Slashdot Mirror
Legal US Music Downloads Beat CD Single Sales
Kelly McNeill writes "I've received a lot of feedback from osViews readers (my site) asking about the music download survey that we've been conducting over the past few weeks, saying that osViews readership must be skewed in one particular direction to get the results we did. The primary reason given is not necessarily the fact that iTunes has significantly surpassed its competitors, but that the results show legal digital downloads surpassing even CD sales. I must admit that even I thought this a was a bit peculiar, but now, according to a BBC World news report, it seems the survey is correct. Digital downloads have surpassed even physical CD sales!" Update: 11/04 23:35 GMT by S : The BBC story refers to CD single sales, so Mr.McNeill maybe not be quite as right as he thinks, sadly.
every content provider is looking to incorporate more and more DRM as the quality, cost, and ease of creation of copies improves.
the music industry doesn't care about people copying songs off the radio. it didn't even really get its panties in a bunch when CD-Rs first hit the market. or when mp3s hit the ftp servers. It went ballistic when anyone could download a single application and instantly find a never ending stream of perceptibility loss-less perfect digital copies.
likewise with the MPAA and DVD encryption, likewise with the new Cable Set-top standard.
They want to cut out MythTV, Tivo, splitters, H-cards, and cable descramblers. It's becoming too easy to get at the current data, so they want a change.
with the analog system working (fairly) well as is, why else would they create a new 'standard' for the digital system? It certainly isn't in the interest of the consumer.
Why doesn't Sony support the Blu-Ray with its stock rewritable feature?
Why did Disney/Circuit City/et al try to push (the bad) Divx onto the market in the first place?
It isn't because consumers are clamoring for less control or cheaper movies.
The time is coming when content producers are going to have to realize that their profits will no longer come from format-updates (repurchasing 8-tracks as CDs, VHS classics as DVDs, etc), and will -not- come from service-style access to data. Classic TV advertising may even have to give way to pure product-placement campaigns.
Cable will realize that a move to pay-per-channel is the way to support content without advertising in our new time-shifted digital reality. Some people -will- pay $1/mo for TLC. Home Depot will still pay for product placements in Trading Spaces. Maybe the Super-station will go away - but the cable companies, and popular channels, need not.
the film industry has already shown that the theatre experience is not losing out to cheap cam copies. they've learned that feature-rich dvds or dirt-cheap dvds are preferred to the customer over hacked-together recompressed copies on filesharing networks.
The record companies will need to realize that to win with digital music requires providing the best quality, with the least hassle. They will need to realize that they must beat file-sharing on features. People will give up hunting around for a good (not mislabeled)256kbps rip of Britney's newest song - if they know they can just hit iTunes or its ilk and cough up $1.
Fair Use needs to win out. These purported 'losses' from file-sharing need to be revealed to be grossly overestimated fabrications. (A PSA from a supposed union set painter claiming that file sharing is killing the movie industry, and threatening his job - airing during it's highest grossing year of all time is particularly tactless)
DRM is the tool of the content dinosaur. If they concentrated on actual content piracy rings - where big money is being made off black-market copies, and abandoned their fruitless DRM research - their profits could be higher than ever.
But such is not the reaction of anti-competitive cabals. Being forced to -compete- is not what they do. Suing, threatening, bullying, bribing - these are the blunt instruments they wield instead of the precise tools of innovation, imagination and competition.
So in the meantime - expect every advance to carry DRM in the fine print.
propz to GNAA
What's the surprise? People with any kind of feel for the pulse of technology have known for a long time that once digital sales of music finally started to not totally suck, they'd catch on.
Maybe now you'll get the picture!
But something tells me you still won't. Always fighting to the end, those RIAA folk. Can anyone say "time for a radical change in our business model?"
I guess album art is really dead? That's too bad as it is an artform in of itself.
...Well no SHIT sherlock!
Of course the number of units sold online is going to surpass the number of physical units sold. You have a higher availability of product, lower cost, and a greater transport for them that the consumer loves.
Of course, I am above saying I told you so to people, so I will avoid that in this case towards the RIAA. However, I would like to rub their noses in it, literally, so if someone could work that out, that'd be great.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
all these downloads yet none (except the indies) are in the worlds most popular music format [mp3]
good news yes , but the industry still doesnt get it yet and is treating the customer with distain and as a thief
they're not talking about all cd sales, just cd singles vs online singles. DUH! hardly anybody buys cd singles anymore. it says nothing about people buying full cds vs online albums.
For the lazy, non-RTFA'ers, this is only compared to CD singles, not CD sales in general. So not that surprizing seeing as how small a market that is and how expensive singles are.
Convenience is really the key for online music stores. Browsing from your home at all hours of day and night, previewing a track - something you may not be able to do where you buy music - the ability to "impulse buy" a song you just heard or remembered, and the instant gratification of having it available only a few moments after you make your decision (unless you are on a slow connection) are big factors. The "what other people purchased" up-sell can be a way to broaden your music library as well.
As the BBC article mentions, it's not a truly fair comparison because it's all tracks sold online vs. only singles. I purchased a number of my tracks as part of an album, and I don't often buy CD singles, either (never, actually). So, it would be nice if we could compare full album sales instead of the unbalance "tracks vs. singles".
