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File Sharing Increases CD Sales
Andrew writes "ARIA have released figures that show for 2003, album sales have reached an all time high. In fact, according to Peter Martin, who recently went on Australian radio, before file sharing and CD burning they were selling 10 million less. Total unit sales were also at an all time high at 65.6 million. CD single sales declined 1.9 million over the year, but as Peter said file downloading is doing a better job. Should help Kazaa's legal problems."
Yes i Download songs, usually individual songs, if i really like what i hear i go out an buy the album... but and this is the thing, i only buy vinyl. I stopped bying cd's about 2 years ago when they all started coming with crap on (wtf is multimedia enhanced) half of them stopped working in at least one of the players that i own. If i cant get get it on Vinyl (if you are under 25 or a not DJ try it sometime, to my ears it gives a richer more comfortable sound) then i will either rip a CD or dl it.
;P
The point is that until they make cd's a reasonable price compared to their production and distribution costs (please start your rant engines now ladies and gentlemen) and stop trying to make them more attractive with all sorts of cr@p on them that stops them working in most players then the invitation is not there to buy CD's in the numbers that i used to (maybe 30 vinyl ablums and maybe 20 cd's a month)
I know that this sounds like a rant but its what i feel
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
I've long had a theory that the RIAA/MPAA aren't really against piracy, but they are really against a peer-to-peer economy that is coming up. I believe that they are threatened, not by illegal piracy activities, but by the market becoming splintered, and people listenening to a larger variety of music. People on the Internet might stop listening to a few Pop stars, and start listening to a larger variety of music, possibly each other's music.
If my theory holds good, this news item will not prevent them from using legal strong-arm tactics - they will fight to retain their market share.
The Slashdot spin on this through the years has been quite outrageous.
First we have situation (a), where the total CD sales increase, as in this article. Slashdot routinely cliams this as very strong evidence that copying of music actually helps sales. (References: [1], [2], [3]).
But in situation (b), when CD sales fall, the Slashdot editors suddenly forget the strong casual link that they'd earlier claimed, and declare that this must be due to a poor economy or other non-file-sharing factors.
My question is: how can you rely on a poor economy to explain case (b), while blatantly ignoring the positive effects of a booming economy on case (a)?
Don't get me wrong... I download mp3s all the time, and quite a few of them are not legit. I think copyright is royally screwed up.
But I'm not going to play with the facts to try to claim that my downloading activities actually help the recording industry. That's just bullshit.
After getting a credit card, I regularly buy their records over the net. Their music has also made me interested in other Irish music, which I buy (Dubliners, Clancy brothers, Christy Moore, etc. etc), most of which is unavailable in my country.
The bottom line is that i have spent a whole lot more money *because* of p2p, than had I bought all the songs I've downloaded, which I wouldn't have anyhow, because most of it isn't good enough to be worth my money.
Lemon curry???
Every time a song gets played on the radio, that's the loss of a potential sale. Why on earth would I buy a popular album when I hear all the best songs from it every morning on the radio on the way into work.
As long as I can listen to the radio for free (cost to end user) I'll just assume that music is free - after all - they give it away over the airwaves!
P2P is the new radio - it's advertising - get used to it! Adapt to it - make money off concerts perhaps, or writing music for films, or TV? Or why not be a true artist and not make a dime off your music, but work for a living to pay for your expensive hobby and idulgence.
There's more than enough recorded music created so that you could listent to new stuff all you life and not hear something repeated. Why should we pay for something "new" which is just old and recycled?
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
The price here really is the issue. Not only the fact that it's GBP15+ per album, it's the fact that within 6-12 months it's often dipped to just below the GPB10 mark.
I don't think the companies realise quite how much the high prices are hated. The post-Christmas sales bring prices down to what most people are generally prepared to pay. if this wasn't true, the places wouldn't be quite so damn packed at the time.
With prices that high, the only way you're going to buy the album is either if you're a die-hard fan of the band or artist, or if you've already heard the album. 'Cos there's no way I'm spending over a tenner on a blind music purchase.
And currently the only cheap way of previewing music is by downloading from the internet. Certianly it's the only way to find out if a band's non-radio-played tracks are any good.
And even then, so many times I've held off on buying an album (whether I have it on MP3 or not...) until the price has dropped. if the price doesn't go down, I spend my money on a different artist instead.
TiggsTiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
Originally, radio broadcasters were not supposed to play records, because record companies thought that if people could hear the songs over the air for free, they wouldn't buy records. It's a stupid argument, and it's the same thing with file sharing. RIAA is upset because they can't drive up sales just by marketing, etc... the music actually has to be good now.
stuff |
Not quite. Radio stations pay for the music they send. I run a radio station, and we got about 20.000 potential listeners. For sending music we pay roughly a $2 per hour of music. If everyone who listened to p2p aquired music would pay something like this, i have no doubt they'd run napster themselves... 2 dollar might not sound much, but this is a small town, and if we were to send 24/7, we'd pay roughly $17.600 in royalties. Think about how many radio stations there are, and you will see how much money they earn on us :-)
For that reason, we've been toying with the idea of sending non-riaa'ed music on air. Letting "indie" musicians have their music braodcast for free, and we don't pay them either. Mutually beneficient. The local norwegian "riaa" was extremely sceptical when i asked them about this, and they didn't really beleive me that there are in fact musicians out there that don't register their music to RIAA etc for royalties. I've had a couple of dealings with these people as it's part of my job, and to be honest, they scare me a bit when it comes to their views on copyright.
Rest in peace Malin "looxn" Kristiansen. We miss you...
My own opinion on what the recording industry should do is this: Give Up Selling Singles.
Treat the single as an advertisement for the album. That's why you want it to be played on the radio and MTV and on TotP, right? You want people to hear the song, to like it and to want more - and then buy the album. So: release high-quality mp3s onto the net with no restrictions whatever (except maybe 'No Commercial Use') and positively encourage their trading. Make the rest of the tracks available from the same site on payment.
You'd lose some revenue from singles sales, but that revenue stream is dying anyway; this could help strengthen the real cash cow, the album.
It worked for iD Software - why shouldn't it work for EMI?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.