The Federal Marching Band of Music Regulators

[Coffeeaddict]

Originally Posted by mc1

thank you for your insightful comments, bob. you are a great source of reason of this forum.



i don't think there is much of a paywall, as i could easily read the entire article without paying.

You can often get around it using a Google search.. That still doesn't negate the potential for the content publisher to take legal action should they choose to do so. I deal with such issues at work and make sure we have licenses for each news outlet we use for our content.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by Coffeeaddict

You can often get around it using a Google search.. That still doesn't negate the potential for the content publisher to take legal action should they choose to do so. I deal with such issues at work and make sure we have licenses for each news outlet we use for our content.

wait, so why did you mention the paywall? also, please explain the basis for legal action.

[Glennwillow]

I removed this thread from the forum over concerns about copyright issues, as well as concerns about protecting the AGF from legal problems. However, I have been told that the author also emailed the story to every NAMM member. So based on that, it seems that the article was meant to be shared with the public. Based on that clarification, I am moving this thread back onto the forum.

Thanks,
Glenn

[Ted @ LA Guitar Sales]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Please remember that The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News. Perhaps, this thread should be locked from further postings as it will likely get political.

Note that although the Journal posted the story, it was written for NAMM members by Brian Majeski who writes for Music Trades, which is the premier industry magazine.

Originally Posted by Amite

...Thanks for posting the article to read. I learned some things.

I thought it was important enough to share.

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

I strongly doubt it, and you'd better get used to Chinese guitars, boys and girls; personally, I see the American first-tier/brand-name music industry getting "regulated" right out of existence within a decade or so, by sub rosa agreements and calculated design rather than bureaucratic fallibility. Those that have invested heavily in outsourcing - Gibson (Epiphone), Guild (GAD/Westerly), Peavey, among others - survive; as for the others, well, that's just the way it is...

[Digits_Only]

Rupert Murdoch's WSJ. Big surprise on the slant of the article.

Let's see, $35M in a $6.8B industry (WSJ's numbers)...that's 0.5%. Better alert the Tea Party.

[Ted @ LA Guitar Sales]

Originally Posted by Digits_Only

Rupert Murdoch's WSJ. Big surprise on the slant of the article...

Please note the article was not written by, or for the Wall Street Journal.

[djg]

Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales

Please note the article was not written by, or for the Wall Street Journal.

Precisely. It is published as an opinion piece by someone from an industry trade publication. So the "article" -- the op-ed piece -- was not subject to whatever sort of editorial scrutiny WSJ applies to reportage. Neither was anything like academic peer review applied. This is not to say that any particular line is false, but to question why anybody would take this to provide information on anything other than the author's point of view. It is not news. It is not serious policy research. It is advocacy.

[zabdart]

Originally Posted by zhunter

Oh come on, there is no agenda in that article...is there?

Probably not... as I'm sure there's no agenda involved in some federal bureaucrats enforcing the regulations they're charged with to an extreme, nonsensical degree. It's just human error and it's going to happen. Anyone who lived through Watergate, when individuals were actually being targeted by the government knows it's a lot better now than it was then, but that certain vigilance has to be maintained, or abuses like the ones described in the article are going to happen.

[rogthefrog]

This is inflammatory rhetoric. "Armed FBI agents" suggests it was a special case where agents were going to gun down innocent guitar builders.

FBI agents are always armed. It's part of the job. If an FBI agent comes to my house to ask questions about some ongoing case I'm not involved in, I wouldn't cry about how my house was invaded in an armed FBI raid.

Gibson did do illegal things.

[RustyZombie]

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

This is inflammatory rhetoric. "Armed FBI agents" suggests it was a special case where agents were going to gun down innocent guitar builders.

FBI agents are always armed. It's part of the job. If an FBI agent comes to my house to ask questions about some ongoing case I'm not involved in, I wouldn't cry about how my house was invaded in an armed FBI raid.

Gibson did do illegal things.

