Well it's about time.

"Universal Music Canada slashes prices on CD's out of 'necessity'."

I've been saying this for at least the last few years. You can't expect people to want to shell out $20+ for a CD when they can download the song for free off the net and burn it at the cost of about, oh, $1 max per CD-ROM. Sure, you get the fancy liner notes and the satisfaction of supporting a music label, er, artist, but at the end of the day it comes down to the cost.

"The consumer has spoken to us," said Randy Lennox, CEO of Universal Music Canada. "(The music) has been fairly high-priced and therefore, they have been feeling fairly guilt-free about procuring music for free."

Free beats overpriced merchandise 9 times out of 10 in my book.

It's nice to know that rather than just try to fight it ad nauseum like the RIAA in the States is doing, the Canadian branch of at least one label is recognizing the reality of the internet and music downloading and adjusting their sales plan accordingly rather than just try to legislate people into spending money.

And it looks like the labels are even re-working their contracts with artists so the artists themselves get more money now. That's the thing. I feel that labels are a necessary evil for the most part. I really have no sympathy for them when I know that it's not the artist who is really losing out on money but the labels themselves due to internet downloading.

With this price cut and the fact that Universal is rewriting their contracts to help the artists get more money, I might actually start buying CD's again! $15 as a top retail price and $9.99 for a new artist sounds great. As it stands, I only buy CD's if it's from a band I REALLY like and I can find the CD for $15 or less at Futureshop.