2003 CD Sales Officially Down 7.6 Percent

Lust writes "CNN is reporting that global CD sales for 2003 are down 7.6 percent, and points to 'rampant piracy, poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs.' More grist for the RIAA mill on P2P? I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy... how about you?" It's also mentioned that "a strong second-half recovery in the United States, Britain and Australia... has raised hopes that the worst is behind the beleaguered industry", although "evidence of a full-fledged recovery is flimsy."

Comments

7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[erick99]

I think that P2P probably has had an effect on sales though not as great an effect as the price of CD's. Before P2P I bought music, I copied friend's music, and I recorded music broadcast over FM radio stations. I still buy music (I belong to one of the music clubs and even with shipping, I still only pay about $8 or so per CD), I also copy music from Kazaa. I copy some music that I have owned and I copy some music I do not own. Recently, after "pirating" a bunch of Norah Jones songs, I bought her CD. I think that happens a lot - people download music and then buy. There has always been a way to pirate music though it was usually borrowing music and re-recording it. I still wonder if a lower price for CD's would increase sales enuf that the artists and recording labels would be profitable because the decreased price would be more than made up for in increased sales.Is it also possible that the quality of music is not as great as in the past or that a lot of music is "more of the same?"

Happy Trails!

Erick

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ajs]

I would never buy music from an RIAA-owned company again. I'm sorry, but they dragged their feet for years on engaging the Internet, sued every company that did, and then started suing their customers who gave up and did it themselves.

I'm done. I still buy CDs whenever I see an artist playing at a local establishment and they are selling their own CDs, but that's ALL I'll do (and that's a LOT of music anyway).

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[bbsguru]

Gee, how about OPTIONS!?!

The reason most often cited for slumping television ratings is the ever-increasing availability of alternatives, from satellite and cable channels to DVD rentals to the Internet. People just havbe more choices when it come to how to spend an evening.
The same is true of music. We have satellite delivered content on a couple of hundred channels now, (CD quality, no commercials, and recordable: different from buying a CD how?)

I agree with the other posting most, though. Give me quality content and I'll buy it if I like it. Give me restrictive technologies and outrageous pricing, and I can find other things to do.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Seoulstriker]

I still wonder if a lower price for CD's would increase sales enuf that the artists and recording labels would be profitable because the decreased price would be more than made up for in increased sales.

Well, that really depends on the elasticity of the demand curve for CDs. However, I have a strong suspicion (by what others indicate) that a small decrease in price is not likely to increase sales enough cover the cost of the price drop. I mean, who wants to buy crap if it's $10 rather than $15? The age of major record labels is over.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the resentment the RIAA has generated towards the music industry, in general. There is a lot of bad blood there which, until they stop their witch hunt, will cause many people to simply not bother buying music and even revel in breaking the law, as they download 15 songs at once on their shiny new broadband connection.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[senatorpjt]

What's the deal with that anyway? I see RIAA-labeled bands selling CD's at shows. Is the money still divided up the same way as it is when buying from a retail store?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[3terrabyte]

And either will I.

I can't believe that there are ANY sales, period! Why do people still buy CD's from them? They're convicted price-fixers, and the price is still too high! What they need is a 90% sales slump, so that they have to cut their full time legal department.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[GreyWolf3000]

Yes, RIAA contracts mean that any time a CD under one of their labels is sold, it is either subject to their payment scheme, or is illegal.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Kaliban923]

I have a similar personal policy with one minor tweak. I buy used copies of CDs from RIAA owned companies. The RIAA doesn't see a dime from those sales and I still get music from artists that I enjoy without pirating the music.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[PurdueGraphicsMan]

Considering that iTunes has a huge market share in legal music downloading, I think that it's safe to say that the reason that cd sales are declining is because you no longer have to buy an entire CD when all that you want it 1 song. I (for one) will never buy an entire CD again unless I'm really into the artist and I actually want the entire CD. From now on I'll be buying my music on iTunes only.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[stephenisu]

Fine the RIAA sucks. But don't punish the artists who's labels chose to be members. It's hard as hell to get signed, and the artist has to eat. The RIAA provides legal services and lobbying forces that would not be possible by individual labels, let alone most artists. YES I dispise the way the RIAA has handled these issues, but they are also looking out for the rights of the artists as a whole. It's kinda like the MikeRoweSoft.com case. The RIAA has to try to protect the artists or else they set a precedent. BTW MOST of the CD's I buy are independent, and if they are under the RIAA I try to buy at concerts, and murchandise, and tickets, etc... I have the beliefs that many BBS'ers used to have about 'piracy'. Try it, then if you keep it, buy it.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[lazuli42]

I wanted to add my 'me too' to this thread in case anyone from the RIAA happened across /. today.

Between 2000 and 2002 I used Napster to download a TON of songs. But up to 2000 I had only ever bought about 20 CD's. At the end of 2002 my CD collection was up to about 60 CD's. Albums that I've bought since 2002? Zero.

I'm a small business owner. I'll admit that I've been cowed by the RIAA. Since 2002 I've only downloaded about 5 songs covered by the RIAA (and a few tracks from Japan).

There's definately a correllation here.

I'd like to sample some new music, but due to my schedule I hardly ever have the chance to listen to the radio.

I sincerely wish that all the record companies would open up their whole catalogs at high compression/low quality so that I can check out new music or download a song I haven't heard in five years.

*sigh*

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ziggy_zero]

Is it also possible that the quality of music is not as great as in the past or that a lot of music is "more of the same?"

Anybody who says that the music being produced today "isn't as good" as older music are just lazy in my book. If you can't put forth a little effort in finding new music that isn't force-fed to you by MTV or the radio, then you don't really know the whole story, do you?

There is a ridiculous amount of good music out there, if you just stop by a music news website to check it out. Also, online radio is a great way to find new artists that you like.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't bought OR downloaded any music recently. There's just too much crap out there to even try and sort through it all to find the good stuff.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny that when their numbers go down, they point fingers everywhere but at themselves. I mean, I can't think of one great record to come out in 2003. Can you? Certainly nothing I would spend $20 on. Or even $10.

I spent more on CDs last year (2003) than any year ever before. I spent about $1,800 to buy around 150 CDs - it's just that none of that money went to the RIAA because I either bought them directly from the artist or through a company like CDBaby.com which deals directly with artists and splits the sales 50/50 with them.

Just because you aren't making as much money doesn't mean your "customers" are stealing from you. Perhaps they don't like any of your products. Perhaps they've found other interests. Perhaps they're buying from your competitors.

I guess the RIAA forgot that they have any competitors... What with their near monopoly...

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[stephenisu]

I would never buy music from an RIAA-owned company again.

Good news!!! you can't buy anything from an RIAA owned company. They are a trade group. They Don't OWN, they REPRESENT their constituents, the companies, and the general opinion of the companies they represent.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ncc74656]

What they need is a 90% sales slump, so that they have to cut their full time legal department.

Their legal department is the last thing they'd cut. They'd end up turning into another SCO, or another Rambus.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[stephenisu]

great, you don't pay the RIAA, or the ARTIST either.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

sued every company that did, and then started suing their customers who gave up and did it themselves

Hey whats wrong with using SCO as a business model?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[cuban321]

<i>It's hard as hell to get signed, and the artist has to eat.</i>

Why can't the artist get a job like the rest of us?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Rhys]

It's a good plan.

I've gone as far as trying to educate my parents on it. So far, it's worked.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

"Music labels have also been slashing costs, dumping B-list stars and cutting staff. Last week, EMI announced it would shed 1,500 jobs, or about 19 percent of its staff.

Sony Music and Bertelsmann's BMG plan to merge forces, hoping to save an estimated $300 million annually through creating the second largest music label behind Universal Music."

Good, get rid of the bloat and lower the price of CDs!

The days of Music Label price fixing are numbered.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[KlomDark]

Only thing I've heard worth buying in a long time is Dream Theater or Nevermore.

And you pretty much never hear them on the radio except for maybe one of the very few remaining independent Album-Oriented Rock stations.

Everything on Clear Channel sucks ass. Even worse, here in Omaha they just changed the Clear Channel rock station (Not that it was all that good, but the most rocking station in town) into country.

