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CD-Rs and MP3s Not Hurting Record Sales
David Gerard writes "Forget the industry shills' spin - the numbers prove that, for Australia, CD-Rs and MP3s are not hurting record sales in the slightest - based on a recent Australian Record Industry Association survey. It would be interesting to see what the numbers for the US or UK say."
Yep, my band has had a bunch of sales becausepeople can hear it free on my site, and I welcome trading. If you can hear it before you pay for it, and you like it, chances are you'll pay for it. I have several more dollars for beer and guitar strings due to internet sales. Thanks, Al Gore!
Has any article mentioned that while music sales for 2003 were lower than those of 2002, less new albums were also released in 03 than in 02
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -Robert Heinlein
Can I just say, as an Australian I'm really enjoying all the sudden attention that the Australian nerd news has been getting on /.? It's great!
Seriously though, I can vouch for this. Most of my friends are stubbornly insistent on buying their favourite bands new album as opposed to letting me download it and burn it for them. Most Australian bands are releasing their albums with a bonus dvd, or a bonus cd with extra stuff like live show video clips, etc. This is the kind of thing that stops people using Kazaa or BitTorrent MP3 sites. They are loyal to whichever band, and that free poster that comes with the CD is something you can't download off the 'net.
--
The last digit of pi is four.
I don't know about anyone else, but RIAA has never lost an album sale because of P2P for me. I use P2P as kinda a sampling system to see what I wanna buy. Too many times there has been 1 or 2 good songs by a band, then you buy the CD, and get screwed because the rest is horrible. Record sales are down for one reason: music sucks now. All the mainstream rock/pop/hiphop/country stations are now playing the same mindless blather. Thank God for NPR (National Public Radio) and the BBC World Service.
Jason Faulkner
Old Os Administrator
jason@oldos.org
oldos.
Why? How will legalizing it, "hurt" CD sales? What the hell point are you trying to make?
The people who are using the iTunes service are the same people who had been using other P2P software.
Not that I neccesarily disagree, but can you explain why copyright infringement is wrong in this case. (without saying "because it's illegal")
Don't forget that copyright is a means to an end. If its not achieving that end and it's only effect is to prevent the spread of information then it's doing more harm than good. (I use the term information loosely)
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
It is important to show this, because at the moment some extremely draconian laws are being implemented, huge jail terms for downloading music. Their given justification is that downloading music hurts the industry so much, that something like that is necessary.
But of course, you believe that just because something is morally wrong, that immediately justifies absolutely any punishment that a law could give for it.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
The Real Story is the Music Industry completely dropping the ball on the delivery of digital music formats. When Napster raised its head and "threatened" CD Sales, the industry should have studied and copied it.
Instead they tried to shut it down and failed miserably. The current tactics are just the tail-end of a poorly implemented policy that has simply highlighted the availability of online peer-to-peer media to people that normally would not engage in these activities.
There are online music sellers now but if the Music Industry had acted earlier when peer-to-peer had first come into prominence, we would not be talking about CD's at all. Compact Discs would be the same as Cassette Tapes and Vinyl Records. They would only be sold to those who had not adopted the new digital technology or those who like to hang onto older formats (like reel-to-reel machines).
By now instant access to entire music catalogues could have been made available online (not just the latest hits) and the price would have dropped to a reasonable amount, due to true competition in the marketplace. Independent artists would be setting up their own operations based on similar business models. It would have been similar to independent record pressing, where it would be servers holding and distributing the collections rather than an industrial process.
Any mention of CD sales at this time is just another reminder of how much they messed it all up.
The music, software and all such industry assumes, that piracy - scenario:
Customer with product - Producer without money
replaces classic "sale" scenario:
Customer with product - Producer with money
In fact, it usually replaces a different scenario:
Customer without product - Producer without money
The industry loses nothing at all. If they want $30 for a CD album, I won't buy that album. Simple as that. And doesn't matter if I downloaded it or not, they wouldn't see my money ever. At best, I will be pissed off at their ridiculous price and refuse to buy it later when it's cheaper, simply because I don't support thieves (yep, I mean what I just said!)
But when I download the album, another situation appears. They may gain one, rather esotheric thing from me: Gratitude. Maybe I'll buy some crappy product of theirs, just to support them in the future, just to express my thanks. Maybe I will buy "colector's edition" of what I copied earlier. Just because I like it so much.
Under one condition: They can't piss me off before that. If I hear about stupid lawsuits, sites closed due to ridiculous copyright issues, evil marketing techniques - then, sorry. I'll gladly make a copy for my friends: "Hey, don't support that assholes with your money, get a copy instead!"
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I'm not sure that I can believe that the only places available to you to buy music legitimately do not have the kind of music you like. Yeah, when I walk into walmart or target, I'm generally pretty disgusted with the selection, but there are easy-to-find better music venues all over. I just bought two non-riaa cd's from Borders, an underground hip-hop cd on the Definitive Jux label, and a disc of idm/glitch beats on Warp Records. Not only that, but there's a great chain of used, new and local music stores around here that caters to even more unusual tastes than mine. This is Nebraska, and what one would expect to be the low-end of selection as far as music-scenes go, is really quite good. I find it hard to believe the "I just can't find what I like" excuse. Unless you only listen to Polish grindcore or Japanese polka, you're probably not looking hard enough. Do your research so you don't get tricked into buying a one-good-track cd, and then pull out the phonebook. Someone in your area probably sells it. Failing that, try the INTERNET! Amazon is a great resource.
I remember a piece of excellent work done by Claire Enders (who used to do strategy work for EMI Music before setting up her own consultancy - Enders Analysis) on the effect of P2P services on the UK music industry.
