Industry Resurrection (bringing CD sales back)

A question recently occurred to me, why does it seem so hard for the Recording Industry to figure out how to bring CD sales back? Back to the good old days, before the “evil” Internet gave away what they were charging an arm and a leg for. Now let’s put aside the fact that most albums are incredibly short and many artists sound like every other competing artist in that genre. Putting aside that I believe that it may be simpler to revive the industry than it appears. I believe that they need to start offering things you can't just simply download in minutes from a torrent site. Here are some examples.

Lets say one out of every Five hundred CD’s you win a shirt or some other type of artist merchandise. One out of every One Thousand CD's wins you an official signed album copy from the artist or a signed poster. One out of every Five Thousand CD's wins you two concert tickets to that artist’s show or tour with the opportunity to meet them after the show. One out of every Ten Thousand can get you a signed guitar or signed album plaque. One out of every Twenty Five Thousand is the prize of winning a trip to meet the artist or being in the artist's video. You could just have a number inside each case, and then you enter it in on that labels website or Store chains website to see if you won.

If you could figure out the logistics of it, you could have the store clerk be alert to the winner after ringing it up, then they could notify the customer that they had won. You could also give away prizes that weren’t tied directly to the artist. The CD store company itself could do this by possibly using the barcodes in a similar way. You could have the customer win Stereo systems, Gift Cards, Headphones, or IPods. If its done legit and marketed right, I think sales would jump back some. I feel it would at least have a huge improvement over what CD sales are today. On another note It may not quickly help less known artists, but I’m sure large national acts would see a huge boost in sales, and by driving people into CD stores again it may help less known local artists.

Granted it may cost more than the CD manufacturing process does now, but they could save money by focusing less on legal fees from suing torrent sites and their users. They could take that time and energy and instead focus more on providing the consumer something they cannot download or receive anywhere else but their local CD store or Online Supplier. I believe it would bring back the days of kids lining up before the store opens waiting for their favorite artist’s new album to drop.