CDs artificially too expensive?

A recent lawsuit has been won by consumers against music manufacturers, in which a la The Jerk several million plaintiffs will receive some $10 each. The recording industry jerks have basically been found guilty of price fixing, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. I’ve slowed down on my cd purchases a bit since I got satellite radio, but I’ve been ripped off by those people in the past. Knowingly. I just tire of albums with one or two good tunes, and a bunch of crap, but I guess everyone does so I don’t have a lot to add to this thought right now. Except that the other night Cliff and I decided that if cds cost $5 each we’d buy a helluva lot more of them. And I wouldn’t care too much if they were mostly crap. But seeing as they’re approaching $20 for the sound of the week, I need to execrcise a lot more caution. I’d almost gotten on the settlement bandwagon some months ago, but the email looked kinda spammish and I don’t like leaving that much info on the interweb to spam-looking strangers. Oh, well, I don’t see the recording honchos embracing their paddle-ball anytime soon.