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All my classical buying is now via lossless downloads. The new releases cost $12 at sites like Presto Classical. No shipping costs. No damaged cases. No waiting days or weeks... not even hours. I don't know of any classical new release that I've wanted over the last year or two to be unavailable as a lossless download.
Instead of blaming the post office for their rates, maybe we should be blaming the powers-that-be who decree that our soundtracks aren't made available as lossless downloads (or even hi-res downloads) for those who would prefer them and would welcome the big cost saving. If it's the studios who insist the labels can only sell CDs and not provide downloads, that's not the fault of the post office.
I think that's a contractual and royalty issue not covered by the contracts that make the music available to begin with. Not saying it's fair or anything, just a thing. Without those renegotiated royalty rates, none of this would be remotely reasonable.
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Well, we've seen some perspective from the customers. I wonder how the other side is doing: LLL, Intrada, Varese, since they "got into this game". Has the economy curb-stomped their soundtrack business?
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Posted: |
Dec 8, 2019 - 9:33 AM
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By: |
ryanpaquet
(Member)
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When the USA dollar is so high it's hard to buy unless there's a huge sale. I've been sale buying for the past couple of years. I've also been watching eBay like hawk for deals.
I finally just acquired Varese's Club release of Dracula from someone in France. I think it was 33Euro, shipped. Basically saved the cost and hassle of VSD shipping which has been the issue for some.
There's been a few releases I've been able to get via LLL through Amazon.ca - as a number of their releases are being sold by third party sellers here in Canada. The Orville was one album I grabbed this way. As for the others sometimes I will order them when they are about to go OOP as there is not much chance of fining the album cheap after that. I'm still eyeing Intrada's Return to Oz - but have not pulled the trigger on that yet - it's about $60CAD on average for that one album.
A number of things I end up buying years later from those selling on the trading post. I also had some success in selling some items. For example I found a couple LOTR complete albums sealed here in Canada for $50CAD. I sold Two towers for around $350CAD - the profits after paying shipping and eBay fees - I put towards releases I'd be holding off on like LLL's Jurassic Park and a few others.
Lately my new thing is buying from a seller on ebay.ca importcds-ca - they have had a number of items over teh past few months drop down to 95% off and where CDs range anything from $4to$7USD including shipping. My Quartet, Music Box, Kronos and Square Enix Collection is growing - So for the price of one LLL or Intrada album i've instead gotten an abundance of new music elsewhere.
Also a new door has been opened in North America in the form of Suraga-ya.com. If you're a fan of Japanese video game music or anime soundtracks they now ship to North America and I recently ordered a box of stuff from them at incredible prices (Nier Orchestral Arrangement box $40CAD, Zelda Breath of the Wild $40CAD, and some Yoko Kanno albums at a fraction of the cost).
Not being to buy from the usual suspects has allowed me to explore new options to find new music, or items I've long since wanted through other means.
If a holy grail does come out I have no problem paying out the wazoo for it. My holy grails nowadays remain 80's and 90's animation scores - the only one in sight is Ducktales via Intrada - it may not happen, but it might still.
As for things like Fluppy Dogs, Real Ghostbusters or the X-men cartoons - they are pipe dreams.
The rights issues are complicated and a complete mess with contracts missing or hard to obtain. Instead I've just been taking time to reach out to those involved in creating the music to learn more about the process. This past year I've exchanged some messages with composers Deddy Tzur over Facebook, about his work on the Silver Surfer cartoon. Again although Haim Saban and Shuki Levy are credited - they wrote none of the music. I received further confirmation from another composer in recent weeks named Eric Allaman who worked on the music for another of my favorite childhood shows The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! - he confirmed this same practice - and this was back in the mid-80s!
"You are right in your assumptions and what you have learned. The music royalties were buyouts from the composers, which is actually illegal in France and Germany. So they would claim ownership of the music as the composers. I believe they paid $60.00 per minute of music."
It's been a fascinating journey, and I still hope to learn more. In the meantime I'll be spending time enjoying what I already have in my collection. 
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For me it's kind of the opposite. I didn't really have any extra money in my student days, although I still bought the occasional DVD to add my to collection... but only big favourites, as well as the Walt Disney Treasures line that collected all their old animated shorts on disc. Fortunately I didn't buy too many DVDs back then, since blu-rays are far superior and I didn't have many DVDs to upgrade when the transition happened.
I finished school and started working full-time in 2011, and that was the first time I really had any appreciable amount of disposable cash for luxuries (before then I didn't even have a flat-panel HDTV). That was also when I first became aware of the boutique soundtrack labels, and I started by purchasing LLL's Star Trek V as well as FSM's editions of II and III. From there I started picking up the older stuff as well as keeping up with new releases. But I was never of the mind to just indiscriminately buy everything that came out... I prioritized all-time favourite scores, then scores I'd already heard and knew I enjoyed, followed by scores from favourite composers, and then judging the remainder via samples.
I'm also in Canada and subject to the changing exchange rate, although we were fortunate up here in that during most of the "golden age" of complete score releases that took place during the past decade or so, the Canadian dollar was pretty close to parity with the USD. At this point I think I own the vast majority of my favourite scores, so I'm no longer driven to buy as much as I did during my peak years of 2011-2016. There's still some great stuff coming out, but not at such a rate that I'm unable to keep up with it (I usually place an order every 2-3 months). Building my blu-ray collection gets far more attention these days, as the BD and 4K formats are going through their own golden age in terms of A/V remastering quality and obscure releases.
I'm also fortunate in that I'm close to the US border, and rent a private mailbox in the Buffalo area. I tend to drive down there once a month or so to pick stuff up. That way I'm able to pay domestic US shipping rates as well as shop at online stores and eBay sellers that don't ship outside the US.
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