Still, it is nice to see online music doing well - IMHO, anyway. DRM, as always, will remain a key issue here.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
So people are buying individual songs off the internet more often than CD singles. That's great, but what about CDs themselves?
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
This report concerns sales of singles only, which, let's be honest, have been plummeting for a good 10-20 years.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
These are singles. I dont know many people who buy singles!
Of course, these reports will be meaningless to the music execs. Instead of acknowledging that the albums with only or two decent songs are on the way out, they'll continue to blame piracy for the decline of CD sales. I recently signed on with iTunes (for Windows) and I'm enjoying it. iTunes has (what I consider to be) reasonable use policies. I'm not about to give up my perfectly working MP3 player so I was wanting a service that will allow me to make MP3s using reasonable steps. Already, I've purchased more music that I have the past couple of years. And get this... they're all songs that I like; none of the filler crap.
Eventually, they'll "get it" and realize that their business model is changing and you'll see more services like iTunes.
Woah guys, this is a bit incorrect. The survey was talking about CD singles, not overall CD sales. The article you posted is a bit misleading.
Also, the most popular CD single still beat the most popular digital single.
StickMan
www.rageagainst.net
I'd buy if it was in .ogg format, but it's not. The problem with these download services is that they're using proprietary formats... like AAC for Apple's, and MS' will definitely use WMA. We should AT LEAST have the option of MP3 if we can't have ogg.
Happy New Year, it's 1984!
The article only talks about sales of singles on CD. This is not really the same thing as surpassing CDs in general, since singles really aren't a very popular way of purchasing music these days.
Not that it's not a big deal, just not as big a deal as the poster says. The big question I would have is, at the current rate of growth, how long until online sales surpass the number of tracks sold on CD in general?
Narrative
From the article:
Some 7.7 million tracks were bought and downloaded since the end of June - compared with four million CD singles sold
When was the last time you even saw CD singles for sale? This is a fairly bad comparison given the fact that the CD single is pretty hard to come by these days.
You cant scratch an Mp3
wud
...because it's clearly written in the BBC article, that it's the CD *singles* sales which have been surpassed by downloads. No one here compares *total* sales. And it's still far ahead when it will happen (meaning, total downloads vs total cd sales), IMHO.
It depends on the disc as to whether it's a waste of money or not. Some artists release otherwise-unreleased songs only onto a CD single. You can get a lot of great & obscure music this way, if you're a big fan of a particular artist.
And sometimes those remixes can be way better than the original. It all depends.
Don't most people buy CD albums? Multiply the sales of CD albums by 10 then you've got some sort of idea as to CD media song sales. The comparison here is ridiculous.
I suppose downloading music is OK for one hit wonders and the latest throw away tune. But if I'm going to buy classic jazz or orchestral music, I want it guaranteed to last my lifetime. Downloading has its place but it will never replace hard copy CDs for me.
Maybe next time the music industry will listen instead of sitting on their thumbs.
I do agree with the article, that this comparison can't be made well. I have never purchased a CD single, and don't know of many people that ever did. If CD singles were available for $.99, I would think that they would sell better.
the article says that legit Music file purchases exceded CD single sales. Who the heck buys CD singles? Stupid comparison. Next week: "Sale of Linux Distos on CDs excede sale of MS Word (single app, not Office)! Linux is winning!"
A saw an article a while ago that noted sales of online porn (mostly through adult websites) surpassed that of porn sold through traditional venues (e.g. adult video & books sellers). And that was a few years ago. The porn industry adapted to the new technology seemlessly, while making more money than ever.
Regardless of your opinions of the porn industry (which often does things as shady as the RIAA), at least they know an opportunity when they see it. The RIAA refuses to get a new business model, unless you consider suing your customers into a submission a business model.
Almost everyone I know uses online sources such as iTunes (myself included) because it's the only way to get one song you like. No wonder more people are using it than buying CD singles, which are not only hard to find, but cost up to $5 for that same one or two songs. However, the same group of people wants an album, we're much more likely to buy it in the store to get the actual disc and the notes. I don't really think that will change unless CD singles get much cheaper and easier to find, or iTunes/Napster/whatever you use gets significantly cheaper to make buying an album but not getting the disc, case, and notes actually worth the cost.
... would have made if this service was out in 1999.
Granted, legal digital music has been successful, but how many people out there still hate the RIAA?
To all of those who have called music downloaders thieves, all I can say is I told you so. People are basically honest, and they're willing to pay for good service.
"Derp de derp."
Singles are not anywhere near as popular as regular CDs as you only get a few songs and the price isn't that much lower. You only buy singles when a group only has one good new song, and even then it's kind of grudging to pay $5-$10 for a single song.
In addition, these two numbers shouldn't even be compared. Single digital tracks are far cheaper than single CDs, and have less content as well (most singles have more than one song).
Even when more digital tracks are sold than ALL CDs put together, it still doesn't mean anything, because those people are buying 10-15 songs vs. one song. To actually beat CD sales, digital downloads must be ~10 times greater than individual CDs sold.