I can't blame the FBI for being armed. I hear Henry Juszkiewicz is a pretty scary fellow.

[Ramesses]

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

This is inflammatory rhetoric. "Armed FBI agents" suggests it was a special case where agents were going to gun down innocent guitar builders.

FBI agents are always armed. It's part of the job.

Gibson did do illegal things.

Public servants have never gunned down the innocent....

One can assume that if they come guns drawn to raw milk dairies then they could have easily been drawn in bozeman.

[Fred]

Of course it wasn't written by or for the WSJ, BUT THEY CHOSE TO PRINT IT. 'Nuff said.

[Captaincranky]

Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales

...[ ]...In 2007 the Federal Trade Commission launched a broad and far-fetched price-fixing investigation against instrument and equipment manufacturers. Far-fetched because it is difficult to imagine how makers of such disparate products--microphones, guitars, drums and keyboards--could fix prices. It took two years for the FTC to realize that it had no case, but only after threatening fines, conducting depositions and commandeering terabytes of corporate records....[ ]...

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't "MAP", an outright, bold, in your face, attempt at price fixing. It's intended by manufacturers to level the playing field between authorized dealers. But, a rose, is a a rose, is a rose, is price fixing.

Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales

In 2009 armed FBI agents burst into the Gibson Guitar plant in Nashville, Tenn., seizing pallets of ebony and rosewood. Two years later, agents staged an encore at the Gibson plant in Memphis. Employees were threatened and production was disrupted, but no charges were filed. After three years in limbo, Gibson settled with the Justice Department, paying a $300,000 fine and forfeiting $261,000 of ebony. (The rosewood, a farmed species that has been exported in volume for decades, was returned.)...[ ]....

Well, that fact that the ebony wasn't returned, tacitly says something. but I'm not sure what.

[djg]

Originally Posted by Captaincranky

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't "MAP", an outright, bold, in your face, attempt at price fixing. It's intended by manufacturers to level the playing field between authorized dealers. But, a rose, is a a rose, is a rose, is price fixing.
Well, that fact that the ebony wasn't returned, tacitly says something. but I'm not sure what.

Well, not exactly. Without pretending to evaluate any particular situation, here's the basic take on this type of thing: When competitors get together to negotiate a uniform price at which they'll sell something, that's collusion (and price fixing). When a manufacturer sets conditions on pricing "downstream" in the chain of distribution, that's called retail price maintenance or a "vertical" price restraint. For a long time, antitrust prohibited these kinds of vertical restraints, as well as price fixing. But now there's a fair bit of economic literature suggesting that these types of vertical restraints are not necessarily anticompetitive or anti-consumer. Federal antitrust law has caught up with the idea that this can be a way to support certain kinds of retail support or marketing, with competition between brands doing the heavy competitive lifting. So maybe Company M wants dealers to maintain stock, some knowledgable sales people, a certain sort of display, etc., and they don't want the service oriented dealers losing every sale to a store that has lower costs (and prices) because it's basically just a drop ship center. Because the quality of sales and marketing can be hard to police, they protect the luxury shops with that sort of "level playing field." Competition is provided by by Company T, Company G, Company L, etc. Whether it actually works that way in any particular industry or situation is another question. So federal law now looks at this type of thing under what's called the "rule of reason" -- looking at all the details of particular arrangements and examining their overall effects. Maybe worth a look, but not necessarily (or presumptively) bad.

"MAP" is a weaker form of RPM in that it doesn't fix prices, but the prices at which something can be advertised. Individual shops can still compete on price, even for a given brand, but they are prohibited from having a race to the bottom via posted internet prices.

Two basic wrinkles: first, if a bunch of retail sellers (or distributors) band together to get a manufacturer to impose RPM, that can still be price fixing. Second, the individual states tend to have their own antitrust laws too, and some states still regard RPM as illegal.

[M19]

Folks, it is not an article. It is an opinion piece. On the editorial page.

It is nothing more than opinion, and opinion is by definition, OPINIONATED.