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Music Biz Predicts 6% Decline in '03
jonerik writes "According to this article from Reuters, music industry executives gathering this weekend for the global music industry conference Midem in southern France are being told that a 6% industry-wide decline in sales is being predicted for 2003; not as bad as last year's 9% decline, but bad enough since '02 and '03 come on top of a five percent dip in 2001 and a 1.4 percent fall in 2000. As a result, talk of consolidation is rampant at the conference, with the most likely scenario being a buyout of EMI by BMG-Bertelsmann. Critics, however, are skeptical that the labels' problems will necessarily be solved by simply bulking up. 'The politics at the major labels hasn't changed. The guy who puts his neck out on the line could get fired. Whereas the guy who keeps his head down is safe, and he gets to keep his BMW for another year,' said Paul Myers, founder of Wippit.com, a subscription download site."
What's 6% of a bazillion, anyways?
Of course in this economy, lots of industries would give their first born for a mere 6% decline.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Is that they are going to reduce the number of published artists by 24% and jack up the prices by 18% and blame the resulting 6% 'loss' on Kazaa.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Actually, I think it has nothing to do with either but is based on the fact that people love listening to themselves talk more. In fact the amount of people who love listening to themselves is projected to rise 6% in 03. Coincidence? :-)
In a completely unrelated story, a 43-year old man was startled today to find out that shooting himself in the foot does, in fact, hurt.
Well, the impending/current loss of profits hasn't stopped them from holding their global conference in the south of france.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
And whatever favorite music didn't get re-released on CDs... well, everyone's got those on MP3.
They have MP3z because the artist's label never re-released it. And nobody else, (including the artists themselves) could re-release the out-of-print stuff due to the Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension, so nobody could have bought it on CD even if they might otherwise have wanted to.
Hey, Hilary! Try this out for a business plan!
1) Don't release any more from the backcatalog, ... ]
2) Act surprised when the backcatalog brings in no more revenue.
3) [
4) Don't profit!
Of course, ACTUAL sales are only supposed to be down 3%, but some of the CDs that they won't sell have more songs than others, so they're it's adjusted to 6% to account for that.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
There is a funny Life In Hell cartoon about that very thing, Akbar and Jeff's Compact Disk Hut. Check it out!
How ya like dat?