MP3 is not the reason for low sales! Please read!

I already posted this in another newsgroup, but I thought it was kind of important so please read this through and if you have the heart, act as suggested...
The whole thing started with a discussion about posting copyrighted material on Napster that has never been released on CD by the copyright holder. I thought it was Morally right to do so, but probably legally questionable, and here is my last letter in the debate (I added some stuff):

I was kind of hoping for massive support in the morally right question. It IS illegal to make copyrighted work available for the general public. Not only for profit but when the copyright holder loses profit. And that is the whole deal with the pending decision in the courts. Smart lawyers are trying to prove that no one loses any profits,
nor gain any profits. hence it would be legal. It is very hard to say.
But in the case of music that has not been released ever on CD, it could fall in a gray area. The only ones losing profit in sharing that kind of music would be the "used vinyl"-business, but they have nothing to do with the copyright holders. Although if it went very popular on the net, it would probably be released and the whole thing gets even more difficult...
Tricky stuff. Especially when you get into quality issues... A 128 Kb CBR MP3 is not very high quality according to me, But then again, I think CD-quality stinks too... I would rate such a file as worth approximately one twelfth of an original recording. And an original recording is not worth more than one third (MAX) of the suggested retail price. In Sweden the prices of a CD has recently been raised to about 200 Skr. This is widely regarded as an insult to buyers. I say that I would buy 10 times more records at a price of new CD's at 70 Skr and slightly older (3-6 months after release) 60 Skr. And I would be prepared to pay for MP3's if an entire album cost 10 Skr, and 1 Skr per song. This would work I think. Everybody afford what they want, and everybody gets a piece of the Pie. But I think this prospect scares the record companies for at least two but probably several reasons (all making them scared little chickens):
1.a. They don't want the increased logistical problems with increased sales.
1.b. They have a price set to match approximately a constant number of sales of fewer and fewer artists.
2. They don't want to explain how they could justify the old prices if the new ones worked and went successful.

A few times the record companies have tried lowering prices to see if it changed anything. But all times this was on at the most three titles that was very unattractive to say the least (Jeff Lynne's Armchair Theater springs to mind), and they present this as proof that it wouldn't work to lower prices. I say: Don't pay what they want. Tell them What you want to pay them and that they currently loose a lot of sales, not to MP3 but to the high prices of the recordings, AND that you cannot pay a reasonable low price for the quality crippled MP3's, there is simply not a service in place to buy MP3's, and that is why they are
losing. Also tell them that we want and have accepted the free form of MP3's and that we would probably pay a low, low price for that format, but not pay anything for a even more crippled (in use) protected format!

Hmm, This was kind of an effort to write and kind of off topic. But please! Anybody that has the heart in the right place and agrees with me. Pass this on. Quote this letter it in part or in whole or in heart at several appropriate places. It has to be said often and loud to get any end result!


Best regards
Bo Eriksson
ber@donnwell.se (Work)
snake@sdplus.com (private)