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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."
Is there any reason to think that this trend might be specific to the Australian music industry (for example because P2P music sharing could help with making making Australian music more well-known internationally), or is it reasonable to take this as an indication that P2P music sharing does not really undermine the commercial viability of the recording industry, worldwide?
-RIAA
Like many others, it really doesn't matter to me anymore.
I've recently made the decision to only buy CDs second-hand if at all.
Don't really care how new CD sales do, since I won't be giving my money directly to the record companies...
(Yes I know I am still supporting the industry, and have indirectly paid for the CD by increasing 2nd hand sales, but you get the point...)
But correlation is not equivelent to causation.. Maybe people are buying more albums for a different reason.. Economies around the world upturned in 2003.. Maybe that's important factor too..
Simon.
that each download is a loss of a "potential sale". That's why they always talk to congress about "loss of potential sales dollars".
The fact they won't admit that there are millions of casual listeners who may like a piece of music, but not like it enough to buy it.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
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
maybe the explanation is as simple as that: artists creating better music
Consumers are not just mindless fools who dumbly follow economic up and downturns: they are downloading more AND buying more CDs
This is not my opinion. Actually, it's not even an opinion. And I'm nowhere to be seen near it
I have purchased more CD's because of file sharing. I get to preview artists I have not heard, and dont get much airplay. With the high prices of disks in the UK its the only way to go!
The other reason for more sales would be online music shops that keep prices low. However as soon as you go into a high street shop the prices are rediculous for none chart stuff! You looking at 16GBP - 18GBP for a single studio album - this is the record industrys problem else where in the world OTT prices!
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.
About Austin, TX's South by Southwest musician's convention, where the attendees were saying about the same thing - that the Internet is the least of the industry's problems. That big-box retailers and cowardly radio conglomerate execs are much bigger problems. IMHO, suck-ass music by canned pop thuglings and diva princesses are the reason people aren't buying overpriced major-label CD's - but the local and underground music scenes are doing fine. My brother works in a record store, and he said that their sales are doing okay - in the old catalog stuff, but not in the mew releases.
Maybe the quality of music got better!
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???
The argument that p2p influences music sales either way misses the point. Consumers spend their money, one way or another. When times are hard, they spend less. When times are good, they spend more. If albums represent a good deal they will buy them. When music all feels shit, they won't.
The anti-piracy argument assumes that consumers have elastic wallets but this is simply wrong, and trying to say that p2p increases appetite for music is just entering into a falacious discussion.
The music industry should take an example from the movie industry, which is making record profits from DVD sales. Product, product, product. Make it amazing. Make it collectible. Make it rich. People _will_ buy it, when they can't.
Australia is a boom market for music most probably because the boom in house prices makes everyone feel afluent. Wait until the house market collapses, and wow! the music market will follow.
No news for Kazaa! at all, I'd say.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I mainly listen to game soundtracks (I particularly like Half Life's track 11), which probably counts as me buying the music. I downloaded the UT2004 demo, and I've got the music from that in my playlist. So yeah, I guess that makes filesharing a good thing - it makes me buy more game music!
is this not the way to go? i mean responsible downloading would be downloading unavailable tracks (like some live stuff or remixes)or downloading a couple of tracks off the album, and then buying it if you liked it, and wanted more.
in fact, i have 'discovered' several bands by simply typing their name into KaZaA and subsequently bought their cds.
if the BPI/RIAA/whoever get upset at people downloading whole albums, i an understand it, particularly if they would have bought the album. and that is the problem, they need to work out who is stealing by downloading an album they would otherwise be prepared to buy, and those exploring music by downloading something random they have never heard of before.
last year, i downloaded some Fountains of Wayne tracks, because one of my mates was wearing an FoW t-shirt, and i liked their name. i liked the music. so did my girlfriend, and some of my housemates. i bought a couple of their albums, as did a house mate, and we saw them on tour.
we would never have done any of this if i hadn't downloaded the original tracks.
can someone please explain how (at least in the long-run) i/we damaged the music industry by this horrific infringement of copyright?
