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RIAA Almost Down To Pre-Napster Revenues
...they don't have Napster to kick around anymore.
For yesterday's press release, the RIAA commissioned a survey by a research firm to prove that music-downloading is to blame, but all they tell us about it is that "23 percent of surveyed music consumers say they are not buying more music because they are downloading or copying their music for free." No more details provided, no link to the survey's raw numbers. So what does this mean? I guess 77 percent are buying more music because they're downloading it for free?
To put the new sales figures in perspective, a look at the big picture will be helpful. Free music-trading software had been in serious trouble since mid-2000. Despite indications that music-trading was helping sell CDs, the labels forced Napster to implement a name-blocking scheme. We ran a story in March 2001 pointing out that its traffic had fallen by 60%.
Then SF Gate ran a nice story last August, pointing out that declining RIAA sales seemed to mirror Napster downloads:
"At this point last year, with Napster in full swing, record sales were up 8 percent from the previous year. This year, sales of new albums -- not including established catalog titles -- are down 8 percent. That's quite a pendulum swing."
Sure, other file-trading software has taken Napster's place, but at this point it's fun just to watch the industry limp around after shooting itself in the foot.
Not that it's really hurting money-wise. All this week's numbers mean is that the RIAA's total revenue has declined almost to 1998 levels. In 1998 they made $13.71 billion; after peaking in the mid-$14-billions, last year they made $13.74 billion.
This probably is due party to the crummy economy, partly to their failure to find any new sound to co-opt and mainstream recently, and partly to lack of big artists releasing megahits like they did in 1999. You know music officially sucks when the labels have to pay someone $28million not to sing.
Oh, and partly due to the RIAA raising CD prices by $1.16, which is $0.25 over and above inflation (which has been higher than wage growth lately anyway). CDs are 94% of their revenue. Most industries, faced with declining sales, try lowering their prices. Not this one.
I've got two pieces of advice for the RIAA.
The first is to stop pissing off your own artists so much that they blow off the Grammys and throw their own party just to stick it to you. The musicians and singers are the ones making you rich. I know you think they're all interchangeable, but if you alienate them enough, when a new technology gives them an edge, they'll drop you like yesterday's sound.
The second is to reread Robert Heinlein's very first story Life-Line:
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
It's a hard truth for the recording industry to accept, but as a friend of mine said, "when you're into Napster, you're into music." I have to say I bought a few dozen CDs during the Napster era. I've purchased one since the downfall (and that was a gift). Here's hoping the artists get more joy out of the RIAA than ordinary users like us.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
Make less crap.
I'm not going to buy an $18 dollar CD dammit. I'll buy two $12 dollar ones though. Make less crap, drop the cost of the CD, and I'll buy more. As a finger to the man, I'll just use etree for now (though the RIAA get kickbacks for CD-R sales so I lose either way). I've bought all the CD's of the artists I want to buy for now. Nothing appealing has come out lately.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Where did I read this.....was it /....or maybe cnet?
Anyways...DVD's are at a turning point and there is a split in the ranks of the movie studies about how to handle DVD's inthe future. Extra bonus material is starting to cost way too much becuase actors and directors are starting to have pay for that bonus material getting written into contracts. So that extra 3 hours of behind th scense footage is now going to start costing studios real money to produce becuase the talent knows thats a revenue stream for the studies and they want a fair cut.
Also the licensing deal with BlockBuster is coming up for renewal....and it looks like BlockBuster isnt going to renew. The deal let blockbuster get advanced distribution of movies for rental before they were available for commercial sale...and the studies got a percentage of the rental take. Now it seems both sides of that deal are backing off. The studies think getting titles out quicker for sale is a good idea...and blockbuster is looking at the lower cost of stocking DVD making up for any lost revenue garnished by having a rental only window before full release. Both the studies and BlockBuster think they can make more money by selling cheaper...
More interesting still Warner Bros. is looking very hard at dropping the price of their DVD catalog through the floor...the idea being to get people to buy a DVD like they buy magazines in places like Walmart. Part of the reason is a lessoned learned trying to watching the record studies fight to keep control. If the price is low and reasonable...do people have less incentive still and more incentive to pony up the money....it seem like someone in the movie buz has woken up to the reality of file swapping...its always going to be there, the question is can you encourage people to buy instead of steal. If the DMCA is the stick....are $3 DVD's sitting in the checkout racks of your local Walmart the carrot?
-jef
If I liked it, I would usually go and buy it just to have a nice hard copy of it, even better if it has lyrics and band pics etc. Everyone I know with the money to spare would do the same.
Now that I can never find music anymore, I simply don't buy CDs anymore. I haven't bought a CD in months, and the last one I bought was a Christmas present for my fiancee.
Someone please tell me, just how the fuck am I supposed to find music when I have no interest int he type of music that gets radio play? Even if I was interested in that type of music, most stations play the same 20 songs 10 times every day, for months and months at a time.
Abso-fucking-lutely ri-fucking-diculous!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Pop quiz (pun intended):
How much had did that lady spend on music last year before discovering Kazaa?
If your answer was "zero", explain how the RIAA can have "lost" any money from her non purchases this year.
You know, when the Soviet Union was coming apart from within, and they finally admitted that it was farcical to try and control demand for products, we all nodded smugly and went "Uh huh, but of course". We laughed at the notion that you can decide how many and what color of cheap plastic toothbrushes to make five years in advance, on the basis that people will only demand the shoddy, expensive products that you produce.
Strangely, we blithely ignored the fact that the same model was alive and well in the USA with music. A (de facto) single huge conglomerate decided how many albums we would buy, and the "artists", the content, and the price, all in advance. They expected that demand would match the predetermined supply.
And then we learned the Soviet lesson. Street vendors started selling toothbrushes more cheaply than the state shops. Some of them were even better quality than (gasp) the cheap plastic state approved ones. It was illegal, but they were massively popular. And over here, we started to see guys on the corner giving music away. It was illegal, sure, but it was undeniably popular. We, the People wanted it.
Strangely, the Russians (nee Soviets) adapted. They deregulated. They said to the toothbrush sellers "Go ahead, supply the demand. Come in out of the cold, run the shops, pay taxes. Everybody wins."
We haven't got there yet. We're still at the stage of trying to stamp out street corner trading by making street corners illegal. It's farcical, and it will look increasingly so with hindsight. We need to take a look at the Russian model: if you criminalise demand, all you are doing is spending a lot of time, effort and money into turning a lot of people into criminals. Far better to bring it in out of the cold, ask We, the People what we actually want, and come to a fair compromise.
Please don't respond with the childish "We want free music, so there can't be any compromise.". Russians want free toothbrushes, but they're happy to settle for paying for convenient access to a wider choice of better toothbrushes. Similarly, we want free music, but at the moment, our choice is free music, expensive CD's, or a tiny selection of expensive and crippled digital tracks. Give us the opportunity to buy only the tracks we want, in high quality, without idiotic content control, and without paying for the priveledge of having them marketed to us, and we might find out that we actually still like buying music after all.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Things are very different. My school had to implement and upload/download limit on internet1 traffic whlie they go over the options on how to control this problem. (Most likely they'll be using a packateer...) The problem has been caused due to music/movie etc transfers on morpheous and kazaa. Becasue of our schools privacy policy and unrestrictive content, the school doesn't want to censor or block any incoming material or outgoing. They don't monitor content. Into the first couple weeks of the semester, before the bandwitdh restrictions, the network was soo saturated to the point that i1 traffic was
Hell, if Sorority Sarah can burn the new N'SYNC album on her Compaq, she's not going to buy it.
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?