Heheh, lower your prices...it's pretty simple, guys!

Eagle,
I couldn't agree more, most of the stuff is always extremely over priced which is a recipe for piracy.

Another thing is the difference between dates, I wonder why they cannot release products worldwide at the same time instead of releasing it first in Japan or US and then UK six months later, the gap between official release in UK is usually taken advantage of by pirates to carry out their illegal activities.

ÂÂÂ*
I look at it this way...

A CD is priced at, on average, £15. As I don't feel I'm getting value for money, I'll buy maybe one every three months or less.

Now...if they were priced at £4.99 then I'd buy probably between 10 and 20 per month giving them sales of £50-£100pcm instead of £60 per annum.

It's pretty simple math...but they continue with their arrogant heads in the sand.

An you won't believe how much producing a CD is supposed to cost; less than £0.10 , the remaining £14.90 goes to over paid artist, their agents, middlemen and hangers on

Piracy.. hehe.. you should live here in Romania.. here buying an original material Audio CD / Software is something extreme
The prices are too high for music, why should i spend about $20 on an original CD when in 3-4 hours on my lame dial-up connection i can download it from a DC++ hub..
I bought only three original CD's in my entire life
- Eagle Eye Cherry - Save tonight??? (i am not sure about the name, but it's a great album) (1999)
- Goran Bregovici - Black cat white Cat OST (2000)
- 50 Cent - Get Rich Or Die Tryin' (2003)

and i have around 8000 mp3 files on my hard drive and CD's

I would love to buy every new record as soon as it reaches the stores.. but i can't afford that for the moment, so i have to turn to piracy.. that's life.. too bad for them, but trust me. a lot of artist would not have the fame they have now if people could not download mp3 music.. this is a FACT

Your download sins are forgiven my son

thank you Father

I live too in Romania, and I can say that is quite difficult to have an original software/OS/music CD. Due to my work, I need: Windows (now I use 2000), Photoshop, Corel, Dreamwaver, Total Commander, antivirus. If I have to buy all this licenses I have to work a few years I wish to have all this legally, but I cannot afford.
Anyway this is not only in Romania, this problem is a little bit everywhere. I am very curious how much of us use legally software.

Ovi

Ovi,
This problem is not only in Romania, I live in UK and if I have to pay for all the software I need I need to work hard and save for many many many years, though I do not think its right to use pirated software but I think software manufacturers can help people who want to buy legal software by making their software affordable.

Hey but then again, even top software and computing bosses confess to using unlicensed software and downloading "illegal" mp3 file, I read and article once where Apple boss Steve Job confess to download illegal mp3 songs, that was what gave him the inspiration to create iPod and start Apple mp3 download site.
Temi