Aggggghhhhh! Some dumbshit suit in New York must have said "Omaha, Nebraska? Hell, what are we playing rock there for, you know those rednecks want country...", not knowing that Nebraska on TV shows (And South Park) differs majorly from the real Nebraska.

Like King's X said "Do I have to go through all of this just to get to Nebraska???"

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[nametaken]

I could be wrong about this, but I expect they have crunched the numbers on their prices and determined that they're maximizing their profit at the current price. If they reduce the price, they may increase CDs sold, but not make as much. Obviously, no business wants this. What they seem to be upset by is that, at a given price, they have seen a decline in album sales.

Now, is it because of pirating? Probably somewhat. Is it because all the bands and music out there are suddenly boring... that's ridiculous. P2P wouldn't be popular then. The truth is, it's easier than ever for people to get high quality copies of the music they want, and it's easier than ever to put it on whatever medium they want.

How do you make everyone happy? You can't force people to buy with DRM. Not only can you circumvent it with some 13 year-olds software like 5 minutes before the first track goes on sale, but it tries to take away flexibility that regular people (like my parents) have gotten used to. The genie is out of the bottle so-to-speak, and there's no easy way of putting it back in.

I'd have to say, that www.audiolunchbox.com has been the most tempting legal direction for me. Honestly, I think people would rather be legal... you just have to make it appealing with quality of service, low prices and allow the user the flexibility they're now accustomed to. Obviously, people will always pirate... but they always have. So the conversation is really, "how can the industry entice the consumer to purchase songs instead of downloading?"

Sorry to throw around kitchy corporate phrases here, but perhaps there is a value-added direction that has yet to be explored? I dunno... this is something a guy in a suit somewhere should be thinking about.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

The number one reason that _I_ don't buy CD's anymore is because I don't watch MTV anymore!!! There's WAY too much "reality" programming, and not enough music. Maybe that's just my taste (being in my early 40's now), but I actually BOUGHT CD's if I could hear/see the songs on MTV first. And the radio stations themselves aren't any better, since they seem to play more talk than rock these days. No thanks. I've ripped my own CD's & now play them in my car's MP3 player, or listen to classical instead.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[jafuser]

Funny they don't list this as one of the strongest probable reasons for the decline.

I quit listening to mainstream music a few years ago. I don't P2P. I don't even listen to music on the radio anymore. I occasionally tune into a live365 station run by friends, but that's about it.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[shreak]

I'm not interested in paying the artist. Or the RIAA or the owner of the used CD shop. As a matter of fact, if I could get the music for free (legally) I would.

Since the used CD shop owner has the CD and he is demanding $8.00 for it, I'll pony up the cash.

All I want out of the deal is to OWN the CD I'm looking for.

=Shreak

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Lord Dimwit Flathead]

Exactly. Traditional record companies live and die on their ability to gain exclusive distribution rights to artists' material. This is why they are so threatened by the internet - it provides an alternative means of distribution that lacks the barriers to entry (production lines, physical distribution of product, access to retailers, etc.) that historically have allowed them to maintain their oligopoly.

Unfortunately, they haven't yet taken to heart the fact that a distribution-based business model isn't going to be viable over the long run for media companies, so they continue to fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo rather than adapting their business model to the changing market conditions.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[smcn]

[...] don't punish the artists who's labels chose to be members. It's hard as hell to get signed, and the artist has to eat.
You don't need a label to make music. Music is an art form, and the "music industry" has nothing to do with art.

I can't have sympathy for someone who sings or plays an instrument just to make money.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Exaclty!!! I need to eat too and because of this I can't always spend $20 on a crappy cd.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

You're being a jackass and you know it. I really don't know how this got modded up as insightful, but it's not. The OP meant that they would not buy any music from an RIAA-affiliated label. One could also make the argument that since they all belong to the trade group and that the trade group has essentially become its own independent entity that dictates much of the policies followed by the labels, that they have been bought by the RIAA... or something like that. Hell, I'm too lazy to continue this line of thought when it won't do any good.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the parent was referring to the fact that the RIAA owns its constituents' souls...

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[BigDuke]

I haven't bought any CDs lately because I have been holding out for the "She Bangs" from the Asian American Idol dude... ;-) He rocks!

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[whathappenedtomonday]

that's ALL I'll do

or you might go with the music label that is not evil.:

We call it "try before you buy." It's the shareware model applied to music. Listen to hundreds of MP3'd albums from our artists. Or try our genre-based radio stations. If you like what you hear, buy our music online for as little as $5 an album or license our music for commercial use. Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep the rights to their music.

there's always an alternative... or two.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Jerk City Troll]

Why can't the artist get a job like the rest of us?

So the artist can continue producing art.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Safety Cap]

I would never buy music from an RIAA-owned company again.

It is easy to avoid the RIAA!

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that the artist doesn't really see too much from each cd sale. Most of it goes to the studio and such and the artist makes most of their money on tours. I'm all for supporting the artist but I'm not for supporting an industry that floods the world with Bubblegum Brittany clones.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[mider]

I wonder if they've made the connection that suing their customers isn't the best way to increase sales of music? You couple that with the fact that there really isn't a lot of music that is worth buying and you have a problem in the market.

I have stopped buying any music from major lables due to the fact that they are attacking their customers. I refuse to support an industry that would go to such lengths just to stop a bit of piracy that probably has no real significant affect on their bottom line.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[zangdesign]

It's hard as hell to get signed, and the artist has to eat.

Not if they're working with the enemy, they don't.

they are also looking out for the rights of the artists as a whole.

Horse-manure. They're looking out for the pocketbooks of the major labels. If RIAA was led by musicians, then your argument would have more weight, but it's not. It's controlled by the businessmen and women who make up the major labels. "Looking out for the artists" is a convenient excuse.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[rsborg]

But don't punish the artists who's labels chose to be members. It's hard as hell to get signed, and the artist has to eat.

Hey, noone twisted their arm into signing with an RIAA label.

I hear the Microsoft employees have to eat also... does this mean I should support them? I have yet to buy a microsoft product. I will, every once in a while, buy a new RIAA label CD. However, the bulk of my purchases are now from artists I hear at www.magnatune.com and independent labels... because to me, I pay extra to places that treat their employees/workers fairly, and doesn't ignore new technology. Perhaps if a non-RIAA market springs up, the artists will either start choosing other independent labels, or the RIAA will soften it's stance.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[MushMouth]

So don't buy it, but don't enjoy being entertained by a good CD unless you do it in a non infringing manner.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[NanoGator]

"Why can't the artist get a job like the rest of us?"

Speaking as an artist: Full time jobs cut into your ability to create good art. It's not an ideal situation.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[lcsjk]

Why is it that the overall sales of consumer goods is never mentioned in articles like this. Just look at the comparable sales by Toys-R-Us during the same time interval.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[MushMouth]

Actually it isn't. When you buy from a retail store a good percentage (about 40%) goes to the store. When you buy a CD at a show, that 40% goes to the band, generally bands that sell CD's at small shows have really good record deals. This is due to the fact that the label and distributer don't do all that much for them. They do some publicity, and front some money for recording. Because there is not much money involved the label isn't taking much risk and the artist can take a larger chunk of the profits.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ATMAvatar]

"but they are also looking out for the rights of the artists as a whole."

Please explain this to me again. How exactly is the RIAA looking out for the rights of the artists? Unless I see something to suggest otherwise, I have a hard time believing any artist has seen any monsy from any of the lawsuits. I also find it difficult to believe that the RIAA would have any problem paying nothing to the artists if they could get away with it.

The only interests being protected are those of the RIAA. Any artist interests being protected as well are merely a side effect... an unexpected bonus.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Daniel_Staal]

You mean being a full time musician should not be a full job? In heaven's name, why?

Music, fiction, programming, painting, sculpture, and a few other 'creative' jobs are the few that a computer system/robot cannot do without real AI. I'm all for anything that can keep them profitable, so people will actually have jobs.

Well, not anything. Anything that actually works, and allows others to also try their hand at the jobs...

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Vancorps]

My sister who is an artist of the variety that paints maintains a full time job at a hotel so she can eat and relax enough to produce some great stuff.