-Dan
For years the public has been screaming at the ignorance of the record industry who forces us to buy music we dont like to get one or two songs we do like. I am a proponent of online music sales and maybe now that this in in place I will once again spend my money on music instead of replaying all those old 80's CDs and casettes :)
Me gonna go write me open source software and grow long beard and smokum some weedus and ummmm hide from people
Pay for music? We can't have that because the lables are evil and artists should be giving us their works for free!
"Some 7.7 million tracks were bought and downloaded since the end of June - compared with four million CD singles sold, Billboard magazine reported. " Unless my memory fails me, the whole "online music store" idea was first put into large-scale work with Apple's release in April... and that was only for Macs! It's amazing to think of how far it's come in only 8 months, especially given that the PC versions haven't even been out anything close to that! It sort of lends validity to the idea that a digital distribution system -- even a legal one -- was desperately needed... rerhaps even before the RIAA even began all it's legal mumbo-jumbo that has it in such dire straights with consumers right now.
ok, ok, we get it. It's about CD singles, not albums.
But the more interesting thing would be to see how many singles were downloaded off KaZaa alone in the same period.
Reminds me of when the RIAA was quoting figures to show their sales declining, and the figures were for singles, not full albumns. Slashdot was up in arms, of course.
Thanks for pointing this out.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
By volume? Or by revenue?
If by revenue, then HOLY SHIT. Because downloads are a whole lot cheaper than CDs, they'd have to be FAR more popular. Woo hoo!
If by volume, then BIG DEAL. Because an album on CD has like 15-20 songs on it, whereas a single song download has only 1 song on it. So to really eclipse CD sales, you'd have to see downloads at 15-20x the volume of album sales.
Of course, there's a lot of crappy songs on most of those albums, which we'd all be better off without. So there's probably some room for skew in the statistics, however you wanna interpret them.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
How many of these legal downloads are from the big burst in emusic.com downloads before the (idiotic) change in policy? I know I have loaded up a lot in the last couple of weeks? A lot more than I would have normally.
This 7 CD set, that 10 CD set, etc, etc.
So that's it:
1. Find what the customers want
2. sell it to them
3. Profit!!!
At last, the end of the 1.2.3. jokes. We found the missing part!!!!
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I think these surveys will start show the RIAA that, file-sharing/song-stealing is a symptom of CD prices that are not priced reasonably and the fact that for years, the music industry packaged music only one way - buy it all or nothing. Maybe now they'll see that song-swapping really isn't the problem.
The song stealing muddied the waters for a while. It allowed the music execs to point fingers instead of looking at the real problem - their pricing and marketing policies.
There is no spoon or sig.
My windows machine has no speakers and no CD-R. I'd love to use iTunes, but the DRM-laden AAC files cannot be freely copied (from what I have been led to believe). My only option at this point seems to be to buy a CD-R (okay, they're cheap), and then burn the tracks to CDs, then rip the tracks back from the CDs and re-encode as high-quality Oggs. There's two problems with that approach though: first, it's a pain-in-the-ass, and second, I'd be multiplying two lossy compression alogrithms onto the music, which can't be good for it.
Any suggestions? While this is somewhat of a rant, I really and truly would like to buy music through iTunes, and am very intersted in finding a workable solution.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
All along, during the height of online piracy services, pro-piracy advocates tried to pin the piracy on the RIAA itself, arguing that high CD prices, and the lack of legal music download services, somehow justified violation of copyright laws. These people were oblivious to the fact that no legal, fee-based download service could ever compete with a free alternative that is as easy to use and provides quality indistinguishable to the average user. But now they have been definitively proven wrong.
The anti-piracy actions taken by the RIAA, including suing individual users, demanding action from ISPs and especially universities to block file-sharing use, and legal action against piracy services, as well as copy-protection on CDs, have, if not destroyed piracy, at least made it more inconvenient and morally questionable to the average person. And lo and behold, now that the war against piracy is being won, monetized music services like Apple's iTunes are able to prosper; it is no longer a commerical dead-end to sell music online, because piracy is more difficult and seems less morally clear-cut than before. With improved DRM technologies and more stringent anti-piracy laws, the future looks even better for fee-based legal music download services, and we should all celebrate their success.
Who buys cd singles anyway? I own about 200 CDs and just a single one of them is a single, and that one I didn't buy but won it at a competition (listened to it exactly once)... I mean, why should I buy someone's CD, if they aren't capable of producing more than just a single song I like? Sure, I own some CDs with some less than perfect tracks on them, but none so bad that I have to skip them. I always listen to my CDs from start to finish, and very often the songs I don't like so much on first listen are the ones which become my favourites after a while. And the CDs which make me go WTF??? on first listen are the most rewarding for me in the long run once I understand what they're about.
I really don't get the idea of buying a "hit" single. If I wanted to hear that kind of stuff, I'd just turn on the radio or buy a TV.
When streetlights converted to electricity you can bet the lamp-lighters kicked up a fuss.
