What's the Value of a CD?

According to digitalmusicnews.com, Wal Mart will begin offering new release CD's from certain artists at the low low price of $5 or $6. This move could be very informative on the future of the CD.

According to the story, eMusic chief David Pakman was quoted saying " I think this will ahve the most impact on the music industry this year."

David could be right. This could really reveal whether the decline in music sales, in particualr CD's have been price related. If consumers can really get their music at a price they are willing to pay, will they begin to buy more music.

Wal Mart' s power as a retailer of music probably enabled them to negotiate such a wholesale price that would allow them to sell at such a low price. However, they could be testing to see if the CD, in the current form it represents, is even worth the shelf space even more.

Wal Mart might not be the most ideal place for music to be lowered to such a price to test its ability to sell. I think it would be more effective if prices were this low across most major distributors of music to be able to accurately asses the future of the CD as a relevant form of distribution.

I think this low price actually devalues music to a point that will ultimately be harmful to the sale of music.

I fully support CD's and music to be sold at the price of $5 or sub $10, but lets make digital distribution and all of its conviniences an obvious premium product by supporting the drop in price of physical CD's by integrating advertising content.

Advertising content integrated into physical CD's in the form of print ad's on the actual physical CD, audio/video , and interactive ad's integrated into the digital content of the CD. This would enable users to elect to pay a lower price for music by having to endure advertisements on the physical product and during the import process of the CD into the consumer's digital jukebox software.

While the lower price at Wal Mart may increase sales, by not creating a clear value, I think this truly devalues music in an unproductive way. This could be solved by supporting that lower price with ad-supported CD's in major retailers like Wal Mart and Best Buy.