That said, artists should be compensated, but the RIAA and associated big labels take serious advantage of their artists who only get a very tiny percentage of the profits. The RIAA deserves no sympathy, artists that went the route of signing with a label that has such horrid contracts need to wise up and realize there are alternatives out there like the label I used to work for: Big Heavy World.

The label recoups their costs, gives some to the artist and donates the rest to charity.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ckaminski]

I've got better access to P2P now than I did in 1999, even though I don't use it, yet my CD purchases have gone for 30-40 cd's per year, to none so far this year. All my entertainment budget has gone to Family Guy and Simpsons DVD's.

Which is the crux of where I think a lot of the RIAA's money is going.

They only time I used Kazaa in the past 3 years was to find a white label of U2's Where the Streets Have No Name.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Daniel_Staal]

Agreed. I haven't bought any CD's recently, because I haven't listened to anything that is available in CD format. I listen to Internet radio (and my own collection) all the time, and can't find any of the songs down at Tower Records. But I can find them online, where I can buy them...

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

YES I dispise the way the RIAA has handled these issues, but they are also looking out for the rights of the artists as a whole.

Omigod! You made milk spew out of my nose with this one. When do you get your own HBO special?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ckaminski]

While partially correct, such a comparison can never account for externalities that are eroding a market, such as the arrival of better markets, and alternate distribution channels, cheap 10$ DVD's, satellite radio, 10 million reality TV shows, iTunes Music Store, etc.

It's a good place to make general comparisons, but it's by no means an accurate reflection of reality.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[AnalogDog]

I don't go that far, but I really have lightened up in the last few years on my new music buying, as the prices are insane. $17-$18 for a new CD is insane, of the new stuff I have to get, I only buy it on sale, for $12-15 if I am lucky. I also buy CDs from eBay, from overseas where I can get them for $6-8 apiece and from small distributors where I can score for similar prices. But I am known to trade CDs and mp3s with buddies, but on CDs, just like the old days with cassettes. And I too have been known to buy CDs when I heard mp3s of the group. The RIAA has no idea what they are talking about. They are getting in their own way with suing their customers and jacking up prices. Screw the RIAA

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Killswitch1968]

How convenient that in your moralistic crusade to thwart the evil RIAA, you end up getting free music.
If you were really sincere about your ambitions you would not only boycott RIAA music, but not download their music which gives them legal amunition to sue people and pass laws by pointing out growing p2p statistics.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ckaminski]

As if they haven't already? Suing their customers?

-Chris

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[HepCatA]

Musicians may want to make "art" but they are also interested in eating and otherwise making a living.

The RIAA, on the other hand, are selling a "product". They'll cut an artist off if they can't make any money off them, (for the most part) contractual obligations be damned.

I'm not trying to troll here (maybe too late) but, like magazines and books, there is a vast difference between "art" and "product", even if we are talking about the same thing.

As far as it being difficult to actually get signed -- is that because it's difficult to get out there and be heard or because the RIAA MAKES it difficult?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ee_moss]

I completely agree. I stopped buying music years ago. I actually think there's quite a bit fan base of music mainly based in Europe: Trance techno, for example. I listen to Digitally Imported radio, which plays constant streams of music (sometimes live) in all different forms of trance, and it even has classical, salsa, and jazz streams.

The thing is though, even though digitally imported is an awesome site, there are tons of online radio stations that tailor to certain genres of music, constantly changing, that users can listen to for free (even ad-free). So if you're sitting in front of the computer all the time like most of us /. folks are, I don't see the need to buy your own music.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Mateito]

> Speaking as an artist: Full time jobs cut into
> your ability to create good art. It's not an
> ideal situation

Speaking as network admin, Full time jobs cut into your ability to do anything.

I took 6 months off in the dot-com-crash. Ended up learning another language, a musical instrument and wrote the best part of a novel that, not suprisingly, two years later I'm yet to finish.

Work kills creativity. Full stop.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[iminplaya]

Full time is not the only option. I only work six months out of the year and live in a cheap country the other six months. It's not dificult, and it helps you maintain your sanity.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you do when you work 6 months that you can just pick up and leave... and come back and find more work... for 6 months.

Also, what cheap country? Also, moving twice a year can't cheap.

Honestly, just interested in hearing more.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[slittle]

Full time jobs cut into your ability to create good art

And your ability to sit around smoking.. whatever while the royalties roll in, no doubt. Assuming anyone actually likes your particular brand of 'art' that is.

Tell me, as an artist, why can't you play gigs as your job? That at least is a real job. Then you can sell official merchandise to fans, and if the masses want pirate copies for free, so be it.

The rest of us don't get to record what we do and sell/license it out to millions of employers, so it's hardly suprising a lot of people don't have the same respect for copyright as they do for a physical object made by someone with a real job.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[pilgrim23]

Speaking as an artist who still has a photocopy of my one and only 20 dollar royalty check from a album (yeah, that long ago) that grossed many hundred thou...I find the prospect of people downloading my copywrited and commercial music and burning their own copies of it without paying the pirates who originally published it abominable! After all, this whole issue of piracy is just awful! All of us should be paying these pirates! How DARE people inovate! now...where did I file those buggy-whip stock certificates....

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[zurab]

There has always been a way to pirate music though it was usually borrowing music and re-recording it.

I think borrowing a CD from a friend and recording from it is fair use. I bet RIAA and MPAA would like you to think it's "piracy" and you are well ahead in their propaganda.

Is it also possible that the quality of music is not as great as in the past or that a lot of music is "more of the same?"

I bet. And recent deregulation and consolidation in the radio station arena should not help any. All you will be hearing on your radio station is top 20 songs - "more of the same." There are multiple factors at work here as far as I can tell. When you have 90% (?) of such popular method of delivery of music owned by a handful of companies that control many radio stations in any given area, they - cartel (i.e. RIAA companies/labels) - get certain advantages: Labels can purchase/dictate what songs are being played on most stations, how many times per day/week, etc.; with lack of competition, station owners are in control of what listeners are hearing; since this way, there's more certainty to the advertizing dollar, station owners get more marketing and advertizing revenues; which, again, discourages local competition. In the end, you have a cartel of RIAA companies dealing with an oligopoly of radio stations - no wonder none of them are interested in competition, variety of products, or meeting consumer demands.

"Meeting consumer demands" in a creative field also includes a lot of offering something that potential consumers did not know about. Why then, you would ask, are they - the Cartel - not offering more variety to compete for consumer dollars? Key word here is compete - because they don't compete. They are a cartel. They would rather put 80-90% or whatever actual number of their advertizing resources in handful of "artists" that would be made into marketing icons and TV channels like MTV, E!, VH1, etc. will be talking about 24 hours a day. Again, "more of the same."

I've said it many times and I'll say it again because many people seem to be ignoring the root of the problem - RIAA is a cartel - they violate competition laws, fix prices, engage in "creative" and illegal accounting practices, create artificial barriers to entry for legitimate competitors, engage in artificial and illegal trade restrictions, etc., etc., etc. Many times, they get sued, pay fines, and go on to keep doing the same thing they were doing before. Then they use their combined powers to purchase more legislation against their own customers in order to gain more powers.

So, when you note that you are getting "more of the same" and point out all the unfair legislation that's been passed and introduced that treats everyone as outlaws until proven otherwise, you (in general, not specific) need to realize that the problem is deeper than a thin layer of what music you are hearing.

The cartel needs to be disbanded and their illegal practices halted. The only way for the market to prosper is to create an environment where competition will bloom. Multitude of companies that are competing against each other to deliver the best products, the best services, innovating products and delivery methods is the only way to stop this madness. RIAA cartel and its members do not do this, and destroy, acquire, or sue other companies who attempt to.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[NanoGator]

"Tell me, as an artist, why can't you play gigs as your job? That at least is a real job. Then you can sell official merchandise to fans, and if the masses want pirate copies for free, so be it."

Sorry, I'm not that type of artist, I'm a 3D artist. I can take a stab at answering it, though:

- Getting that gig to play isn't easy.

- Getting enough pay to support yourself playing those gigs isn't easy.

- Pursuing that option can take time away from developing yourself into a better artist.