I expect the record industry will lose a lot of power. They effectively manipulate the music industry and control who willl make it and who won't. Digital music removes that control since effectively any Joe with a server can sell his music. They also lose revenue. While they send out images of starving artists, their real concern is starving record company execs. Likely the artists can gain out of the new model.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I'm sorry, but I have to ask - what limitation are you running into with iTunes' DRM? I'm curious because my favorite part about iTunes is that I am not hindered by its DRM. I'm still able to make mix CDs to give to my friends. iTunes lets me share my music to all the Macs and Windows boxes in my house. Sure, it would be nice to host a music-sharing server on my BSD box, but I try to keep my expectations realistic.
Just because I'm not running into problems doesn't mean that others have not. Let's hear them!
Are you sure about what you are saying there?
Isn't it amazing what happens when industry decides to innovate rather than regulate?
This should be a lesson to all the dumbass music distributors that if they pay some attention to their consumers' needs and interest, and spend more time exploring ways to enhance and expand their market's choices and experience, they will profit.
Then again, they could just go about suing more people, raising prices and marketing even more crap music, and then go back to whining about how they're suffering.
The question I'm wondering is: how many 45 rpm singles were being sold at the height of their popularity, into what population?
We are guessing that 7.7M + 4M/month is way low compared to the peak, which I might guess was 10-15 million/month for a smaller population.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Sorry if I act unsurprised, but isn't this really the point we (the "hacker community," if you will) have been making all along? And isn't this exactly the same point that we (or, at least, I) have been flamingly livid with the bozos at the RIAA and MPAA for Just Not Getting? These freaking morons think that new technology is something to be scared of, instead of (*gasp*) exploited.
Duh.
Thank God in Heaven above that legit services -- with DRM or no -- have come about, and finally we have some real figures to shove down the throats of those who complain that CD sales are dropping because of piracy. NEWSFLASH: they're dropping because people don't find the medium -- and especially the tedium in acquiring said medium -- convenient. Get in the car, go to the mall, find a parking spot, go to the store, fight the crowds, wait on line, buy a CD, reverse process, play.
Or, download.
Again, I say, duh.
legal music downloads beat sales of 45s and 78s. Woo hoo.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
Selling more singles online vs meatspace is not going to get the RIAA's attention in the magnitude that the typical Slashdot Music Lover wants it to.
What will get the RIAA to grab a clue is when one or more of the following happens:
1) More music is distributed online then in meat space.
2) Profits from downloaded music surpass the profits from sales of CD's.
The music downloads allow a way around the CD price fixing that led to the RIAA's problem. Once the online services surpass the RIAA, the RIAA will really be in an Adapt or Perish situation.
END COMMUNICATION
The collective DUH from the slashdot crowd sounded just like the Taos hum, only louder.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Online art is a buzzing phenomenon. I'm sure that Album Art will find its place when the realization kicks in that online music sales are to stay.
I think the big issues might be around a program to print the labels though. There are tons of Mp3 players but one format, how about a label-format that scales properly to most printers?
Singles or not, it's still good news. It proves that the RIAA and Jack Valenti's fears are completely unfounded. At this point, any damage they took to their revenue stream was caused by their own hand.
"Derp de derp."
The music industry is finally catching on. They need to give people rights, not restrictions. That is what works. Why should I pay $16 for an album I can't play on my work computer. What is the point of that. I can download whatever I want for free and play it on my work computer or at home and then burn them to disk....hmmmmm, this isn't rocket science. $.99 is worth the convenience for a song I really want, but the price must come down if they expect me to buy songs to hear them once and throw them in the trash. I will pay $.25 for mediocrity. But they will have to pay me listen to some of their crap.
I bought a CD single last week. It was 3.99. It contained a remix of the song, the album version of the song. A remix of another song on the album. And a previously unreleased cover song. So, I get 4 songs for $4. Sounds like the iTMS. :)
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
This guy supposedly was a time traveller who talked (online) extensively with a lot of people. Among other things he "predicted" that US would undergo a civil war in a couple of years because of government/corporate highhandedness....the patriot act, the RIAA/diebold attitude, all seem to point in that direction.
not sure if its true or not...it's an interesting read nevertheless.
ITs bad enough that people don't RTFA. Its absurd when they get modded insightful.
will hopefully dissapear soon. Some of the larger ones in my area are already closed. (Some people) used to make a good profit stealing hundreds of CDs from the clueless major retailers and selling them for half price at the independent shops. You could pull in around $4-5k before the police and hired security would be all over the retailers like stick on glue. The indepenents would keep their mouths shut, cause it was good business for them too. Hopefully there will be no more big, stupid, ugly music retailers selling nothing but crap. I'm sure the indepenents won't mind if they dissapear altogether. Of course, what are the independents going to be selling? Used CDs? Vinyl? For a while maybe.
TallGreen CMS hosting
And you know what? No one else gives a damn.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
How interchangable are the label programs? I bought the memorex kit, and also bought some jewel case inserts with it. The case inserts were memorex too, so i could use the same program(eXpressit) to do the inserts and the labels. The cd labeling is nice, but i wonder if i could youse other companys or generic label sheets with the same software. Are all cd label sheets layed out pretty much the same way? The only friend i know of who has one also has memorex, as does my boss here at work.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
If you only buy songs one at a time, and each song must stand on its own, unless they bundle them somehow, you will only rarely buy full albums. Why buy 22 songs when you only want 3 from that album. You will more likely have a folder with an artists name on it, and organize songs that way.
