Having worked in and managed music stores for 24 years, from 1977-2001, the labels had been investigated almost every year since the early 80s for various forms of price fixing.

The really big changes in pricing occured in the mid-90s, when, all of a sudden, there were 17-18-and 19 dollar CDs by  big-name artists. There were price-wars at several retailers, anxious to get the traffic for,say, Pearl Jam, Mariah Carey, U2,etc.

One instance that I know of ; there was a discount chain in the midwest who would run one shipment of a new release CD at an absurdly low price ; $7.99 I believe. (I think it was Pearl Jam's VITOLOGY.) The best price our chain could get from SONY was 13.00 per disc.The folks at our home office had all of the office staff /family/friends bring in their coupons from the newspaper ,  went to this discounter and bought  every piece that they brought in. We then called SONY and cancelled the order that we placed for $13.00 a disc. The minimum pricing was an attempt to keep low-ballers in line.

Ordinarily, the  profit  margin on new releases was extremely low,  forcing most retailers to liquidate their inventories of the more profitable "deep catalogue" titles, when the new releases would only sell on their first week out-of-box. This effectively ended any  selection of an artists earlier work in the bins.

There MUST be a way to make a music-specific environment available,  with better selection, AND a business model that doesn't try to fleece the consumer.

I'm, of course, referring to the music store that I'D shop in.The Big 5's chickens are finally coming home to roost.

As for the retailers, if the skid marks indicate that you were doing 75 in a 35 mph zone, then all the denials of wrongdoing doesn't change the fact that you were doing 75.