At least in the 3D art arena this is more or less true. I've been a 3D artist for years, but my last job didn't use my art skills, so I had to take additional time out of my day to produce the reel I need to get a new job. I've been able to produce a decent one, but now my lack of studio experience is biting my rump. Heh. I am talented, and I want to do this for a living, but it ceases being fun to do when I trade a good night's sleep for it.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Breakfast Pants]

Umm when you buy from a retail store many times the store is selling at a loss. Bestbuy did this for years. 40% is a huge over estimate.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out what is available at www.magnatune.com. It is non-riaa, and the artist gets half of the purchase price. There is not a huge number of titles available yet, but it is all released under the creative commons license, and all downloadable. Mention these people every time people are complaining about the riaa, and people will begin to see that there can be alternatives.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[geekee]

Considering that iTunes has a huge market share in legal music downloading, I think that it's safe to say that the reason that cd sales are declining is because you no longer have to buy an entire CD when all that you want it 1 song. I (for one) will never buy an entire CD again unless I'm really into the artist and I actually want the entire CD. From now on I'll be buying my music on iTunes only.

The revenue generated by Itms, even if multiplied by 20, to match 1 song sale to 1 cd sale, doesn't make a dent in the 7.6% revenue decline.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as an artist: Full time jobs cut into your ability to create good art.

Yes, eating and being able to provide for yourself also cut into your ability to create good art.

It's not an ideal situation.

I only know one person who is in the 'ideal situation', and he won the lottery. Twice. Point being, there's no such thing as an ideal situation. Even the guy who won the lottery twice still works, as he invested his money and is saving most of it for his kids and retirement.

Sorry, but it sounds like you want everything handed to you. I hope I'm wrong...

Besides, hard work will help you create good art in the future. A real artist can draw upon past experiences.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[skifreak87]

I still buy music but not very much. I find CDs not worth my money, part of that reason being that I can download a lot of the music for free. The last CD I bought was the Dave Matthews Central Park concert, a 3-disc set for $18 which included a bonus cd containing 7 random live songs. Even just the third disc would have been worth $18 to me because the performance is so good. Consequently, I find it completely not worth it to pay even $12 for a normal CD that I wont like half as much as that. I buy live concerts from some bands, because I enjoy the live music more than the studio version and some concerts are hard to find. However, with Dave Matthews for example, one can easily find any concert he's ever played at and get an shn version of it (lossless compression) for free, yet I still pay for the CD because I find it useful.

Furthermore, I rarely listen to CDs, I use my computer (sometimes hooked up to my stereo) to play music because I like having access to my entire collection (I have ripped all my cds to mp3's) and I also have a minidisc player that I use instead of a portable cd player. And while I do download a good deal of music, if I could not download this, I know for certain, I probably would not buy more CDs because I just don't consider them worth the price, I'd rather buy a DVD.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[platypibri]

Let us not forget that 7.6% down is still making a few select people BUCKETS full of money. And, sorry, it ain't the artist. Even the big dollar acts, Mariah Carey, Metallica, et. al. are making less on CD sales than the lable. Metallica are millionares because the sold a buttload of t-shirts.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[NanoGator]

"Sorry, but it sounds like you want everything handed to you. I hope I'm wrong..."

Yes, you are wrong. I don't want everything handed to me. (Seriously, I've never even purchased a lottery ticket.) In my particular case, (I'm not a musician...) I want my talents to be utilized, preferably in the visual FX arena. Once I'm doing that, I'm going to be happy. I'll be doing artwork for a living, and I'll be doing something constructive to boot.

Could I do the artwork, make a little on the side, and still work a full time job? Yes, I've done that for 6 years now. It sucks. It's hard on the sleep schedule, and it takes me away from my family for too long. The worst part is that I'm tired by the time I sit down to do it. It's a bumer, too, because they're not getting the most energy out of me.

"Besides, hard work will help you create good art in the future. A real artist can draw upon past experiences."

Man I hate this generalization. It doesn't apply to all types of art. Also, it's impossible to say that the end result is better either way you go. If I make something as a result for working 5 years at a crappy job, will that outweigh 5 years of professional experience as an artist? 9 out of 10 times, no, not even close.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as an artist: Full time jobs cut into your ability to create good art. It's not an ideal situation.


Ummmm .... You may not have noticed, but being OWNED by a record company involves compromises that cut into your ability to create good art. It's not an ideal situation.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[iminplaya]

Many jobs in tv are now "daily hire". It's very convienient for me, because there's no long term commitment, from me or the employer. I'm up front about my plans when I start up for the season, and it's all good. When I'm ready to bug out for the winter, I usually have something waiting for me in May. I've been very lucky, but my kind of work is relatively easy to find. If I don't get anything, well, then, I guess the gig is up, and I find that perfectly acceptable. I can't spend my time thinking about it. I just do what I can, and hope for the best. You won't find me crying to the gov't or anyone else to protect my job. I accept responsablity for my misfortunes. How about you?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[CrackedButter]

You are so on the ball, i listen to itunes radio now and again when i get bored with my own legally owned music. Last month i bought a cd from a song i heard from iTunes radio, some independent out in canada somewhere, i heard one song from his album and was hooked. I did a google search, found his label and bought the album. I paid 16.00 Dollars for it which was only 6.00 in sterling including P&P +plus a demo cd of other live acts with more tracks than the album i bought AND stickers! Its been the best album i bought in nearly 2 years.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[RetroGeek]

I wanted to add my 'me too' to this thread in case anyone from the RIAA happened across /. today.

No problem with that IMHO.

I think that every major tech company has someone fishing through /. for nuggets of info.

Not that every post is good or anything, but once in a while you come across a real gem. Especially when we discuss ways of getting around troublesome limits.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Greater artists than you have created stuff while supporting themselves with a full time job. What makes you so fuckin' special, besides laziness?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a new sig. The war w/ Iraq was not about getting you cheaper gas, it was about Bush getting CONTROL of the oil. Control of the oil equals more power. Don't ever think that our highest-tier politicians, conservative or liberal care about anything other than money or power.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[decepty]

Speaking as an artist: Full time jobs cut into your ability to create good art. It's not an ideal situation.
Two words I hate; 'fair' and 'ideal'... Life is neither, get over it. Who REALLY works in an 'ideal situation'? I sure as hell don't. That's why it's called work.
'Ideally' I'd be drinking mojitos on a beach somewhere in the Carribbean - even though that's my 'ideal situation' it doesn't justify lying to the general public, fixing prices, buying off polititians and extorting my customers. There's already a word for that.... bullshit.

...and I'm 'speaking as an artist' as well, champ.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[MushMouth]

First of all bestbuy carries a very small range of CD's (How many of the bands that bestbuy stocks are sitting and selling records themselves after the show), most of which I'm not all that interested in (OK Outkast's new album was fun). I also won't shop at best buy because I have friends who work at record stores (music only stores that do not sell albums at a loss), and they make it worth my $5 to buy from them (they steer me clear of sucker albums, they turn me on to stuff I would never find elsewhere). And fuck bestbuy is not all that pleasent a place to enter, it has bright lights and garrish colors, $5 isn't all that much money, about the cost of a beer at a bar, which is worth about the same as avoiding a visit to bestbuy. That said I looked more into wholesale/MAP pricing and the markup is 31% for the top of the line "artists" $9-$12 wholesale, with a $13-$19 MAP price.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[MushMouth]

It's all very simple, you are getting something from the artist, you are being entertained when you listen to their music/watch their movie, whatever. If you aren't being entertained then stop listening/watching, otherwise honor their rights, they have provided you with a service, entertainment. They have a CONSTITUTIONALLY given right to be paid, so pay them. BTW everytime an album is sold an artist is paid, that artist is the songwriter. Stop bitching about people getting paid to sit on their ass, if you had any talent, or money you could be paid for sitting on your ass. It sounds like you are the greedy one, you want something for nothing.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[NanoGator]

"Greater artists than you have created stuff while supporting themselves with a full time job. What makes you so fuckin' special, besides laziness?"