The problem is not however piracy is in the end good or bad for the legimate buisiness of IP sales.. The problem is the almost complete disregard for IP in the first place.. How many really respect the IP-holders enough not to copy their stuff? I can fire my anecdotes on how my path of piracy could possible be linked to the fact that my dvd-purchases has skyrocked during roughly the same period of time. But its not out of a growing respect for IP, but rather because I happend to enjoy the added value of having a Futurama boxset instead of a dvd-r with all the episodes.. So the only way to combat piracy, is to gain (back?) that respect of IP, (or call it even by fear of retribution) or by enhancing the value of the bought product. I think this is the reason why dvd's are less threatened than cd's; a cd is just an archaic version of a >100mb folder with mp3's, where dvds offer higher quality, extras, audio commentary etc etc DVDs will face the same faith once the treshold of piracy reaches the same ease as with CDs. By that time, I guess they'd like worldwide respect(fear) or at least increased value enough to save their sales.
...that makes people instantly fear it?
It seems that the instant reaction by so many, including the music industry, is to make an enemy of something which could so easily be a potential friend.
The music industry instantly took a dislike to the filesharing apps and p2p networks - why? Because they were causing lost sales...certainly. But so often in this day and age, music (and other) companies fail to see the bigger picture. Loss of sales isn't the only thing that p2p networks cause.
Why don't they also look at p2p networks as massive, global advertising? And not only that, massive, global free advertising. Why does the thing that could help you so much instantly have to be rejected?
One could hark back to the days of the first submarine - another invention widely regarded as counter-productive as an example. You can almost hear them saying "A boat that's designed to sink? You're insane!" The fact that these "sinking boats" would become massively useful, widely used, and fulfil their great potential (albeit a potential to blow people up) was largely ignored.
And we have the same today. In the form of global, user-viewable, massively-multi-user (to coin a phrase) free advertising. I never understand why knee-jerk reactions such as "it's losing us sales, it's bad, kill kill kill, sue sue sue", having been shown to be so often counter-productive in the past, can't be avoided, and the full potential realised.
Anyway, seriously, I find it disgusting that *they* can project sales and then complain when 50 Cents new CD doesn't sell 500,000 copies in half a year without *any* agency either government run or consumer run etc being able to find out if it was remotely possible that 500k copies of said example album would sell. On another topic, it really is ridiculous to pretend that if they project 500,000 people would be *interested* in *owning* a copy, to claim that if only 383,666 people buy the other 116,334 guys have pirate copies *and* all the 116,334 would buy original copies if no pirate copies were available.
...culling humankind of the genetically weak and infirm will probably strengthen the species as a whole.
But that doesn't make murder any more right or palatable, does it?
The ends do not justify copyright violation - although it may make the recording industry think twice about cracking down too hard on it.
Nah, that would mean they'd be thinking intelligently.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
But HTF can anyone claim that p2p is the cause?
I think the entire point is that to claim that P2P is causing increased sales is at least as defensible a position as the record industry's continual complaints over the last few years that P2P was the cause of decreasing sales.
It's actually pretty obvious from reading the article that the reason for increased sales was a decrease in prices, and a less pessimistic economy. People felt they were getting more value for money, and thus bought 8% more units (resuitling in a 2% higher gross after the price reduction was taken into account). But given that the record industry has been ignoring the fact that they were selling an overpriced product in a depressed economy, and have been blaming their downturn on file-sharing instead, it is perfectly justifiable to turn that argument around and assume that any increase in sales is attributable to the same force.
The world makes a great deal more sense if you don't go around taking everything you read literally.
Charles Miller
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
It actually refers to albums that have left the warehouses, not actually cash money sales.
An album could technically go platinum in its first week if they do a run at the factory of 50,000 (or whatever) and put them straight on a truck.
The RIAA will say that the increase in slaes is due to their lawsuits and the publicity that they have generated. RIAA will tell you that these suits have led to a decrease in use of P2P and they have some studies that show this. They are partially correct.
But one other thing has changed - $1 song downloads. The rise of iTunes and other $1 per song services demonstrate what everyone knew and the RIAA kept denying. If users have choice and can buy songs they want at a reasonable price and conveniently, they will buy and not steal. The record industry finally listened to the customers and adopted new business models and surprise, customrs responded by buying more music.
