The ethics of the resale

There has been much discussion regarding the sellers, who have no interest in the music, buying music for the purpose of resale at a substantial profit. The common recent example is the sellout of Dave's Pick #10 and the Ebay sales for big mark-ups. This may be repugnant to those of us who love the music and miss the window to purchase it at msrp. But is it immoral, unethcial? I don't see that as being anymore unethical than scalping a ticket to a playoff game, a concert, etc.

 

Supply and demand. If buyers are willing to pay huge prices for certain titles, c'est la vie.

 

The problem is there is a false scarcity created by the price gouging. The price is not being set by the actual demand. The middle man scarfs up the supply and inflates it. He then just waits and sits on the supply until enough suckers bite the bullet. If the Mark up is excessive enough the middle man can sit on the supply indefinitely. It is hugely inefficient. It actually circumvents the Free Market and doesn't allow the supply curve to meet the demand curve without interference.

Is it immoral or unethical, I'm not sure. It is greedy and opportunistic. If you do this, to paraphrase the Big Lewboski, "No you're not immoral, you're just an *ssh*le."

 

Wasn't Dick's Picks 10 released years ago? Is this a reissue? Surprising it's so high in demand.

 

1> Free enterprise.
2> Why they don't they make more if they can sell more?
3> Patience always wins- the price will drop, sometimes lower than retail and there you go. Do you really HAVE to have it today?

 

This has always worked for me.

 

Dick's Pick's 10 was easy to buy years ago. Just need to buy these things when they are released.

 

Dave's Pick, not Dick's. It hasn't come out yet and eBay sellers are already putting ads up asking $100. What appears to be the case is that individuals are taking out subscriptions and selling them on for a tidy profit. *ssholes, as Pete said above.

 

I agree with you 100 percent. Almost every one of us has bought something that later went up in value, would you sell it at less than market value. If you bought front row Stones tickets for 500 dollars and the going rate was 1000 dollars and you could not go would you go ahead and sell at 500 because that was only fair? Will you only sell your used duplicates for what you paid if the market doubled since you bought them. It's somewhat different that buying for the sole reason to resale and I don't like that either but its a fine line and certainly is not the most important thing to spend time worrying about!

 

Buying rare (and somewhat rare) titles online from Amazon is becoming the new $18.00 drop at Blockbuster Music (to quote a popular mid-late 1990's music store), I dropped nearly $20 (with shipping) on a copy of The Church's "Hindsight 1980-1987 disc (mainly because I was jonesing for better sounding copies of "The View" "As You Will" and "Something Special) - but I lucked out and found a copy of Séance (original issue) for 7 bucks at a music store, instead of paying close to 20 from an Amazon seller.

 

This could end up being much worse than the 18 dollar drops that used to empty my wallet at Blockbuster Music, Sam Goody, FYE, etc... especially as my ears aren't too fond of Mp3/iPod audio.

 

I don't see a problem at all, unless I'm the one left out in the cold, of course. I have cd's that I never got around to opening that I purchased at retail and are now worth $500.00. If I sell that cd now for 500 bucks, how is that different than buying it specifically for the purpose of resale and then selling it for 500 bucks? Somehow my motive in purchasing the item matters whether or not my sale of the item for lots of dough is immoral or not? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

buying up ample quantities of supply to reduce the number of available units (thus "jacking up" the price) could be seen as "gaming" the market.

 

There's no issue with reselling music at a higher price, it's legal, moral is a different story. Concert tickets are a different story. Most states have laws against scalping them. Unfortunately they are rarely enforced. I like the fact that some artists are starting to sell tickets that require the buyers ID to use the ticket, preventing resale at a higher price. This is good for the fans, in my opinion.

 

I think there is a difference in buying an lp/cd and market value happens to go up as compared to buying said item with the sole purpose of profiting. The later gets kind of smarmy imo. And somehow sours the spirit of what music is about.

I dont see much wrong with buying two of one lp and decide later to sell it to recoup some of the money spent. I dont really see that as greed. And its a risk. That sealed album may just go down in price.

Just kind of makes me sick when someone buys 10 copies of an artist they really could care less about and squirrel them away until they can stick to someone for a hefty profit.

Its all about intent and motivation imo.

 

I think there is a big difference.

But more importantly what the heck cds do you have that are 500$???

 

Is music inherently different than other commodities? If I think that any product will be worth more some time in the future and I'm willing to take a possible risk and buy a bunch of them in the hopes of profiting in the future, does it matter that it's vinyl, CDs, shoes, sneakers, etc? Do folks that buy the latest hot style by Nike in the hopes of reselling at a profit deserve criticism or moral condemnation? If no, why should music buyers get slammed for the very same behavior? In our society both the sneakers and the music medium are commodities, why the distinction?

 

I understand your position. And I may even be unreasonable in my arguement. Guilty as charged. But there is something close to the heart I guess with music that it especially stinks to me in certain situations.

I probably wouldnt make a good businessman

 

I don't see the big problem here. The Dead could fix the problem overnight simply by increasing the number of copies for sale to a market-clearing point at which all buyers can get a copy. Instead they (at least so far) seem to prefer selling out all available copies immediately, thus transferring the risk of being stuck with unsold merchandise to the resellers.

Also, if the buyers on eBay can't be bothered to buy a subscription when they go on sale in Nov/Dec whose fault is that? At $100 for one volume they would pay on eBay, they could easily afford the subscription cost for all 4 volumes. Even those who don't spring for the subscription because they don't know which shows they will be getting could easily just keep the ones they like and sell off the rest on eBay themselves.

 

It all starts with the Dead and Rhino limiting the number of CDs they offer for sale. Similar to Disney arbitrarily blacking out certain titles to create false scarcity.

I guess folks who want the music will just have to download it. If the system were ethical at the source, the experience would be ethical all the way down the food chain. Just saying.

 

Maybe because Steve doesn't have a Sneaker Forums up yet where we can express our outrage at the blatant price gouging

 

It's not unethical to buy low and sell high. It is the American way. When I saw a nm Tool Aenima original vinyl sitting in Everybody's records for $50 I bought it to resale at $400. That markup put a months with of groceries in my house. I do have a tool album but really could give a flip less about Tool as a band. If someone can find it cheaper they will --especially online. When I was in the record resale business I always had to make a 65-75-/- markup on each to stay running right.

 

It does sound like you're OK with a little profit making, just not whatever you might consider "too much" profit, as you did say it's OK to buy a second copy for resale later to reduce the price of your keeper copy, so it's more a matter of degree. I wish I would have bought 2 copies of everything because just about every cd/box set I've purchased in the last 10 or 15 years is now out of print or was going out of print as I bought it. Shoulda bought 2 sets of Soul Hits of the 70's. As for 500 dollar cd's - got a couple spare Ella DCC's lying around from back in the day and who knows what else?

 

It works both ways. If it wasn't for some guy trying to make a buck for buying LPs for a quarter a piece and selling them for ten bucks, most of the great vinyl we see in the Classifieds, eBay, Discogs, etc. would have ended up in the landfill a long time ago.

 

I was a big Tool fan. My biggest resale regret was when I walked into a PC Richards and saw about 30 copies of Salival sitting there. I thought, "I should buy all of them now and put them away in a box." Instead I bought one copy for myself. What an idiot move as new copies were selling for hundreds of dollars when I checked maybe 4-5 years ago.