Sorry, I don't remember using the word 'impossible' anywhere. Can't answer your question.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[BiggyP]

you know, i'm not entirely convinced that it's down to P2P, well, at least not for the reasons suggested.

downloading music from the internet allows one to listen before they buy, no longer are so many album purchases made based on the strength of one single, we get a chance to discover that, actually, the album isn't worth the money.

one good solution, better bands making better music, there are a handful of great bands i love, and listen to frequently, but then there's all this crap that's been apearing on MTV2 and Kerrang recently, it's far less likely that i'm going to hear something i want to go out and buy now than it was 12 months ago.

i'm waiting for the RIAA to go after public libraries here, borrowing a CD for a couple of quid and copying it, vs. buying a couple of DRM'd low bit rate compressed tracks for 99p each...

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[NanoGator]

"Two words I hate; 'fair' and 'ideal'... Life is neither, get over it. Who REALLY works in an 'ideal situation'? I sure as hell don't."

Lots of people work in an ideal situation. Unfortunately, we're not quite on equal ground about the definition of idea. You're thinking of ideal as "Something for nothing", whereas I'm using it like "Both sides benefit from it". My ideal career with art isn't drinking mojitos on the beach somewhere in the Caribbean. This would take me in the wrong direction away from doing my art. The ideal situation would be that the art I create is used for a larger purpose, I'm paid respectably for it, and I'm given adequate time to do it. Usually in real life, you can only expect 2 of the three. Still, though, two out of three is better than trying to do it on the side.

Yeah, life's hard, but it's not impossible.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Moofie]

"CONSTITUTIONALLY given right to be paid"

Which Constitution is that, exactly?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[MushMouth]

US Constitution Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8. If you are not American, there probably exists similar section of your own constitution.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Moofie]

This one?

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

So, insofar as copyright promotes the progress of science and art, the inventor's exclusive right will be protected.

Do you think the art of popular music is progressing because of copyright restrictions? I do not.

The clause you cite does not protect the artists' interest directly. It only protects the artists' interest as that serves the public interest. If the public interest is not being served, teh artists' interest shall not be protected.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Deraj DeZine]

More grist for the Slashdot mill on P2P? I just purchased a CD I downloaded. I wouldn't purchase CDs anyway... how about you?

Really, I think we've all heard these arguments before. Any new pro-P2P developments?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Shadarr]

I also discovered a wealth of music during the Napster days, and bought a ton of albums as a result. However, what made me stop buying albums wasn't the lack of P2P options, because they are still out there, but the copy protection on CDs.

I'm going to break it right down to specifics, in case any brain-dead record execs are reading this. I bought Elements Part 1 by Stratovarius. In fact, I ordered the special edition from Europe, so it cost me over $30. The CD was "copy protected". What this actually means is that the CD is corrupt and won't play in my computer. I don't own a stereo, because my computer is my stereo.

So, in order to listen to the CD I had legally purchased, I had to go to the P2P network and download the MP3's. At this point, I had to ask myself "Self, what am I getting for my $30?" The answer is not much.

For a while, I made an effort to check whether an album I wanted was corrupted or not, but that was too much trouble and took most of the fun out of shopping. Recently I haven't bought any CDs because it just feels like Russian roullette. Either that or work.

I finally got around to downloading some of the songs off Elements Part 2 last week. Don't worry, I live in Canada so it's legal (for now, at least). But the legality of it wasn't an issue. The issue is that I would still have to download the songs even if I bought the album. So what's the point?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[antic]

I haven't bought a CD in 5 years. File-sharing will cop the majority of blame, but why don't they look a little closer at those economic conditions and the fact that most people in certain demographics would rather spend on DVDs or games (more quality in console and PC games these days than there is in most of the music industry).

Even if I did like some of the music coming out, why would I want it on CD? I have a 6-stack CD player that I don't use. In my car, I use a 40GB iPod and an iTrip. Who can be bothered switching CDs every hour or so?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[colmore]

I've found that mental work, IT, research, teaching, etc. kills any energy for extracurricular creativity, whereas physical work may leave the body too exhausted for say, sculpting marble, but I'm generally on a creative rush after coming off of 8 hours of lifting or hammering things.

I'm about to finish up college, and I'm seriously considering jobs that won't leave my brain drained at the end of every day.

Also with physical labor, unpaid overtime is virtually unheard of, hours are generally more flexible, and you generally get a better response when complaining about your day at the bar.

"I had to reconfigure every router in the building, give me a beer."

vs.

"I spent all day setting 16 foot tall posts in 95 degree weather... better make that a whiskey."

Something to think about...

(to be fair, my experience with physical labor has been mostly in volunteer organizations, and independant projects for family friends, and my experience with mental work has been mostly in work-study student jobs, all of which are considerably cushier than their "real world" counterparts)

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

great, you don't pay the RIAA, or the ARTIST either.

right and wrong. someone paid for the CD originally. everyone gets their precious money.

PS everyone who triumphantly claims that they only buy independent music and CDs is an idiot. you are the exact same as the faggots who listen to the "bad" music you always harp on. just listen to what you like, not to what will make your ideal political-nerd-fredom-of-information statement. idiots.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[obeythefist]

Exactly! Here's a sad but true fact.

If you are an artist, and you're poor, you are not producing art of quality good enough to meet the demands of a sufficiently large/wealthy section of the population. I know it sounds harsh, but the USA is a "free market" economy where demand, supply, and price determine volume of economic activity.

So if your price is right, you have enough CD's to sell, but they aren't selling.... it's because no one wants your stuff. You're doing a job that isn't useful.

If the RIAA was responsible for making typewriters, computers would have been illegal years ago, and there would be hundreds of typists complaining about how the underground computer networks are stealing their livelihoods. The truth of the matter is, they aren't needed, and they should go do something more valuable to themselves and society.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[jkauzlar]

Posting the catalogs at high compression/ low quality isn't a good idea for the consumer. How can you tell its good if the quality is low? How can you tell that what you may actually purchase is better than the low-quality give-away? I still think the best way to judge new music is through word-of-mouth and through reviewers with integrity.

Lowering the price of CDs is another great thing. I'd heard good thing about the Franz Ferdinand CD, passed it on the shelf for under $10 and said what the heck its only $10 (better than that $18 Stones or Dylan re-issue of a 30+ yo album! Jeez)

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Kaliban923]

artists dont make their dime through record sales. It's the music companies that make their money through record sales. I support artists I enjoy by attending their concerts and buying authorized paraphanelia(shirts, etc).

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, exactly. There are still a lot of people out of work, world wide, and they might rather buy food and pay rent with the little money they have rather than buy a crappy mass produced CD from some no instrument playing boy band.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I'll download the CD and send William Hung a check instead.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[macdaddy357]

I don't buy anything from the major labels any more either. The first time I got a "copy protected" CD that wouldn't play in my computer, I stopped buying any. I hope the 7.6% decline is because of the boycott called for by sites like dontbuycds, Downhillbattle, and boycott-riaa. It would serve the major labels right if they all went bankrupt.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[macdaddy357]

RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America. Neither "A" stands for artists. I think that sums it all up.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[d34thm0nk3y]

uh...yeah....totally....I am doing this for work, not just AT work........

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[nettdata]

Speaking as an artist: Full time jobs cut into your ability to create good art.

Then, based on the amount of "good art" available, I'm thinking that a large percentage of artists DO have full time jobs.

It's not an ideal situation.

Yeah, I hear ya... for me, a full time job doesn't so much get in the way of my ability to create good art as it is getting in the way of me getting hammered and laid on a regular basis... once again, not an ideal situation.

But what can you do, that's life.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Lehk228]

sorry, had to ask, is that another spoken lanuage or programming language?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[SphericalCrusher]

"Is it also possible that the quality of music is not as great as in the past or that a lot of music is "more of the same?""

That's actually on my mind. So it decreased 7%. I'm sure it decreased that much or more before P2P was even thought of. The RIAA is just blaming it because they want to have something to tell the recording companies. They can't face the music that their new line of albums from all of their pretty rap/pop artists suck ass now.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[a-dac]

I would say that it started to drop about the time the riaa started suing its customers

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[cabra771]

Here you go

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[stephenisu]

hahaha Insightful?

If your only basis for morality is law, then you should take an ethics course sometime.

