Ashlee Vance at The Register isn't congratulating Universal for cutting CD prices. She says it's about damned time.

...this is the first CD price cut since the media format came on the scene in the 1980's. Think about that for a minute. New format, volumes low, prices high. Ronald Reagan was president. [...]

The labels' [1990s financial] performance was, no doubt, helped by a "promotional program" the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) likes to call price-fixing. [...]

Two decades and four presidents is a long time to wait for a single price cut on what became a mass market good. CD players certainly went down in cost.

She raises a valid point. When DVDs came on the market they were $20 to $30 a piece. Today the most coveted new releases debut at about $14. Universal enjoyed decades of inflated CD prices, even as the cost of production and blank media fell to all time lows.