Rolling Stones DVD exclusive, and boycott

[PillowRock]

Last night I ran across a newspaper article about the Rolling Stones having signed to give Best Buy the exclusive rights to sell their new Four Flicks DVD set for four months, and the resulting backlash from other retailers.

This link is to a different story with similar content (I couldn't find the same one that I read last night on the net).

Stones boycott story


So, ...
What does anybody think about:

A) These kinds of exclusivity deals. And does it make a difference how long the exclusivity period is? The article that I read last night pointed out that there had been a fair number of previous exclusivity deals, but typically only for a week or two head start. Making the exclusivity period as long as four months, including the entire holiday shopping season, is very unusual.

B) Retailers boycotting the band by pulling all, or most, of their other products off the shelves.

C) What the net effects will be. Will the Stones lose CD sales (implying that a fair amount of those sales would have been to people who picked them up while looking around in a given music store)? Will the boycott be a further boon for Best Buy (implying that a fair number of people who wouldn't have otherwise shopped at Best Buy were going there in effort to find the Stones catalog titles that are now unavailable at some other stores)? A little of both? Something else entirely?

 

[ElScorcho]

I guess I'm torn on this issue. Performers should be able to put out their work in any manner they see fit, but this one smells a little too much like greed. Choosing a single outlet for their product screws their fans who don't live near a Best Buys. And with other stores boycotting them completely, it only makes it worse. Granted, most Stones fans already have the CDs they want because they haven't put out a decent record since Tattoo You. In any case, the other stores are only costing themselves sales.

And if the Stones end up losing money because of this, I don't think it will really make a difference to them. The true winner is Best Buys - they may have done a sleazy thing, but hey it's the American way.

 

[GKarsEye]

The only party hear I could be pissed off at is the Stones because the stores are only about profit, as well they should be. Call me idealistic, but music should be about music first.

But the Stones sold out a very long time ago anyway, so this isn't surprising.

 

[Kribu]

Hmm.. so it's about greed if they make a deal that lets people get the four DVD set for $30 in the US. For the record, it's 2-3 times as much everywhere else in the world, without any exclusive deals (random prices .. £45, 60-70 euros, 95 Australian dollars etc).

It's quite likely that without this decision, the set would be costing a lot more for US fans.

Of course it pisses off a lot of people, and they have the right to be pissed off. Especially owners of other stores, as well as people not living near a Best Buy store and not wanting to buy online. It also pisses off foreign fans who cannot buy it from the US (Best Buy website is US-only) and have to pay the much higher price for it. (Yes, I'm personally pissed off at this .. then again, at least I now had motivation to get a PAL set which should give a better picture on my TV screen anyway. Once it's released, that is. Then again, I'm happy for those many, many US fans who nearly drove themselves into bankruptcy with the ultra-expensive tickets for numerous shows on this tour anyway.)

But with the US being the largest market, if the Stones or their management figured that an exclusive deal with one chain enables them to offer the set to the majority of fans in that market at a *very* reasonable price for a change, then .. ah yes, of course it's greed, and selling out, as they most likely came to an agreement that was profitable for them too.

 

[Nancy]

Its their music, they can do whatever they want with it, even though it pisses me, and many others, off.