This Ebay auction (finishing in 5 days) currently has it valued at 39 Pounds (about $105 Aussie dollars). I bid in this auction up to $100 but I refuse to pay any more for this item. Another auction recently saw it go for over $200 Australian. Wrong wrong wrong!
I posted in the Powderfinger official message forum and started a bit of a discussion on the topic. I called for the CD to be re-released, or at least released in MP3 because I believe paying this much for music is just wrong, no matter how rare. Because I am mostly just after the music....
The two that have replied so far do not want the CD to be rereleased. Why? Because they see their early Powderfinger CDs as an investment. They believe it would not be fair on those that have already paid large amounts for the CDs expecting them to increase in value. They believe re-releasing the CDs would destroy their value.
That, I have to say is an extreamly selfish way of looking at it, and also a little stupid. Is is fair to only allow 1000-1500 of Powderfinger's fans to hear this early music while hundreds of thousands miss out just to keep someones collection worth a bit of money?
In Melbourne the taxi system works by purchasing a taxi license. A Taxi licence these days costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. They cost so much that most taxi drivers work for a large company or rent the licence from investors. Melbourne is in desperate need of more taxis but those who own the licences do not want more taxis because their licence value would go down. I can see their point but they took the risk didn't they?
The other point is that there are two types of collectors (three really, the third being various mixtures of the two). Those who want the physical product (ie. the original CD, vinyl etc.) and those who just want the music. I'm both. I mainly want the music but see the value in a valuable CD/vinyl collection. I own most of the Faith No More releases required to get a copy of all their songs (b-sides included) on an original release. But I don't have all the thousands of different versions of the singles. I don't see any value in having a copy of a CD that I can get the tracks from somewhere else. Some people do see the value in it... especially if the original is very rare.
People still desperately want the original CD copies of Metallica's "Garage Days", even though they rereleased it last year with a ton of other rare B-Sides. The value of the original copies of this has changed a little, but not drasticly, but bootlegs of this product have dropped in value quite a bit.
I'm sure Powderfinger would not want bootleg copies of their original CD being sold but if they let this sort of thing happen for to long, it's sure to happen soon. This goes for their b-sides too.
Technology exists today to release this music on the net for all to hear. If they just want the music to be streamed, they can do that. If they want to 'protect' the music in some random way, they can do that to. This sort of material (rare b-sides, difficult to get releases) are the perfect thing to release in MP3, WMA, whatever format for people to buy on the net. Things you CAN'T GET ANYWHERE ELSE!
If Faith No More released an official CD with all their old b-sides and rarities on it, I'd be ecstatic. My collection would drop a lot in value but I'd be damn happy to get good CD quality copies of the songs I'd previously only been able to get on vinyl. And I'd also be fairly confident my copy of Kerrang with the Sweet Emotion flexi on it would still be worth at least the $60 I paid for it.
Sorry for the rant but this issue really got to me today.