We also have to consider that the record industry is a cyclical business. There are years with little new and interesting music. In years where the new product is crap, people don't buy. Record companies, like TV channels, see some trend and then try to find 1000 ways to clone it, because cloning is easier than creating. Nora Jones is selling a lot of albums. She is original. Yet another gangster rap guy wearing baggy pants and spewing profanity and hate is just boring! We buy new and interesting not boring.
As much as I would love to believe otherwise, this is nothing but a classical example of non causa pro causa informal fallacy, namely: post hoc ergo propter hoc. I am sure everyone who is even remotely familiar with logic (id est a great majority of Slashdotters) will agree that we cannot disprove one post hoc ergo propter hoc argument (RIAA: CD sales dropped after Napster, so they must have dropped because of Napster; Slashdot: No, they dropped indeed, but because of the overall economy trends [economical data here]) while at the same time using the same fallacious arguments when they "prove" our agenda. That would be completely unacceptable for anyone who dares to call oneself a philosopher, or a Slashdotter for that matter. We must have higher standards than the RIAA motherfuckers or otherwise we have already lost. Let us not level the playing field that way. We shall win because our morals are better then theirs, not because we know better refutation tricks! We do not need any low and cheap rhetorical tricks whatsoever! Please let us remember that fact during this and future battles with RIAA. Otherwise we will have never succeeded in destroying them. I, for one, don't want my great grandchildren to ask me a question: "Where have you been when they took the freedom to sing away?" and be forced to answer: "I was a coward using cheap non causa pro causa arguments to get a warm and fuzzy feeling instead of acting, my dear."
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
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 |
Hey, how come the Aussies get the cool names for the gov't agencies? ARIA, music (as in opera), get it? Both the American and Australian versions are the Recording Industry Associaciation of , but noooOOOoo, we (Americans) had to go for the non-humorous name...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
I believe the argument was that quality of music was dropping, and that was why sales had gone down.
You can't argue over taste.
I think a better way to express this is that the normal ways of marketing music don't promote enough product diversity. This is especially so here in the good ole USA, where unless you are lucky enough to live in a town with a plethora of college stations, the radio stations are own by a tiny handful of companies and have virtually the same format.
If most people aren't particularly interested in what is played on those stations, then most people aren't going to go out and buy music.
So, how are we, the silent majority, going to find music we like, and more importantly from the industry's point of view, are willing to shell out money for?
The problem for the recording industry is that they don't know how to market to the vast majority of people. Probably if you segmented their business, they make a tiny bit of money out of a fair number of songs, and a huge amount of money out of a small number of hits. They're focused on the hits, but the long term growth potential is in expanding the customer base for music. That's a lot harder.
P2p is a double edged sword. It really increases the market for music, but it undermines the revenues. Most importantly it kills the hit revenue model that's the industry cash cow. If I were to put together a solution for the industry to survive and grow, I'd get it out of the business of attacking its customers and do something like this: promote convenient online retail models like iTunes, and promote a healthy webcasting environment with a low cost of entry for webcasters. In other words, you want some college student in his dorm to be able create a hit webcasting service that will promote tons of your music, then you want his listeners to be able to buy that music easily.
This would be an overall win-win. Prices would drop, but volumes would increas so there was a lot more money entering the system.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't care if this helps Kazaa in court, common sense should be enough.
... or what are YOU planning to do with all those no-longer-so-high-tech VHS-cassettes? Floppy disks? Most are going to the landfill, probably, the same will happen with those $20 CDs and DVDs...
Why would rising sales of obsolete technology and non-biodegradable plastic discs be good news for anyone?
In other news:
Bio-energy research increases fossil fuel consumption! Everybody wins!!
The sooner CD:s, DVD:s and all other tangible intangibles fall into the Eternal Pit Of Ridicule and Oblivion, the better.
The radio plays high-cost artists like Madonna and Britney Spears and keeps their record sales high. But they also pay 'play-fees' to the industry. They tried to get away with paying these fees based on the same causation principle the author mentions, but the judges didn't buy it and set up a fee to play songs.