If your only reason you want to buy it is to cover your ass, you are buying for all the wrong reasons.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[lingenfr]

I hear you, but the artists are in on this with the RIAA. They are doing this to themselves. Until we show them that they are on the path to destruction, they will continue. I hope for a Creative Commons with a lot less post production and a much greater percentage of the profit going to the artist. Sooner or later, monopolistic behavior will get you in trouble. I think that buying used music is probably the best illustration of the point that needs to be made. People will pay for music. They won't pay a ridiculous price and they are getting tired of heavy-handed attempts by associations, etc to limit choice and fair use. Hopefully, someone will begin tracking used music sales (like Amazon) and the case will become clear. Pound on the music thieves all you want. (carefully dismounts soapbox).

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead you fucking take it, because technology says that you can. You are entertained yet do not pay the one who entertains you. Just yesterday people rightly bitched about managers changing time cards so that overtime doesn't get paid. Guess what, that is the same as you ripping off songwriters and performers.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Alcohol Fueled]

Hell yes, online radio is great. I use MusicMatch's free radio service, and I've found artists I like on there that I hadn't listened to before. I never listened to Iron Maiden before hearing them on MusicMatch. Same with Judas Priest. Now? Now I own at least three CDs from each band. Same for Motorhead. I never heard their stuff before, except for a couple of theme songs they did for WWE. Now I own their Stone Deaf Forever box set. So yes, online radio is a very great way to find new artists you like. :-)

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy... how about you?" That is spot-on. In general, the quality of the music of today is just not good enough for me. Here in Belgium radio stubru is having a 90's-week (because it is 10 year since the death of Kurt Cobain). I haven't listened that much to the radio since years. It is a culture shock to hear that music also can be full of energy and be creative, not commercial.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Oddly_Drac]

"Anybody who says that the music being produced today "isn't as good" as older music are just lazy in my book. If you can't put forth a little effort in finding new music that isn't force-fed to you by MTV or the radio, then you don't really know the whole story, do you?"

No, NO, look up, damn....that point missed you by inches.

Minority appeal is minority appeal; the RIAA doesn't really care about the piracy of Shonen Knife tracks beyond the obvious monetary amount...it's more about the wholesale ripping of Britney Spears et al. They represent the biggest investment by the record companies, and rightly or wrongly, they expect the largest return from those poor butt-puppets.

Y'see, since the advent of punk in the UK, the record companies have been convinced that the public will buy prettily packaged sh**, and although it was hit and miss in those anarchic days, they've refined the whole process. Entire industries are now set up to handle the fostering and promotion of one or two pretty people for the delight of the prepubescent. Incidentally the biggest age group with a limited budget.

Like the Saturday morning toy ads, they're targetting their market directly.

"online radio is a great way to find new artists that you like."

And the record companies have left that well alone, haven't they?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[FairlyFast]

The real reason CD sales are down? In HMV (music sotre for non-UK readers :-) this weekend: Matrix Revolutions Movie DVD 13.99 Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack CD 15.99 Why would anyone by the CD?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine the RIAA sucks. But don't punish the artists who's labels chose to be members. It's hard as hell to get signed, and the artist has to eat.

This argument is perilously close to advocating the buying of records of artists you don't even like. After all the artist has to eat!

I punish Britney Spears everyday by refusing to buy her records and turning off the TV whenever she appears. Heck, if she was performing in my back garden, I'd draw the curtains. But now I feel really bad because I'm taking food out of her mouth by ignoring her.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Iraq war was supposedly "all about oil," why is gasoline $2+ per gallon?

Because they control it therefore there is less competition therefore they can dictate the price. It's really very simple but then again I don't expect freepers to understand simple concepts.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think that every major tech company has someone fishing through /. for nuggets
> of info.

Info? From Slashdot? Puh-leaze. It's like a global watercooler, with badly informed idiots saying `if I were in charge I'd do...` and `Microsoft doesn't know what it's doing` etc.

Fact: The RIAA doesn't `own` any record companies.
Fact: The effect of people boycotting companies involved with the RIAA is going to be lost in the margin of error.

Anyone claiming not to be buying any music from those companies is massively restricting what they can buy. They'll be back.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Sick of Anti-Gentoo zealots turning their sigs into off-topic rants?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[CKW]

I first discovered Stratovarius on p2p!!! Had never even heard their name once prior to that as long as they've existed, and probably never would have!

Music (and a lot of other things) should be global, but corporations like to play corporate "optimization games" with geographical "territories" and crap. The net is great for breaking through that shit.

If God himself (herself?) came down today and decreed that no more content be created, we'd have more than enough from the last 100 years to last us the rest of our lives.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[corrosiv]

Artists aren't aware that they don't have to play ball with that industry to eat. They can promote themselves and collectively form distribution networks.

If they're only in the game to get rich and bag hot chicks, let them fellate the record label that will co-opt their art and steal their money, but don't assume that the only way to make money is to be on a major label.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ajs]

Fine the RIAA sucks. But don't punish the artists who's labels chose to be members.

Should I also not "punish" the people who work at a fast food restaurant just because they happen to work for a company that makes lousy food? I buy entertainment products to be entertained (shocking, I know), and thinking about the fact that my money is going directly to an organization that sues 9 year old girls for "pircacy" makes the idea of listening to just about anything rather starkly non-entertaining.

If that hurts the artists, then they have exactly one direction to point their baleful stares... I'm sure the RIAA would be happy to explain to them why political overtones are appropriate for entertainment media, and help move sales.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[ajs]

Unfortunately, they haven't yet taken to heart the fact that a distribution-based business model isn't going to be viable over the long run for media companies, so they continue to fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo rather than adapting their business model to the changing market conditions.

And that is a good thing, for the most part.

It's not really good for the RIAA members, but it's good for business and the economy. It means that there is always an edge that small upstart companies will have: they take risks on new ideas. The truly troubling thing today is the amount of regulation and law that has as its primary goal defending large companies from such changing market conditions. The incentives need to be firmly on the side of risk if you want to continue to be competitive in the world market, but the US seems to have bought into the idea that only large, well-established companies can do that well.

That stagnation will kill US business... but perhaps that's what we need in order to give the next generation an example of what not to do.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Dream Theater - Train of Thought

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't sue when they replaced me with an Indian (or likely 10 - reminds me of a song:-)). The RIAA shouldn't be able to sue when I replace them with kazaa. deal with the new times, man.

If you're an artist and you sign with the devil, well good for you;I don't have to support it any more than indians would have to support me (and shit I tried to market and sell in India) if I did sue to prevent all jobs from leaving the country rendering their tech economy illegal the way the RIAA has made technology (not just particular uses of it) illegal.

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[dan_bethe]

I sincerely wish that all the record companies would open up their whole catalogs at high compression/low quality so that I can check out new music or download a song I haven't heard in five years.

That would be known as Live365. Enjoy!

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[nanojath]

There are increasingly richer fields of content that are not connected to the publishing conglomerates, so I'm with you. I can live without new music from them, and for older stuff and classics - well, I have a working cassette, 8-track, and record player on my stereo so legacy content is cheap and available (and it's fun to have different formats). I don't do illegal downloads, never have - call me crazy but I think people have a right under law to sell their stuff as they see fit. If that means selling their souls and 99% of their profits to some huge corporation... their business.

When I got my price-fixing lawsuit settlement check I went straight to CD Baby and spent it on an independent artist. Mmm, it's like screwing them twice.

It raises a couple of questions - I wonder how good of a job these sales figures are doing of tracking the independent artist who's selling directly or through a service like CD baby. A surprising amount of this year-to-date's new music purchases have been from extremely talented friends etc. at shows or direct from them. I also wonder about the used market. Between used stores and things like Half.com, does a boom in sales one year inevitably lead to dragging sales the next as people recycle more content? Could part of the "decline" in sales really be an untracked shift in the publishing paradigm (ok, yeah, I'm a stupid optimist).

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Vindicator9000]

How many of the bands that bestbuy stocks are sitting and selling records themselves after the show
You'd be surprised: Dredg, Fugazi, Coheed and Cambria, Further Seems Forever, Dead Poetic, Zao, Elliot, Brand New, Silverstein, Hey Mercedes, Beloved, Norma Jean, just to name a few. I've been surprised more than a few times at seeing an "unknown" band's CD at Best Buy. I have noticed though, that all of the lesser-known bands that I see there are on indie labels that aren't really indie (that is, they're affiliated with the RIAA). Still great music, though.