The BBC story refers to CD single sales, so Mr.McNeill maybe not be quite as right as he thinks, sadly.
Of course if Hemos did his supposed job as an "editor" and researched the article first then the write-up would have been proper. But this is Slashdot, of course, and quality and accuracy don't mean a thing.
Do you consider the movie industry treating you as a thief because they sell DVDs? Probably not, even though DVDs contain some of the strictest DRM policies ever created.
However, it is easy for you to play DVDs, so you probably don't think twice about it (unless you are trying to copy data off of it, which most people don't do.) In iTunes Music Store, the DRM is quite fair for the consumer, and the emphasis remains on the ability to easily play the music where and when you want to. This is what the average consumer wants. My parents couldn't tell the difference between an MP3 and a protected AAC from the iTunes store in terms of actually getting the music to play. So, like DVDs, why should they care that it has DRM? Incidentally, they still refer to both as MP3s even though only one actually is. It's sort of in the modern vernacular.
When companies set up these services, they are not trying to appeal to the ultra-religious, rah-rah-GPL, geek crowd. (Though most of Slashdot will insist that they should.) They are trying to make a descent service that is easy for consumers to use. In the case of iTunes, the DRM does not get in the way, so why should that be considered a bad thing? It is not too much different than the DVDs we all have scattered around at home.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
The headline should read "Legal US Music Downloads Beat CD Single Sales".
The comparison implied by the "Legal US Music Downloads Beat CD Sales" is broken in several ways:
1) "Legal US Music Downloads" includes both album and single sales, while "CD Sales" refers only to CD Single sales. So it's not an "apples to apples" comparison.
2) "CD Sales" actually refers to CD sales, which are vanishingly small compared to CD sales (e.g. 2% according to Soundscan) so it's not only wrong, it's misleading by a factor of 50.
Digital download sales would need to grow by 50x to exceed CD sales. That would be great (for the labels, and musicians, etc.) but hasn't happened yet.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Give people something close to what they want with liberal use policies and people will buy into the service. True, the DRM is still present, but it doesn't really get in the way (other than having to burn the songs to CD then rip to get the music to an open format). Give the providers some time to ramp-up the selection and these services should do very well.
On the negative note, I still think the songs are too expensive by about $0.30 (on the RIAA side). Drop the price overall and further on some for some of the older stuff (are royalties still being paid for Elvis, BTO, Argent, Foghat, Supertramp, Styx and other 'classic' dis-banded and deceased artists?) and improve the selection.
I didn't even need to click. I've been doing the math to figure how big a deal this iTunes thing is (not big, at least not yet).
Here are the numbers. The U.S. record industry sold $12.6 billion worldwide in various formats (almost all CDs) in 2002. This is off a bit from the peak $14.6 billion in 1999. It's important to keep in mind that, even at those levels, we're talking about nine weeks revenue for IBM.
Assuming the Windows side of iTunes Music Store continues to sell at the initial rate of 1 million songs/$1 million revenue in the first 3.5 days, that's only about $104 million per year. The Mac side sold $13 million in tunes in the first six months, so we'll put that side at $26 million per year.
That's $130 million per year for all iTMS. Even if the store doubles its sales, and then the other stores collectively match its sales, you'd be talking about total online sales of $520 million per year, still a drop in the bucket.
The growth will need to get exponential before there is any comparison with offline music sales. I'm not saying it won't happen, but that's what we're talking about, and that's how I instantly new the hed on the posting was wrong.
I bet the RIAA is going to blame more lost cd sales on legal music downloads now, oh wait, they'd be right! Maybe now they'll admit their mistakes and crawl back to their shiney office park or whatever with their tails between their legs and leave us along.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Hey everyone, I just discovered something! This article is referring to singles. That's not a fair comparison! I mean, nobody buys CD singles anymore!
Where would you people be without me to point these things out?!
The headline should read "Legal US Music Downloads Beat CD Single Sales".
The comparison implied by the "Legal US Music Downloads Beat CD Sales" is broken in several ways:
1) "Legal US Music Downloads" includes both album and single sales, while "CD Sales" refers only to CD Single sales. So it's not an "apples to apples" comparison.
2) "CD Sales" actually refers to CD Single sales, which are vanishingly small compared to actual CD sales (e.g. 2% according to Soundscan) so it's not only wrong, it's misleading by a factor of 50.
Digital download sales would need to grow by 50x to exceed CD sales. That would be great (for the labels, and musicians, etc.) but hasn't happened yet.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I was not aware you could still buy CD singles in the US
and attracted my attention the most, although it might be a little off-topic, yet not too off-topic considering that it's still about the site this story is linked to, was the following from the FAQs of osViews.com
"What OS is osViews served from?" In an effort to conserve financial resources, we recently set out to find a more economical web server. We analyzed everything that Microsoft, Sun and Linux had to offer but later found that Apple's Xserve running Mac OS X server was more efficient and cost effective than each of these solutions (Yes even Linux). (Ya, it surprised us too...)
!!!!!
This is so unlike you my dear fucked up pair-a-whatever. I've come to expect more from you. Using "turd" five times just does not cut it these days.