This doesn't necessarily help Kazaa because the legal precedent is there with radio play that the artists and their agents MUST be reimbursed. Using the argument of 'piracy helps sales' offers no legal assistance whatsoever. Instead, it will hurt a legal defence because the attorneys for RIAA will have precedence on their side.
Actually, you're wrong. I have bought MUCH more music since peer-to-peer than before it. Radio sucks so much I can never hear anything good. But nowadays, any artist I hear about I can sample before I buy.
Also, on a larger level independent labels are selling a lot more music because people actually have an ability to hear their music. For the first time ever radio isn't the only means to hear new music!
The main problem facing any music artist is not peer-to-peer, it's lack of exposure. Peer-to-peer helps those artists who cannot get exposure through normal means, e.g., radio and MTV. Peer-to-peer only hurts those relevantly huge stars that get tons of exposure, and the bottom line of major record labels who relies on huge stars.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
When the economy is good, fileswapping increases the sale of CDs.
When the economy is bad, fileswapping decreases the sale of CDs.
Of course, you could substitute "herding unicorns" for "fileswapping" in the two sentences above and still arrive at the same conclusion.
The thing is that you can't prove a causal relationship between file sharing and record sales. Your local franchise of the RIAA will be inclined to state that actually a 12% increase was expected and the hence file sharing harms business.
I vaguely recollect:
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
Ernest (1st Baron) Rutherford (1871-1937)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
From 1999, until approximately summer 2003, the sole way I searched for new music was by using LimeWire (a java client for Kazaa and others).
The only way I could information (quickly) about a song was to do such a search.
For example: Music from Mitsubishi Commercials. You type "mitsubishi commercial" into LimeWire - comes right up - you type "mitsubishi commercial" into iTunes - you get "The iTunes Music Store contains 0 records for your search, please try again."
Now, this relates to CD sales in that, if I found the song, and liked it, I went out and bought it, sometimes getting them from iTunes (at least within the past year).
So file sharing DOES translate into physical sales - I'm SURE I'm not the only one or even in the minority of users who do this.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
But in every single one of those cases, the copyright holder made the CHOICE to release their products in that manner.
The problem with the most common, widespread P2P use is that people are distributing products without the consent of the rights holders, removing that choice from whoever holds the copyright on that work.
By all means, support those who make this choice as much as you can, but do not then turn around and TAKE other peoples work, who have not made this choice, and demand that they do, or you'll just keep taking it.
Now this will strengthen their argument to slap more "theft taxes" on blank media.
Some of us don't steal software and music and why should those few of us that don't engage in theft have to pay for the sins of the many.
Collective punishment is WRONG..
I don't believe record companies are afraid of decreased sales. I think they're afraid of us listening to what we really want to. I can think of many bands that i would've never heard of if i hadn't downloaded some of their music. I can definately not find any of it in the record stores i know. If record companies cannot make us listen to what they want us to listen to, their market planning won't work and they won't earn as much money.
I couldn't come up with any better sign....
CD returns have tripled ;)
The record companies have a monopoly. They illegally collude to fix prices and control the market. Whenever that happens, people work extra hard to find a way around it. There is no sense calling these people criminals for wanting the music industry to be reasonable. That's the kettle calling the sugar black.
I'm sure p2p does cut down on the sales of some artists.
Those artists you hear on the radio or a club in passing, and think "hey, that seems cool." In earlier days you would have to buy the album to discover it is total crap and the artist is a talentless hack. But now p2p gets the word out before you get robbed. The record companies are all upset, because their whole business is putting blind people in fields of shit and asking them to find a rose. That is to say, they intentionally pump up one hit wonders to sell as many records as possible, but don't put as much effort into the whole album, and do even worse by most second albums.
It is in their interest to make money on talentless hacks, because while a talentless hack may be capable of producing a one hit wonder (usually with a longtime producer working with them on the track), they won't be able to achieve long-term success or the power that comes with it to demand reasonable percentages from the record company and creative control. Hence by having ten artists sell 10 million records a piece, they make more money than on a talented band with staying power who sells 100 million records.
It is a pump and dump but for music instead of the stock market. And just when they get the scheme nearly perfected, p2p comes along and lets people preview what they'll be getting in advance. At which point reasonable people pinch their noses and walk away from what the record companies would prefer that they buy.