That said, I agree that BB is garish and overpriced (on some CDs, underpriced on others), and still doesn't have a lot of CDs that I'm actively looking for, but the alternative for me is to drive an hour into St. Louis to go to Vintage Vinyl, or brave the elitist assholes at Slackers.
*sigh* Why can't John Cusack open a Championship Vinyl in my town?

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[FrenchyinCT]

Without question, the quality of the music has gone down. I no longer listen to American FM because it's nothing but crap. Same old music, same old formats, boring as hell. I listen to foreign radio stations now over the Internet like The Basement in Oz, Phantom FM in Dublin and The Edge in Toronto. I'm exposed to music from these venues I'll *never* hear here. I don't buy CDs anymore because they're really kind of irrelevant - however, wunna deze daze I'll check out the music stores. If I can download an album without DRM and a lot of restrictions on it, I have no problem paying for it. But they gotta make it easy and cheap to do. And NO RESTRICTIONS!

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[shreak]

> hahaha Insightful?
I just type 'em, I don't rate 'em. You got one too, go figure. I guess you can't account for the mod's taste.

>If your only basis for morality is law,
>then you should take an ethics course sometime.

Never said law was my basis for morality.

>If your only reason you want to buy
>it is to cover your ass, you are buying
>for all the wrong reasons.

hmmm... I didn't say this either. are you sure you replied to the right posting?

=Shreak

Re:7.6% is one number but there are many reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with that previous comment

"Why cant the artist work like the rest of us."

Sure the artist can continue to produce art, if that is what you want to call the latest music genre. Art is everything you do, the baker down the street is no less an artist of his crafts than the musician who can play a stunning solo. It all comes down to money in the end, a lot of RIAA artist are greedy bastages, and love to put down "da man" as a form of self marketing, that is until you download or God forbid share one of their tunes. While artist need to eat, I dont make $50 million dollars doing the job I do, I have a graduate degree and make around $80k right now and I am doing just fine. The problem is a lot of these so called artist can care less about their fans, very few have spoken out, even less have left RIAA labels. Buy Indie and support the ones that are not out to sue your kids.

When Business Models Go Bad

[stecoop]

I don't mind pay 15 bucks for a new full feature movie release but I'm not buying another 1 hit wonder that has only one song that I like for something around 18 bucks and listen to it only once.

No there isn't going to be a recovery until their business model is revised.

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[anachattak]

I think this hits the nail on the head. When I buy a DVD (which is about the same price as a music CD), I get a ton of "value added" features (trailers, music videos, commentary, etc. etc). The problem with music CD sales is that there is NO value added. You just get a handful of tracks, most of which suck, which costs as much as a feature film?

The RIAA needs to learn that their product IS in competition with movies and video games, needs to make their product competitive, and needs to realize that unless they change their model, they will continue to lose sales.

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[bwy]

You can also usually buy a performer's music DVD for only a buck or two more than the audio CD, and a lot of times they are the same price or sometimes less. I don't know about you but for the same price, I'll take an hour of video of Norah Jones singing instead of her audio CD with just the jacket photo to look at!

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[homer_ca]

One of the funnier things is that the movie soundtrack CD costs as much as the whole movie on DVD. The soundtrack songs played during the movie might be partial clips and mixed with dialog, but they'll often play 2 or 3 of the soundtrack songs in their entirety during the credits at the end.

Don't forget competition from video games too and the music they manage to bundle with them. The Tony Hawk Pro Skater games have at least a full CD's worth of music as the in game soundtrack. GTA Vice City had almost a hundred 80's songs in its in game soundtrack, but it was mixed in with the fictitious radio stations.

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[bludstone]

Exactly.

When I buy a DVD, Im not just buying the movie. If I just wanted the movie, I'd download it.

Im paying for a high quality digital video presentation, a 5.1 DD/DTS audio track, Commentary, Bonus features, widescreen presentation, ect.. All for 15 bucks.

Thats less then the cost of the CD soundtrack of THE SAME MOVIE.

I argue that p2p has MINIMAL impact compared to competition from dvds and videogames.

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[ath0mic]

In most retail CD outlets (at least here in Canada) you can listen to the CD before you buy it.

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Online you can download the hole dammed thing for free. Whats your point?

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[asr_man]

not buying another 1 hit wonder

Nor do we choose to pay for 100 cable channels two of which we'd actually enjoy watching.

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I think his point is that you have to be fairly ignorant to get stuck with a "one-hit wonder" CD. The "I only download because CD's suck" argument is a weak one at best.

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[Threni]

Oh, to pay only (the UK equivalent of) 18 bucks for a CD!

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

When I buy a DVD, Im not just buying the movie. If I just wanted the movie, I'd download it.

Im paying for a high quality digital video presentation, a 5.1 DD/DTS audio track, Commentary, Bonus features, widescreen presentation, ect.. All for 15 bucks.

So what happens when people start uploading movies with all of that stuff? Will you go and pirate them, or will you continue paying $15 a piece for it?

Re:When Business Models Go Bad

[An Onerous Coward]

You do know that the whole "commentary/deleted scenes/movie trailers" thing is just a scam to keep us from questioning why DVDs cost just as much as VHS tapes, right? You can probably create 10 DVDs for the cost of manufacturing and recording a VHS tape. Yet we're not seeing the savings passed onto the consumer. People are used to paying $15 for a movie, so that's the price point.

The commentaries (which I've never really been able to get into) are the only one of the three that require any extra effort at all.

Of course, there is also the "we have the space, so we may as well" factor.

Blame? Look in the mirror.

[grub]

rampant piracy, poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs.

Hmm.. they seem to have missed "boring bands, unoriginal music and inflated CD prices."

Here's a free tip from me to the music industry lurkers:
Shrink-wrapping dog shit does not create a market for shrink-wrapped dog shit.
Think about that, act on it, then give me 0.5% of the net.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[Frymaster]

they also seemed to have missed one other point: boycotts.

half the people i know refuse to buy riaa-member label records and use tools like riaa radar to avoid them.

maybe if they'd stop suing their customer base, their customer base would actually buy their products.

just a thought.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[Anonymous Coward]

Woo, that's a great point I missed. Thanks!
- g

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[nizo]

Well, I just plain don't buy new CDs anymore. There are zillions of used out there that are just fine thanks.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[Anonymous Coward]

I presume you think music was 7.6% better last year.

It's because people like me find it easier and cheaper to download our music.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a free tip from me to the music industry lurkers: Shrink-wrapping dog shit does not create a market for shrink-wrapped dog shit. Think about that, act on it, then give me 0.5% of the net.

I don't get it. What would you do with 0.5% of the net dog shit?

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not download music. I refuse to buy CDs because they are overpriced. Period.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[FuzzyShrimp]

I quit buying the CDs because I couldn't get the damned shrink wrap off when I got it home... But seriously folks, if singers of the 50's and 60's hadn't made records, there would not be anything to listen to these days. Rap Crap - I can't understand the words anymore to modern music... but I DID enjoy seeing Janet Jackson's bare and decorated titty on TV. Thanks Janet, for the mammary. I understood THAT! But I won't buy your music.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[myklf]

Instead of complaining that music today sucks, try looking for something new.

Try CD Baby

They have lots of great music from musicians you've probably never heard of.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[silicon not in the v]

Heh, remember Tommy Boy?

Ted: But why do they put a guarantee on the box then?
Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.

Re:Blame? Look in the mirror.

[nahorniak]

Very few people use riaa radar. Especially the young teens who download the majority of their music.

Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Eyah....TIMMY]

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) blamed the slump in retail music sales -- now in its fourth consecutive year -- on rampant piracy, poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs.

Itunes is selling 2.5 million songs a week. The declining sale of CDs does not necessarily mean the music piracy is going up; it means there are also new means of selling music, digitally, and very legally.
I hate it when declining CD sales is automatically attributed to piracy. The way music is sold is evolving too (and the labels are getting their share don't worry).

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[base3]

Assuming an average of 10 songs per CD, that's an average of 250,000 CDs per week. They need to add that into their figures and republish, or have the EFF do it for them.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[3terrabyte]

250 million dollars is only 0.0078 % of 32 billion dollars.