Oh, and I bet you're going to reply to your own worthless post complaining about the redundant moderation. We are such creatures of habit, eh?
Have a great day.
Could it be that the RIAA planned their latest law-suits and even planned to sue the 12 year old to get media attention and timed the whole thing to happen at the same time as online music sites rolled out so that the public would be scared into going to pay sites? A comparision of music-sharing vs paid downloading vs cd sales would be interesting. Even so this has got to be one of the sketchyest and weirdest business areas ever but it seems to be working. Business people everywhere must be scratching their heads and wondering if they should go into a market where the competition is actually better (no DRM) and free and where the entire model relies on good-faith or scare tactics.
Obviously if the number of pay-site users is about the same as the loss of cd sales then its just a switch of people from one place to another.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
"I wouldn't buy a box of cupcakes if I knew that two of them were regular cupcakes and 14 of them were turds. Why should I pay for 14 turds that I don't want and won't eat just to get the two cupcakes??"
That's the best analogy I've seen on this subject yet. LOL!
Me thinks of Tommy Boy. Wait, it's your bull.
uhh...Pressed CDs will only last you 25 years...gold masters will last you about 50 to 75.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
All of these music download services allow you to burn your songs to a CD. If you really really want your MP3, just burn it to a CD, then rip it back to MP3. If it is all digital, there shouldn't be a loss of quality (might be wrong there, I'm not an expert on such matters).
So much for DRM...
"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." --Oscar Wilde
I have some LPs that are over 50 years old and still sound great. I have some 78 rpm singles that are over 60 years old and they sound very good too. I wonder where you get your information that pressed CDs will last only 25 years. I have heard of mold eating up pressed CDs in tropical climates, but hey, mold might eat up gold masters too.
Yeah, I think I heard of those... you mean people buy those?
It should also be noted the RIAA killed the CD single format almost 15 years ago. They saw that they could simplify distribution and get more money rather than let their artists earn their merit. If you recall.. there used to be 3 inc CD singles with 2 songs. That was why CD players, CDROMs and others still have that 3 inch divot for the CD single format.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
This is a silly comparison... I've never seen a CD single that contains fewer than 2 tracks, with 4-5 being most common. So 4 million singles = 16-20 million tracks, compared with 7.7 million tracks downloaded. Getting impressive, but still not quite there.
[TMB]
If Digital sales quickly surpass physical disk sales, perhaps rather then the RIAA suing 12 year olds, RIAA stockholders can start suing the RIAA for fucking up their stock value for so long by resisting digital distribution.
(I know that the RIAA is made up of multiple companies, but they pretty much act as one..)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It is good that people are now paying for the music they download, but a lot of people don't understand that the artists get very little of this money. Generally a band will only get 10% - $1 for the entire album downloaded, whereas the record company gets $9 for each album downloaded.
:)
In the CD world, 10% ($2) was a good deal for the band because the record companies had to pay for manufacturing, cases, booklets, shipping and publicity, which is quite costly. But now they don't have to do anything - it is pure profit for the record companies, so they should be passing on a higher percentage of the profit to the bands.
Until They change how much the bands get payed for digital downloads I will stick to buying CDs. Plus I like getting booklets
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
Go fuck yourself. What are you, stalking me?
You seem to have an overabundance of interest in my posts. Seems this is not the first time you've pissed and moaned about something that I posted.
I think this is approaching Internet Stalking..
Mr./Ms./Mrs. McNiell?
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
...by price gauging and digital music is the winner. Now ALL the RIAA need to do is work with consumers to provide even better, more economic ways to offer legal music rather than wasting their energy chasing the 55mm Americans who gave up on OVERPRICED CDs and protested by downloading free music. Now the legal music sites are up the consumer is showing they are basically law observing people who just wanted a decent and legal deal. So tell me why is the RIAA still so obsessed with chasing 55mm Amaericans when digital music legally provided is already the winner. All they had to do was provide the service and "they" would have have come.....as they have now. I await a judge to throw out the RIAA scare tactics and suggest they disband as they have lost the war and their owners are now the providers of digital music. Game Set and MP3.....
degradation eventually allows air into the recorded surface and oxidation of the aluminum begins...gold masters last so much longer because gold does not oxidizes, but the wear and tear on the disk over the period of time usually leads to damage on the thin gold surface.
Vinyl lasts so long because it is a solid polymer. of course excessive playing of even vinyl will render the Record useless.
I can not point you to an article because I have had this information in my head for about 8 years and I cannot recall where I read it. so you can believe me or not, I don't care.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Oh I forgot. All this will enable the RIAA to soon come out with new statistics showing that CD Sales have fallen even more;)
Watching the masses of sheeple from the distance, he spoke "Hmph. Thats right, just run back to your masters, you faithful dogs, and buy your music."
I suppose you could always leave the files on your computer, and when the burned CD becomes unusable just burn another.
Of course, all this depends on how restrictive the DRM is on the downloaded files.
It's clear to me that you are a giant penis trying to pass yourself off as a human being.
If you had RTFA, then you would have shut your pie hole because they're not talking about full albums, all the sales figures were given, and you smoke cock.
