lot lower than it is now. No, guns themselves are not intrinsically bad. But they make it a lot easier for bad people to kill others.

I'm not sure if y'all remember it or not, but it was a song about killing someone with a gun bought at Wal-Mart that led to Wal-Mart's current craze with censoring all the music it sells.

And, since we seem to be on the topic of Wal-Mart and their blatant censorship, does anyone find it fair that they won't sell men's magazines such as Maxim and FHM, but will gladly sell you a copy of Cosmopolitan that tells you all about how to have sex and stuff?

I've also heard of a Wal-Mart store that won't let you buy toilet paper if you're under 16 (no joke).

I suggest this. Gather up as many people as you can in your town that you've convinced to actively participate in the boycott and go to your local Wal-Mart and speak directly to the manager. Tell him or her that you are deeply outraged that they sell music from record labels that routinely sue twelve year olds and grandmothers for ridiculous amounts of money. If you say it with enough conviction and if you have enough people with you, the manager may very well choose to stop selling major label product. Believe it or not, but store managers also have a say in what is sold in their stores, regardless of what the Home Office thinks. And if enough stores decide to stop selling RIAA product, then it will eventually become a chain-wide policy, which, in the case of Wal-Mart, means world-wide. Maybe then the war will end and we will come out victorious, unless, of course, they make a deal with Target and start selling the CDs uncensored, un-DRMed and for $6 at Target. But, knowing the RIAA, those last two just ain't gonna happen.

Guns dont' kill people, monkeys with guns kill people.
Sounds ridiculous huh? However it's true.
Selling guns does NOT have the same balance as censoring music. Never has, Never will. Nor does it have anything to do with zombies eating sheep guts. That's quite another topic. Just to set it straight though, yeah, they sell all that stuff, but only with proper id, etc .(license for a gun, picture id for pg-13 or R rated movies). There are safeguards in place, just like any other store.
I've only gotten one cd from Walmart in the past four years, and I work there! My wife bought a copy of a soundtrack, edited of course, and I had to buy her a nice dinner so we could discuss why that was a bad idea. she understood, end of story.
If walmart wants to censor music, let them. I can go somewhere else (and typically do). This however isn't about how far Walmart will go do make a buck, because we all know there are many levels to that.
I really have to wonder (staying on topic sort of) what Bestbuy or Target are saying about this. The are the closest competitors to Walmart in this area, and if they are using cd's as loss leaders, and Walmart gets lower prices from the vendor, then won't Bestbuy or Target want the same treatment? THERE is an anti-trust suit right there if it doesn't happen. I mean, negotiating a price cut for one chain and having another not able to get the same break.. isn't that tantamount to artificially creating a monopoly?
I'm going to watch this very closely in the next few months, since Walmart is currently tied up in half a dozen lawsuits by workers and vendors. It's going to be interesting to see if they give this a lot of attention or just put it on a back burner in favor of other, potentially more damaging and costly litigation.
ttmmm

"I really have to wonder (staying on topic sort of) what Bestbuy or Target are saying about this. The are the closest competitors to Walmart in this area, and if they are using cd's as loss leaders, and Walmart gets lower prices from the vendor, then won't Bestbuy or Target want the same treatment?"
That is the crux of the debate, Remye. Walmart is challenging the wholesale price. This exposes the RIAA. This is good for the consumer and hopefully for the artists.

cds i buy, cant be bought at Walmart.

"Since we're on the topic of Wal-Mart and censorship, has anyone attempted to purchase a case of IBC Root Beer (with the glass bottles) and get carded for it? LOL

Also, go in and attempt to purchase a PG-13 movie (for those of you under 17) and see if they'll let you buy it. WONT HAPPEN.... TO Wal-Mart, a PG-13 Movie = R Movie.

*sigh*
"

they card you at wal-mart for over the counter medication and that compressed air stuff used to clean computers.

BULLSHIT!

Sounds like they have a severe allergy to lawsuits. I bet spray-paint is also on their list.

Still... $10 a CD is too much. Music is getting poor in quality. (I don't listen to...) Rap CDs have 21 tracks. Of those tracks, you have 7 skits, 4 phone messages, and 5 remixes of 5 songs on the CD. What is anyone paying for? The Super Hyper G Dawg Bigg Daddy SuperSonic Bustin out Phat Mix of Look at that Butt and see me smile with the BLING BLING in my grill

And... I agree with the Maxim comment... I see 4,273 ways to please your lover in bed on the covers of Cosmopolitan (isn't that an ice cream?) 2,976 questions to ask your lover to see if they're cheating on you. 761 ways to show off your belly, etc etc etc...

What happened to "We the People..."?

You know what this means!!!!
All music will begin coming from China and India and sold at Wal-Mart. Sourced overseas to musicians in India and China because American and European musicians are no longer competitive. Container ships will be full of music from Asian musicians and land in Long Beach.
Out of work musicians will hit the streets by the thousands, laid off from shuttered music establishments unable to compete with Asian music establishments.
Unable to find work the musicians could be retrained to do other work like being a greeter at Wal-mart.
Our government will say that this is good because it will be a part of fundimental changes in the economy. And in maybe 15-30 years (after the copyrights have expired) when wages of American musicians are on par with Asian musicans we will begin seeing jobs in music again. Until then musicians must retrain for the jobs of the 21st century.

Oh, almost forgot, Michael Moore will make a movie about this and call it "Cary and Me".

Carey On, Carry Forward, Hairy Carey. the list goes on and on
Oh, Carey Me Back to Ol' Virginy
*duck N hide*

Bury Carey would be best.

I'm feeling pretty rough lately, like spoiling to get a chance to play hardball.

ShadowMom:  
"--A kitchen knife does have other uses--does a gun? Maybe tenderizing meat? Words don't kill--guns do".

Right-on! Great argument.

I buy many of my "violent" DVD's from Wally World - I just love the irony - the "Family" store where I can buy the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Children of the Corn" and "Dawn of the Dead". Don't you just love those "Family" values???

Today I bought the Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD at Wally World, and they carded me - Ha! 30-something and they carded me before I could buy a damn DVD!

Obviously I am not anti-Wal-Mart, because I still give them my money for stuff. Just anti-Censorship. And I enjoy finding Corporations (who care for NOTHING more than their bottom-line) who try to appeal to whacked-out special interests just to pull the wool over the customers eyes.

And really, what is the difference between selling an R-rated movie and an R-rated audio CD? Where are the evil-pinched-faced church-going self-righteous hypocrites when it comes to the R-rated DVD's? Do they not want those god-dam*ed evil DVD's removed from the "Family" shopping experience?



And what about Halloween? (really stretching it now...) Why are local communities tolerating the support of a Pagan holiday by Wal-Mart? I saw 4 large isles of chinese made Halloween stuff today - where is the outrage and concern of destroying young minds with all of this Pagan-Occult-Witchcraft-Satanic fantasy stuff? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?



Just stay away from that ** B-L-E-E-P ** music section.

Before someone freaks, the Halloween part of the post above is "sarcasm"...

You've been making some good points.

Shmoo says about the same things everyone else here has said.

WalMart and the RIAA are both evil and independent music can't be found at WalMart anyhow. (But $10 is about the most a CD should ever cost and the bulk of the profit shold go to the true copyright holder.)

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!

Kinda sucks that Wally World only sells edited CDs