Furthermore, those in the record industry that bitch and moan about the artists being robbed are a bunch of liars and hypocrites. They steal from their artists in numbers that p2p can never touch. They make it almost impossible for an artist to audit independently how many records they've sold, but inevitably when artists do audit (usually in a very limited area), they discover they are being paid even less than the lousy terms in their contracts. No part of this argument is about the artists: that is just a smokescreen for what's really going on.
It is the record companies' feces trade that they are worried about: they want to continue getting you to trade the money earned with the sweat of your back for fertilizer, meanwhile all their cows are starving in the field and they claim it is your fault for not buying enough sewage.
That business model, like all pump and dump schemes, eventually has to fail. Right now they are just trying to legislate a delay for the day of reckoning, while they can try to come up with a new scheme to sell us formulaic shit we don't want.
Notice that creative, independent, offbeat, artists invariably seem to make up the examples people use when they need to point to somebody who successfully leverages the Internet and p2p. Artists, in the grandest sense of the word, often can do very well in that environment.
When people can sample music freely, and be picky about the artists they will support, the music industry can no longer control the market. And that is what they are afraid of. So stop calling it stealing or copyright infringement. The only thing being stolen is the RI's ability to sell stuff people don't really want to hear (not after they've heard the good music out there).
If you took away this monopoly, instead of 5 gigantic record companies that fix prices and control the market together illegally, you would see 500 small record companies become medium sized. Smaller record companies benefit the consumer, because now there is competition. The cost of producing, promoting, and distributing has fallen way down thanks to technology, but the big record companies keep taking more and more for this service, both from their artists and the consumers.
...or is this storying suffering from a classic logical fallacy?
I mean, I don't believe the RIAA either when they say that file sharing is the reason sales are down. But then again, I thought most slashdotters felt the same way. Why is the RIAA (rightfully) chastised for false cause in that argument, yet slashdot publishes a story with the same logical error and people lap it up?
Simply because filesharing is out there now, and record sales are up in Australia, doesn't mean filesharing caused the increase. What will they say a year from now, if sales suddenly slump? Certainly not "filesharing killed Australian music sales".
B
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown
own sites? A LOT Of bands these days have music samples, and videos on their websites, they let you sample the music on the CD's all you want, without violating their copyright and downloading the entire CD.
If you can't find samples provided by people who own the rights to distribute them, don't buy the music, and let them know that you didn't buy the music because they had no samples available.
Maybe that'll lead to more positive change than using a P2P app to commit wholesale piracy, which only fuels their perception that people just want their music for free.
There are constructive ways to seek change, and destructive ways to seek change. Wholesale P2P fuelled piracy is a destructive avenue to the change you, and all of us are seeking.
Economics is like that. Always yin and yang. What's bad news for EMI is good news for Memorex.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
The record industry is really worried about artists being able to "make" their own albums with a minimal amount of investment in equipment. Imagine, studio quality CD from your living room for a couple of grand, and you don't need to wait around to "get signed".
Setup your own website, distribute your mp3s, advertise your gigs, sell t-shirts, posters etc.,
You could conceiveably give away music, and sell all the other stuff at a profit.
In the 80s, I remember reading that Iron Maiden made more money off of the sale of their T-Shirts than they did on record sales. Must've been the kewl "Eddie the Ed" emblazoned on every tee.
You could even make your own Music Videos and make them available for download, software nowadays is teriffic, overdub a song over your video and make it streaming or downloadable...no emptyvee to worry about.
The Internet could be wonderful for music if more "unsigned" artists used it more and worried less about "getting signed" and "getting ripped off" from the music industry. More money is to be made if they did it themselves and don't worry about "making a million" on their first song.
I could go on and on about ideas for promoting a music career yourself, more artists should do it, it would free them up from bad contracts and give them complete control over their music.
The record industry may be many things, but it's not a monopoly
The fact that tiny competitors exist doesn't mean the 5 major labels acting jointly as the RIAA isn't a monopoly. They claim to their sales account for 90% of all music sales in the US.
monopoly
n. a business or inter-related group of businesses which controls so much of the production or sale of a product or kind of product as to control the market, including prices and distribution.