By Stephanie Peters

Music is available at nearly every student’s fingertips – all it takes is a point-and-click and instantly new music is available. This raises the question, why pay for music when you can download it for free from the internet? In recent years, it has become an ever-growing question as millions of music lovers have joined in the illegal file swapping frenzy and the record industry has watched sales plummet. In an attempt to draw business back to the struggling music retail industry, the world’s largest record company, Universal Music Group, announced last week that beginning Oct. 1, it would implement a 30 percent price cut on compact discs. It is the first price cut the industry has seen since CD’s were introduced in the early 1980s, and it is expected to lower wholesale prices from $12.02 to $9.09. Whether this discount is further passed on to the consumer is a decision to be made at the discretion of each individual retailer. UMG, whose extensive list of artists includes Mya, Shania Twain, Eminem, 50 Cent, Jack Johnson, No Doubt, and Something Corporate, expects retail prices to lower from between $18.98 and $16.98 to $12.98, and even as low as $10, according to Universal Music Group’s official Web site. “We don’t know yet how the announcement will affect our stores. It’s been a shock, and we’re waiting to hear how other record companies will respond,” said one manager of a local Newbury Comics store who asked to remain anonymous. Contributing to the shock, UMG is imposing addition conditions on retailers. Stores must comply in order to be able to carry UMG merchandise. The company, which controls 28 percent of the U.S. music market, is insisting on certain concessions including a percentage of guaranteed shelf space and special promotions for label releases. These demands come on top of a loss of margin retailers will experience as a result of the new, lower prices. The announced price cut, coupled with attempts by the Recording Industry Association (RIAA) in recent months to sue Internet users who share copyrighted music files, serves as proof that the industry is under pressure. Estimates show that worldwide industry revenue has declined steadily since the late 1990s, as have total CD shipments and unit sales. In the last year alone, the industry’s worldwide revenue has declined from $40 billion to $30 billion. “I think they really have to lower prices because that’s the way the trend seems to be going. People aren’t willing to pay the prices they’re charging,” said senior international business and management major Gilan Sabatier. Instead, illegal music sharing services such as Kazaa, Morpheus, and iMesh have become household names, while newly created online music stores have debuted to instant success. Whether or not this unprecedented price cut will revive the music industry, however, remains unseen. According to a recent study conducted by Forrester Research, 20 percent of Americans already download music, with the numbers only expected to rise over the next five years. By the year 2008, 38 percent of all industry sales are expected to come from music downloads. The effect that CD price slashing will have on the music habits of college students, accused of being some of the greatest violators of copyright laws through file-sharing, is also in question. When asked whether UMG’s announcement would prompt them to abandon their downloading ways and return to purchasing CD’s, some Northeastern students said they would be more willing to consider buying CDs if the prices were lowered. “I would be more likely to go out and buy a CD from the store if there was something I really wanted,” said freshman journalism major Karl Mill. “If I liked the CD enough and I wanted to support the band, yeah I would buy it,” said freshman engineering major Christian Ratliff. “And the lower CD prices would help.”