http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11547279

Interesting viewpoint, and touches on some things mentioned here previously - lower costs *may* reduce piracy, and greater resulting sales would make up for lower price [of the album].

Dare we see brand-spanking new AAA games on Steam for £5? \:o/

In your dreams ;-p

Sure, now that he's no longer benefitting from the high prices he realises it may be a good idea to lower them.

No that I disagree, as long as it's for physical media and not just low-quality compressed downloads.

I wouldn't necessarily expect it to reduce piracy (as we've seen from the "pay what you want" sales people will still pirate media even when it would only cost them a cent); however, I would expect it to increase sales. Of course, there still remains the question of whether it will increase sales enough to make up for the lower prices. Additionally, lower prices would need to be accompanied by the albums being very easy to buy; when something is cheap it can spur impulse buys, but if there's any hassle involved in the process people are just as likely to say "fuck it, this is too much trouble" and just forget about it.

Overall, though, I don't expect lower album prices to be any sort of a game-changer for the music industry- it's ultimately just a question of finding the optimized pricing that gives the highest profits, something the industry should have been doing from the start. I think what actually needs to change is how albums are viewed by the industry. Currently they're viewed as a product, but I think they need to come to be viewed as promotional material. Some free tracks available for download, albums only costing enough to cover the costs of production and distribution, all with the purpose of making people aware of the band so that they can make money off of their live shows. However, currently albums are where the labels make their money (while the artists make the vast majority of their money on live shows and merchandise), so of course there will be major resistance from the likes of RIAA and BPI member labels.

His argument is that selling the albums at such a low price will bring not only more sales but also that the label should look to make money from the live shows and merchandise. So it looks like an ex label guy doing what the major labels do best milk the talent for all it is worth.

The guy's got a pretty good point, the impulse buy is quite popular at the mo', (with the ipod app store and all that).
And with digital distribution, the costs are much less than retail.

However, its not all about making things cheaper.

They need something extra to draw enthusiasts to the hard copy.

Standard copies I'd argue, are fairly pointless, (CDs are fairly useless where MP3 players are the norm, and they don't offer anything extra over a digital copy) but the Collectors edition of some albums, (like Meatloafs "Hang Cool Teddy Bear") offer something that a digital copy wouldn't expect to have, (the album is shaped like a book, has the actual short story the album is based on, AND has an extra disc with some live tracks on it).
It would be nice, like in some DVD releases, if a redeemable code for a digital copy was also included, (with some extras thrown in of course!) to justify a higher price.

either that, or make music vending machines.
(Maybe a service like Build-A-Bear where you can get a music disc compilation custom tailored to your tastes! (XD))

The idea I'm getting at is convenience.
They should make it convenient to get music. (and cheap obviously! XD)
Maybe instead of these rubbish "best of" discs, they should just collect all the tracks of a band (possibly b sides, and live recordings), and just sell them on an online store for like 30 pounds or something, (if it was a long running band like Iron Maiden or something).
(Would love to see a Buckethead discography like that. The Album prices are just so static in the UK, (as they have to be imported, and they are fairly niche, slow selling things))

Implement a loyalty scheme or something, Jeez, the big music companies are such dinosaurs! XD
(The whole world is getting closer and closer to getting online all the time, so take advantage of it, (before someone else does))

Well, there's a difference between reduce and kill. I know it would reduce piracy because there are a lot of people (myself included) who simply aren't inclined to pay the kind of prices being asked for most albums.

Add to that the zero respect that the music industry commands and you've got a prime target for piracy. I know people complain about the games industry, but at least you wouldn't have to completely destroy every major company in the industry just to save it.

The main problem with a big price reduction is that you have to sell far more just to make the same profit...

If the price reduction is form £10 down to £1, then you need to sell 10x the albums to make the same profit. Just not worth it.

Also, depending on the distribution method, you will have to sell more than 10x, because you will have to produce/distribute/provide bandwidth for ten times as much product.

TBH, I'm not really fussed by packaging these days. Digital is a lot more convenient for me.
Saying that, if they start this with the older albums, say 1960s up, rather than starting at the next new release, there's a real shiteload of stuff I'd buy at £1 each, that I won't buy at £6+.

[Assuming it doesn't come with a proprietary player and can be backed up easily. Even iTunes sell MP3 now...]

Fix'd.

I'm tone deaf, so MP3 at better than 192kb/s is good enough for me at the quality/size ratio :P

Besides that, the artists will literally die of hunger; they are already underpaid even with the current prices.

The big part of this idea is the record companies diving in to tour profits. Right now, they generally get zero percent of touring revenue, and they want a piece of the pie that is still reliably making profits.

Of course, touring revenue is one of the few places where the actual artists still make money (I think that for album sales an artist will make something like 10 cents on a $15 album sale). I expect that if the major labels start trying to go after touring revenue then this will put them on a major collision course with the artists, with the result being that even more artists will start moving to indie labels that are willing to settle for a much smaller slice of the profits. I expect there will be plenty of schadenfreude to go around if that comes to pass.