The bottom line was that everyone made more money, consumers got more choice, and sampling (and buying) of CDs got distributed over a wider cast of artists. The only exposure was with the top few artists at each of the top 5 record labels, which she thought would be very influential on the way the industry would behave. Unfortunately, a significant share of most record labels profits come from very few artists.
Given the way things played out, she was right on the button. And it remains the only analysis i've ever seen that was based on raw numbers rather than "industry sponsored views"...
I don't know what planet you're on, but I'm struggling to find these mythical "lower prices" I hear rumored.
Yesterday I saw
- at a retail music store
- an actual current release album
- with one CD (ie not a 2 or 3 CD set)
- for (australian) $39 and change (for the USians out there, that translates to ~$30 US at current exchange rates)
To my amazement I found that:- it was not diamond encrusted
- it was not made of solid gold
- it did not include oral sex from the cute chick at the counter
I for one am struggling to find the value-for-money in this proposed transaction, so The Music Industry should not in any way be surprised to see "lower than expected sales" when they pitch suck LOONEY prices.Keep in mind, people....
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
I downloaded the Dixie Chicks off Kazaa. Never heard them before but decided to give them a try after hearing about the absurd US boycott of their music.
Loved it so much I bought all their CDs and went to see them live on their Top of The World Tour.
Without MP3 sharing they wouldn't have got a penny of my money and I'd have missed out on a great band. (I dislike country as a rule so wouldn't have bought a country cd on the off-chance I might like it).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
If you check out the iTunes' list of top downloaded songs, it has always been current hits.
I personally love using iTunes to discover older music. Sometime I would stumble upon a tune that is familiar and try to find it on iTunes. And if I like it, I'd just buy it. For example, I just bought Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" just because I overheard it being played somewhere and thought it was interesting.
In fact, I rarely get the new stuff from iTunes, but I don't think that is the common modus operandi from most iTunes users.
-B
Ya, but what about the days you worked your ass off and made less than him?
I *never* worked my ass off and made less than him. At least, in the muffler business, laziness gets quickly beat out by the market itself. People want their cars fixed *now* and don't have time to wait. If you want to slog your way through the job, work less and get paid more, it's just not going to happen.
I've put out what I consider a half-assed effort and still made more than him. :) The only time I made less than him was on the slow days when it was just the luck of the draw. On any busy day, I beat him hands down, and usually topped the shop. In a different shop, in the same company, I didn't top the shop every time it was busy because there was real competition with the other mechanics. In that place, I found that I made more money being a team player than fighting over work. If I helped a guy out on a job, he wouldn't have a problem helping me out when I needed it. More, he would even be willing to give up a job or two on a slow day to give me beer money or whatever, because he knows he can depend on my help.
Cutthroat competition can be fun, but isn't usually the best way to get the job done. :)
The formula never changes: volume is where the money is. It's volume that makes manufacturing work in the first place! Without volume, there'd be no need!
Now, I certainly sympathize with your statement about the printing industry, and it is a different ballgame than mechanic work. But in the end, it's still volume that pays the bills, pays the workers, puts food on the table, and so forth. Sure, when it's busy you might be inclined to pass up the small print run. Then, when it's slow, you can be certain the small print run won't come back to you when you need it. They'll remember how they were snubbed when you were busy. Passing up work for short-term gain always screws you in the long run, and the simple fact is, you can't pass up any work. Every piece of work you accept will affect you when it gets slow. In fact, by definition, the more work you take, the less slow you are. :)
So, yeah, I can see the real business problem of passing up the small job for the big job. But it will bite you on the ass. Winter doesn't have to be biting. It's always slow in the winter. Hell, plenty of times I had work in the winter because I didn't pass up the work in the summer. That same guy didn't have any work when it got slow, and there were quite a few times when people showed up and asked for me to work on their car because I didn't pass them up for more money.
Like what I said? You might like my music
I'm also from Nebraska, and I guarantee you that more people are listening to local and/or indie music around here than I've ever seen before, so I think you're absolutely right.
It would be nice to see a sales study done by some music store chains rather than by the RIAA, who do not really encompass the entirety of CD sales that are going on out there.
If I downloaded his music and liked it then I would buy the cd. In the same way I buy DVDs even though I have already checked out the movie by downloading it. Also just like I donate money to sites even though it isn't compulsory, if I think a site like a web comic is really good then I donate money to support it.
I think you will find people are much more willing to give money to the artists than to a faceless corporation. Or in the case of DVDs willing to pay for quality and added content.
I feel that the record companies (is there still more than three or four companies that control the global music industry?) are losing a massive income opportunity by not taking advantage of the eighty-to-one price differencial between the old model of $18 CDs and $0.18CD-Rs filled with 700MB of MP3 music (at roughly 1.2MegaBytes per minute of 160-192kbps MP3 encoding).
Whenever any medium goes through a digital transformation, it opens giant income generation possibilities after the massive development costs are met. This is not wealth transfer (such as people 'stealing' music by not buying the same dollar amount of music-per-minute as the RIAA claims) but actual wealth generation (the dollar value of the MP3s in $0.18/CDR format that people would have paid to the RIAA companies if the record companies had made this music available in the MP3/CDR custom selection format).
My wild ass guess as to the price point for a CD-R with 13 albums (even assuming that half of the albums would have been the buyer's selection and the other half chosen by the record companies as a forced promotion of new bands) would have been about $3 per disk.
This revenue of $0.25 - $0.50 per album (times the number of downloaded and copied songs - divided by the number of songs average per album) is the closest actual real amount of money that the record industry is allowing to slip away as a result of not embracing the MP3/CD-R format at a price that 'illegal' song downloaders would be willing to pay for product.