People giving out mod points should also RTFA.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
The telling line is:
"Any way we can drive a consumer to purchase music as opposed to taking music is a win for the industry," he said.
The music industry does NOT have any intention of listening to you. They will "drive" you into submission.
You will buy what we say or else.
They still don't get it.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
"The BBC story refers to CD single sales, so Mr.McNeill maybe not be quite as right as he thinks, sadly."
Who cares which is outselling the other, as long as the consumer has the option to buy either.
Vote for Pedro
Thanks for the follow-up. I was under the impression that commercial CDs are formed on an aluminum base. One characteristic of aluminum is that its exposed surface oxidizes very quickly to form a hard protective coating of aluminum oxide. Aluminum oxide is very stable so I suspect CDs might turn out to be more durable after all.
the only problem is that if the surface oxidizes, it becomes very difficult to read.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
No, I'm just an "M$ zealot", by your measure at least. And you're just a hysterical troll, even by Slashbork standards.
I think this is approaching Internet Stalking..
Yes, I'm sure it is. And your post is still 100% redundant!
MP3 box sets? Instead of releasing a 5 CD box set, how 'bout selling a single CD with all the songs already encoded into MP3s? People are immediately going to rip the CDs anyway, just to keep from having to shuffle discs (unless they have a technology that's going the way of the 8-track: the Pioneer 6 CD changer).
Speakin' of the Pioneer 6 CD changer, why was this technology (or any other changer, for that matter) never widely adapted for computer use? I remember seeing one 6 CD changer for computers back in the day when CD-ROM first came out, but it was prohibitively expensive. Pioneer still makes CD changers, all the way up to 100 disc juke-box style changers, and have always had 5 DVD carousel style changers, and I have an RCA 3 DVD changer, but I was always a fan of the 6 CD removable cartridge style changer. Imagine how many MP3s you could fit on 6 DVDs that use this type of changer. And besides that, there are still no changers for computers. None. Zip Zero Zilch Nada. We're still stuck with shuffling discs for our mega-epic multiple disc games, unless we have the foresight to cram more than one CD/DVD drive into our computer cases.
The next step we, the song-sharing masses, anticipate is when the artists entrepreneur themselves, or via groups of small-businesspeople that disseminate each artists' work via individual (or pooled, as I suspect that business accretion will occur) online outlet.
Shouldn't each artist be the direct recipient of their works' value? Minus some overhead, but the site makers only need to generate some killer applet that'll let even the ditziest popsinger click a few times for their site creation.
All those executives become unemployed (what do they contribute anyway?), we pay some small fee per song (I think $.25 works, kinda like the jukebox take) or perhaps a monthly membership fee ($1?, $2?) to forever own a digital copy of what that artist created that month. We may even try out a new mpeg (let's topple MTV while we're at this)! The whole thing will not be stopped, no matter what, once the artists get the drift that it's ultimately up to them to decide who makes the money from their work.
THIS IS A NEW ECONOMY, a distributed art for the masses deal. Do you see it? A certain time has to pass while the artists' present contracts expire, but as new artists emerge, as this new wave crests, their own value will be exactly proportional to the number of downloads. Sure, there will still be sharing, but, maybe I'll put a particular song in My Shared Folder, only after a month or two.
A novel method of a music-based 'ebaysian' market force for creative sonic entertainment is at hand. The \. masses are well-poised for being the benefactors of this entrepreneurship. So get busy you slackers!
Please have respect for people with different abilities, especially children.
... if they did a full CD vs online album comparison. Don't you get it? Why would you buy an online album if 80% of the songs are crappy when you have to choice to select the songs that you want? This business model will die a natural death eventually.
You probably need to compare tracks purchased online from a certain CD versus the sales of the full CDs itself for a more realiable comparison but the data would be tough to come by!
--- root@127.0.0.1
...when was the last time you even saw a CD single? I can tell you that for me, it was back in the days when one still primarily purchased music on casettes.
:)
Maybe they're still distributed in other markets, but it surprises me not at all that online music downloads sell more than CD singles...my one-man sideline consulting business that I run when I'm not working at my Real Job(tm) probably produces more revenue than CD singles do.
Just as the auto made buggies history, the paradigm of a musician being indentured slaves for music industry executives is dying. So let it die. The next step we, the song-sharing masses, anticipate is when the artists entrepreneur themselves, or via groups of small-businesspeople that disseminate each artists' work via individual (or pooled, as I suspect that business accretion will occur) online outlet. Shouldn't each artist be the direct recipient of their works' value? Minus some overhead, but the site makers only need to generate some killer applet that'll let even the ditziest popsinger click a few times for their site creation. All those executives become unemployed (what do they contribute anyway?), we pay some small fee per song (I think $.25 works, kinda like the jukebox take) or perhaps a monthly membership fee ($1?, $2?) to forever own a digital copy of what that artist created that month. We may even try out a new mpeg (let's topple MTV while we're at this)! The whole thing will not be stopped, no matter what, once the artists get the drift that it's ultimately up to them to decide who makes the money from their work. THIS IS A NEW ECONOMY, a distributed art for the masses deal. Do you see it? A certain time has to pass while the artists' present contracts expire, but as new artists emerge, as this new wave crests, their own value will be exactly proportional to the number of downloads. Sure, there will still be sharing, but, maybe I'll put a particular song in My Shared Folder, only after a month or two. A novel method of a music-based 'ebaysian' market force for creative sonic entertainment is at hand. The \. masses are well-poised for being the benefactors of this entrepreneurship. So get busy you slackers! "Shall be the first part of my sig" shall be the first part of my sig
Please have respect for people with different abilities, especially children.
