Virgin Megastore in Paris is closing.

[Scruffydog777]

Just found out something that was apparently announced in march. The Virgin Megastore in Paris is closing (it may already be closed). Of course it was where Alizee had autographed cds for her fans at the release of her last 2 albums.

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/03/a...loses-in-paris



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[Junkmale]

Yep. Virgin is in big trouble worldwide. The retail sector of the company anyway.
The Megastore in Belfast closed last year.
Bit of a shame but internet prices and illegal downloading are killing off the retail sector and it's hard to figure out how to change that?

[Scruffydog777]

It's got to be kind of scary for artists nowadays. You figure if people had enough patience and enough dishonesty, all it would take is for one person to buy a cd of a new album and within a couple of weeks, illegal copies of it could be supplied to everyone who wanted one and I think it could be done in a way that there would be no way to stop it, unless every bit of internet transfered info was filtered somehow.

I think one way of possibly getting around it is by just releasing part of a song, then getting people who wanted it to pledge a buck or something and once enough pledges were received, let's say a million pledges, then the full song would be released. That would work fine for your mainstream artists, but not so fine for your middle of the road artists.

[ALS]

If they really wanted to stop the Piracy they could.

Example: Les Enfoires

The other example is the band Metallica, who is relentless at keeping their music off Torrent sites.

Here is a money maker idea for the right person. Start a company that does nothing but ferret out these pirated downloads and get them taken down with in 48 hours. If you were a band would you be willing to cough up 500 dollars a month to keep your material off public P2P sites? If you're successful I bet these bands and artistes would be beating a path to your door. For an E.U. law firm with a Internet savvy staff of two or three employees they could make some easy Euro's each year just protecting European artists interests.

[Rev]

Originally Posted by ALS

If they really wanted to stop the Piracy they could.

Only by extreme measures.

Obama has already said that he is not going to turn an entire generation of kids into criminals (which he could do by strictly enforcing the law).

The battle is currently lost. Artists simply have to find another way to make money - for example by performing.

One reaction has been to increase ticket prices. As we have seen, this tends to drive the audience away (except for the largest acts - and there is a different financial dynamic operating in those situations). Perhaps lowering prices would be a better method. Then simply have more concerts.