New Online Music Push by EMI

akadruid writes "EMI has signed deals with 20 top European websites to sell its music online. According to Reuters, 'Consumers will be able to make permanent copies of songs and transfer them to recordable CDs, portable music players and their computer hard drives'. This represents a major shift in policy by EMI, who previously went to great lengths to protect their music from copying. Does this mark the beginning of a major change in the music industry?"

Comments

Re:They have no choice...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Did I say anything about piracy? That's not the issue.

That is the issue!!! Have you been living under a rock? The record companies have repeatedly said that the only reason sales are down is because of online piracy. They ignore issues like the economy, the quality of the product, competition from independant acts, etc., etc. Your belief that since sales are down 10%, they'll be out of business in ten years is wrong.

Here you go. So last year they sold 1,000 units (for ease of calculation).
Year 1: They sell 900 units. (1000 - 1000 * .10)
year 2: They sell 810 units. (900 - 900 * .10)
etc.

As you can see, this does not lead to selling no units and therefore in ten years they are still in business. I just wanted to clear this up because this calculation you've decided to do is making so many assumptions that it's worthless as any type of indication. You shouldn't believe that because sales are down 10% worldwide, record companies are forced to do anything about this. It may be that they can continue selling in their current method and that a threshold has been reached where sales will remain the same. There's a lot more to what drives a global industry and both you and the RIAA are making huge assumptions that shouldn't be made. Your assumptions I don't really care about; you can have whatever theories you want. What bothers me is that the RIAA has legislators convinced that it's because of online piracy that the sales are down not mismanagement, a poor economy, or a lack of artists with talent.

Finally, I stand by my desire to see the record companies go broke and artists selling their own music.

Re:They have no choice...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

I think you're overestimating this "force." EMI is not forced into doing this. Sure, dropping sales figures are bad news to deliver to stockholders and the board BUT saying they are forced into this online model is just wrong. There are many other options open to a record company whose sales are declining. They can cut fat from the budget, go after the pirates with lawsuits, sign fewer artists, spend less on promotion, spend more on promotion, etc.

Your original post said that EMI had to change their business method. I believe this is wrong. It is because of the various reasons in the sales drop (which you call irrelevant) that they are not forced to confront an online model. There are many reasons for the sales drop and that is why there are still many options for a company. In short, EMI doesn't go bankrupt if they don't have an online sales system.