Research: File Traders And Music Purchasing

An anonymous reader writes: "Like a TV preacher taking excerpts from the Bible to support a contrary thought, the results of research can be similarly interpreted in opposite ways. Edison Research just released a pro-record industry report stating '10.1% of 12-17s are actively downloading/not purchasing music.' Richard Menta over at MP3 Newswire noted that this also means 90% of file traders are buying music, a positive result that supports the virtues of trading. Menta then goes through the study's findings one-by-one, questioning Edison Research's conclusions. This includes their recommendation to the industry to fight the 'downloading problem.'"

Comments

Hmm

[PFAK]

We already know this. Alot of times people won't buy the album because its crud, not because they aren't willing to dish out the $$$

I stopped buying them

[Kizzle]

I'm 17 and I don't buy CD's anymore. Instead I download the 2 good songs from the CD. I, like most teenagers work at low paying job so money is tight. I don't want to pay $15 if the artist is only going to see 10 cents of that.

Re:I stopped buying them

[Anonymous Coward]

Another possible option is to download the songs you want, or a whole cd of you so desire... then find the band's contact address and send them a bit of cash.

More than likely the processing charges will be much more than that. Some thing like fairtunes may be better if you are taking this route.

Get it right, damnit!

[hrm]

The statement made in the article isn't what's quoted in the summary,
"10.1% of 12-17s are actively downloading/not purchasing music",
but it's rather
"10.1% of 12-17-year-olds who actively download music from the Internet did not purchase a single CD or cassette in the last 12 months"

The real statement allows the conclusion that 90% of downloaders still buy music media. The one in the slashdot summary, as too often is the case, is plain wrong.

Re:No business model

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

How many bands that have gotten silly, filthy rich produced a good album afterwards?

red hot chili peppers. californication.

dave matthews band. broken stuff.

radiohead. amnesiac.

okay, that's all i can think of for now. but i'll agree there's not many. but i'll posit a different question: how many bands that have gotten silly, filthy rich produced a good album at all? you might find the same list of bands already mentioned here.

Broadband makes a big difference

[Animats]

Take a look at the graphs from the study. Only 14% of dial-up model users downloaded 100 or more songs. But 41% of broadband users did. 73% of broadband users are downloading music.

Next the RIAA will want a tax on broadband connections, I suppose.

I'd buy more but they won't let me...

[sootman]

I used to buy an average of 2-4 CDs per month. Less than 1/4 was new stuff, mostly I was just fulfilling my dream of owning every song I ever liked. So, I bought a lot of Greatest Hits discs, Best of the 80s, etc. However, even before I started downloading music, I was already beginning to slow down, not because I was anywhere close to achieving my goal, but because there was less and less good stuff to buy. I won't buy a $16 80s compilation just to get 2 good songs any more than I'll buy any *new* CD just to get 2 good songs off of it. Then Napster came along and life was great-- I got a lot of good old stuff that was either difficult, impossible, or economically unfeasable to buy. Given the opportunity, I would have *happily* paid $1 for _every_single_song_, assuming it's a)in a common format (like mp3) so I'm not tied to any one player and b) mine to do with as I wish--burn to CD, keep on a file server so I can get at it from anywhere in my house, etc. I would have _preferred_ that to going the Napster route and winding up with bitrates ranging from 64 to 320, badly encoded songs, songs that have a second or two of the previous or next track on the CD, etc etc etc. If they would make it easy for me to get the music I want in a format I want, they could hook an IV to my wallet and drain money out of me at a steady rate for the rest of my life. As long as they don't, fuck'em, I'll download whatever I want. This isn't a rationalization for what I'm doing. Stealing is wrong and that's exactly what I'm doing. But like I said-- fuck'em.

BTW, listen.com and rhapsody is pretty good, but not great. AFAICT, they don't have a way to download portable tracks. In the classical area you can download 10 burnable tracks per month, but that's retarded. 1) give them to me in a format that I can use as *I* want--I'm trying to move *away* from CDs, idiots! 2) why limit me to 10/month? Let me download portable files at $1 apiece and I'll spend at *least* $25/month, right now. Probably more like $50 a month to start, then $10-$20 a few months down the road. Hell, if I didn't spend $20 a *day* for the first week or two, I'd be surprised. Remember when Napster was good and you'd get 50-150 songs in a could hours? I'd do it again in a heartbeat, and happily pay as I went along.

And if they *really* wanted to clean up, they'd ship a copy of "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits" to every new customer.

Bands cannot accept cash for sales

[enota]

As much as I would love to mail some cash to my favorite band, if they are signed with a halfway intelligent label, there will be a clause in the contract forbidding them from being paid for the music they record while under contract unless it comes through the label. They will nullify their contract with the label if they accept it. yeah, it sucks, but on the bright side, you may give them a sign that a record label isn't 100 % neccessary these days. Perhaps all that is needed is a recording studio, a band, and some way for people to hear the music, ie download site, internet radio, etc.

Re:Let's see an up-to-date business model

[namespan]

so what's a model that works?

There are a couple of local artists in Utah that seem to be doin' just fine for themselves. Peter Breinholt is the quintessential example.... he played a ton of shows, built up a following, produced his own records (from $3200 to $10,000 for the recordings), and sold them (at $10-$15 a pop). Since he's sold well over 10,000 copies on each of 4 almbums, he's not doing half bad. Certainly better than the musicians discussed by Steve Albini and Courtney Love. This leaves aside the 1,000-2,000+ seat venues that he consistently packs.

He testified at a field senate hearing a while back. He was pretty pro-P2P .... because he figures it's a high tech version of the same sort of word-of-mouth which won him local fame.

"So far," stated Breinholt, "my music has been a cottage industry. I paid for CDs to be made, found people to distribute them, designed covers, booked concert halls, took out ads in the paper... So I've stayed independant. That's not to say I'm anti-label...there's a lot a label could do to make my music available to more people. And if a fair deal came along, I might do it. I've just never seen a deal that would be fair to both parties." He spent some time delving into math of record deals, comparing his self-produced work (which makes $7-9 per CD sold) with that of a friend who went the label route (and makes $1 per CD sold, after all the record label's costs are covered, and doesn't own the rights to the CD anymore).

"It's a lot of work, but I like doing it. Not only that, but I think I understand my audience, and I get to be protective of them. I like being able to decide ticket prices for shows, who is goign to open for us, what the next CD will sound like, or how aggressively I'm willing to advertise," Breinholt said.

So there's your business model. Play and write like a maniac, keep the rights to your recordings so that when you sell copies, you actually see a couple of bucks.

Incidentally, Breinholt is not the only doing this. recently turned down a $250,000 recording contract because the terms sucked, but they seem to do just fine. Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband have won lots of attention at SXSW, and similarly sell out 1000+ venues on a regular basis, and have a couple of good recordings that people buy (even though they're really a jam band and mostly worth listening to live).

New study: 80% of radio listeners don't buy

[multimed]

A new study done by the Flugenheimer Institute shows that 80% of the listeners of FM radio do not buy music in stores. "These people are clearly being unethical and taking food off the table of starving slav...er artitsts," said Hilarity Red. "By listening to the radio in place of purchasing music, they are endangering the artistic incentives for all of humanity."

steve snyder