$10 Music CDs

This article may be a bit old, but the interesting information at the end shows the break down of a CD's cost:

Total price = $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

Note that the retail store's maximum margin is only 24.3%


In my opinion, CDs are priced much too highly these days. The music labels and artistes are taking an unreasonable cut of the revenue, and there is too much of extravagant marketing. This will be fine if the industry is competitive, but it is pretty much an oligopoly, with the music labels controlling almost everything, including consumer's choice (i.e. they decide which artiste makes it or breaks it)

Whatever it is, I hope I can get cheap CDs in Malaysia in the future :)