RIAA’s fuzzy CD math

In what’s already become a blog favorite, our dear friends at the RIAA seem to have flunked math and economics when they went to school, basically arguing that we the public should be grateful to the major labels for offering CD’s so cheaply- they say that in fact, CD’s should cost much more than they do now. The problem with that is that actual facts don’t back that up: they’re not fooling anyone and basically, they’re just showing how out of touch they remain with the market. Rather than taking the time here to blow holes into another specious argument from the RIAA, the good folks at Techdirt have done a fine job documenting all the falsehoods there. One interesting thing I notice about the original RIAA article is that it’s from 2003 and if you go to the rest of their “Must Reads” section, nothing is updated after that year- it’s only appropriate since their thinking is always years behind the present-day reality anyway…