Why don't we give a damn, though?
/. are honest, all of us will agree we enjoy that freedom.
The idea of downloading data that's merely temporary or restricted in the number of times or variety of ways we can use it...I mean, call me an old fogey or something, but I still yearn for the days where data was just data, and we could do whatever we wanted to with the data.
One of the things I've loved the most about this succession of boxes I've owned (both PC's and Linux) has been my freedom to tinker, swap file formats around, get different programs to read my documents or play my sound files or whatever. I have simple pleasures, mind, but those pleasures are grounded in the freedom to manipulate data. And I think if those of us who read
That's why I'm still waiting for the legal online music distribution process that will allow us mp3 or Ogg - because I've become too wedded to that freedom, the idea that if I possess data that I can do whatever I want to with that data, and I'm not of a mind to give it up.
Now, I think there are plenty of consumers who aren't as wedded to that freedom, and if they can download a sound file and have a program to listen to that sound file, they'll be thrilled regardless of the restrictions that are placed to 'em. Bully to iTunes and Napster 2.0 for catering to that market. I just wonder if with those guys getting all the run, if we're really losing something in terms of freedom to manipulate data, on a far grander scale than anything we've lost before...
All this to say we oughta have more sympathy for the guy who still can't get his Ogg on.
chuck
unless we have the foresight to cram more than one CD/DVD drive into our computer cases.
I already have a DVD and CD-RW drive... both can read CDs...
We're still stuck with shuffling discs for our mega-epic multiple disc gamesI haven't had that problem either... they also haven't caught on because there really isn't any room for them... the architecture of a computer case is designed pretty specificially, and getting a CD changer in there isn't too easy, unless your going to add reading heads, which would cost more... then you would need a more powerful motor because you want to spin all of them at the same time, then you want to take them out and put different ones in? all in one bay?
- retailer's profit
- record company's profit
- cost of manufacturing CD
- band's royalty fee
The retailer and the record company are middlemen, and as such can be lived without. If there was a way I could send off a postal order to the band for the exact same amount as they would have got if I bought the CD, I would be quite prepared to do that. The band, after all, did something I couldn't: they wrote and performed the songs. What I resent is having to pay a recording company to prepackage that material for me and charge an extortionate amount for doing so. The band has, using the same copyright law that makes the GPL work, granted permission for the record company to manufacture and sell CDs of their work, in return for a payment from the record company for each CD sold. There is no reason why they should not grant me permission, in return for the same monetary recompense. As far as they are concerned, the effect is the same: I get my songs, they get their pennies.In a previous discussion, I asked whether baking my own double chocolate muffins at home was the same as stealing from a bakery? And the most intelligent response I got was that maybe I owed someone money for thinking up the recipe. {Actually, I had reverse-engineered it from the ingredients and nutritional analysis. With the counts of protein, starch, sugar and fat, I got four simultaneous equations giving me the quantities of the four principal ingredients. Doesn't everybody hack food?}
To which I could say nothing better than "Probably, but they aren't being to keen to chase me for it." {And anyway, I had managed to make some improvements of my own.}
So my solution comes in two parts.
- If, as a copyright holder, you give permission for a person, company, group
or entity to exceed their statutory fair use rights over your work, possibly in return
for some form of compensation, then you must licence everybody to do the same for
the same price. {All should stand equal before your licence}.
- CD manufacturers must provide details permitting anyone to pay the royalty fee directly to the band - i.e. to include a contact address and a monetary amount. This amount, according to {1} above, would have to be no more than the band would have received from the sale of a CD {subject to rounding to whole coin amounts to avoid anyone owing fractions of a cent / penny}.
Anybody wanting to offer songs for paid download would be obliged to pass on royalty fees to the copyright holder, notify users that the licence fee would be included in the download fee - and expected, upon reasonable notice, to be able to produce logs showing downloads, fees collected and fees paid {though no personally identifying details} in order to prove that all was fair. Anyone offering music for free download would be obliged to notify users of the need to pay a fee to the copyright holder, the amount to send, the address to send it to and a warning that the server owners could not protect users from the force of the law.This also would have two side effects that might not go down too well with the record industry cartels, but that would certainly benefit the general public who pay the wages of said cartels. People would know exactly how much bands were making out of each CD sold -- and by extension, how much the recording companies were making, after allowing for retail overheads. And organisations such as the RIAA would have no excuse to demand thousands of dollars per song downloaded, because the exact amount owed would be widely publicised.
It won't stop everyone copying music illegally - as long as you can point a mic at a speaker, nothing ever will - but it certainly won't make the situation any worse. I for one would be prepared to give it a go.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
No one else gives a damn.
Go away, troll. Your mommy is calling you.