Come on, we're suppose to be NERDS. Do the math. Quit pointing to iTunes as some sort of real cash flow to the RIAA. It's not. Either is the $3000 dollars they make from lawsuit settlements.

We forget how filthy rich this monopoly is. 32 billion dollars is a lot of money. Feel sorry for media companies now? Are we ripping off the artists? Hell no, the music industry has been ripping off artists MUCH longer than we've been alive!

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Fnkmaster]

Right, a 2.6 billion dollar drop in sales. Part is attributable to the economic slump. Let's say only half - this comes out of my ass, but I think a 3-4% drop in sales when the economy has essentially not grown, joblessness in the US has been up, and so on isn't unreasonable.

Then what about the other 1.3 billion? Basically, people are going to substitutes. What are the substitutes? Well, you can download an unauthorized copy from Kazaa - cost: $0, time: perhaps 20 minutes fucking around, downloading broken copies, redownloading until you find a good copy assuming the song is sufficiently popular. Or you can buy a legitimate copy from iTunes or other online music service: cost: somewhere between $0.80 and $1.00, time: minimal once you are signed up for the service. Now we have the REAL problem. What did people do PREVIOUSLY when they liked a song? Well, their only option was to browse over to the record store and buy a whole frigging album for 15 bucks. 15 bucks vs. less than 1 dollar. Remember, most of the music coming out of the industry is still the crap-pop with one good song and an album full of schlock.

So do I think perhaps 100 million dollars in online song sales (and whatabout all these song giveaways by Pepsi et. al.?) could explain 500+ million in lost album sales? Yes, I do. Sure, some other part of the "lost" sales may be people substituting P2P downloading for purchases, but I see less and less of that going on now among the mainstream now that the major P2P networks are so polluted (yes, you and I can figure out how to get songs, but I'm not at all convinced that a large portion of the market does anymore or has the interest in learning about the harder to use alternatives).

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Frac]

Your theory falls apart when you realize that the entire world was in a much worse economic slump back in 2002. And this sales figure was global, which also meant that legal alternatives in other countries were few and far between.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Frennzy]

You are not comparing apples (pardon me) to apples.

Let's say the average CD buyer goes out to buy a CD for 1 or 2 songs (which is mostly true, based on the RIAA marketing principles). Let's call it 2. Now, they sell a CD for $15, and the CD has 12 songs on it. Net crap gained by consumer, ten songs they weren't interested in.

Let's take that same person, who goes to a legal online service. They buy the two songs they want, for $2. Net loss to RIAA? $13 (presuming 100% transfer of funds from online service to RIAA, which isn't the case, but let's keep it on the pessimistic side).

2.5 million songs per week, x52 weeks per year=130 million songs. Net cost to consumer, $130,000,000. Net loss to RIAA? 6.5 times that amount, $845,000,000.

That number is a signifcant fraction of the total dollar figure lost. What accouts for the rest of it? Other people have mentioned economic decline, lack of content, competition from DVD/Video games, etc. There is also the fact that they concentrate their marketing efforts on what they believe to be the 'most profitable' songs...which to me is an erroneous interpretation of what the market wants. How much Britney Spears can the world stand? How many times can one person stand to hear 'Creed' on their local 'rock station'?

The article is marketing spin, FUD, and very poor science. They have shown absolutely no causality between P2P (nor have they demonstrated Piracy to be 'rampant') and a decline in sales. Some very knowledgeable scientists, on the other hand, have gone to considerable lengths to scientifically evaluate this, and have proven quite the opposite, as others have already pointed out and linked to.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Theaetetus]

250 million dollars is only 0.0078 % of 32 billion dollars.

[pedant] .78% - you forgot to multiply by 100 to get percentage.[/pedant]

-T

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[EinarH]

IIRC from some press release last week or so, sales of singles (pressed not iTunes) increased some 50% or so in 2003. Can't find a link but strange that CNN fail to mention this.

Many people don't want the album anymore.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Anonymous Coward]

250 million dollars is only 0.0078 % of 32 billion dollars. Come on, we're suppose to be NERDS. Do the math.

Actually, that's 0.78%. Some of us nerds like to do math correctly.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[1000101]

" 250 million dollars is only 0.0078 % of 32 billion dollars. Come on, we're suppose to be NERDS. Do the math."

Are you sure you're a NERD and not management at Enron?

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[base3]

Per week. Times the number of weeks iTunes have been in existence.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[base3]

Whoops--mean to reply to the parent; sorry.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[nexus987]

Yeah, and now I buy a lot of non-mainstream music online, such as Marc Pattison (from zonkmusic.com) and The Kicks (from cdbaby). Radio is pretty much useless nowadays. I find new stuff by talking to a lot of people, scouring online websites, etc, etc... it's a lot of work. I wish irate radio worked a bit better (please, if you're a developer consider lending your skills to this potentially great project).

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Vancorps]

Sorry, but how so? Unemployment is much higher now in 2003. I had a steady job in 2002, wasn't until about two months ago that changed. Very thankful for freelance work right now. Also, look at gas prices, something that is definitely hurting everybody. Here in AZ we had a gas shortage not too long ago and prices during that week or so are what we are averaging now.

Sorry but I really don't agree with your assessment of this year being better than 2002

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Vancorps]

grrr at my cursed typo syndrome. 2003 = 2004

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Anonymous Coward]

250 million dollars is only 0.0078 % of 32 billion dollars.

First of all, your math is wrong. It's .0078 of 32 billion dollars, which is .78%.

Second, read the parent post. 25 million sales a week, which, if you multiply times 52, comes to 13 billion dollars, which is, let's see... a lot.

Third, that's one alternative outlet out of a bunch that are starting up. See for example, Walmart.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Bloomy]

The IFPI's web site lists their sources that "proves" piracy was the big factor.

I was curious that the CNN article didn't mention US sales for the year, since they said Europe and Japan were down significantly. The US was down 12% in the first half of the year, but picked up enough in the second half for a 6% drop overall.

I remember a study posted here once that showed another factor to declining music sales was the industry was putting out less product. No mention of total units shipped to retailers in this report.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[Niartov]

Ture but if you consider that the song from itunes is the only good song on the CD that is $10 x 250 million lost CD sales which is 22.5 billion big ones.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[ckaminski]

Y'all got your math wrong.

250,000 cd's per week == ~$2.5 million / week in lost cd sales (figure $10 average cd price for new cd's).

X 52 weeks == $130 million, which is less than ~.4% of $32 billion.

Re:Fall of CD sales doesn't mean less music sold

[AdamD1]

> 250 million dollars is only 0.0078 % of 32 billion dollars.

I find it interesting to note that when I was actually working in the mainstream music industry, it was touted as being a $40 billion dollar a year industry. That's North American figures. And this was anytime from 1994 - 1999 that I kept hearing that exact figure.

Yes their fiscal decreases have been significant since then, but they like to focus on the one element they can't control: downloading. (And in this case "they" refers to the RIAA but more importanly the actual labels.

Consider also that (only one example) prior to 1999, A&M and PolyGram were completely distinct companies. Now they're amalgamated into Universal (and in fact A&M may not even officially exist anymore.) They laid off literally tens of thousands of people during that megamerger and you never heard them 'complaining' about any shortfalls. It was 'a growing process.' Now that it's something that they didn't personally come up with in the hopes that it would still mean a year-end write-off: they're mad.

Again: Universal / PolyGram / A&M are just one example (albeit the biggest.)

I could mention however many (literally) hundreds of artists were also dropped in that merger but I think you get the point.

ad

Well...

[dolo666]

> More grist for the RIAA mill on P2P

Not really. 7.6% is not that much, considering how many companies have moved to an online sales model. If anything this refutes the RIAA's claim that P2P has any significant effect at all. What kinda depresses me was the point in the article that the reduction of top acts helps to boost sales; that the reduction of variety means more concentrated gains in that particular market, is actually bad for the market in the long run, IMHO.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

That whole bit about dropping b-side artists seems really short sited.

Less product, that fewer people want. Lets say you have 6 albums, 4 maintream and 2 "b-side" artists. You sell 10 albums total, 4 of which of those sales are 2 "b-side" albums. So you drop those, and only have 4 Albums to sell. Well now you're only going to only sell 6 albums. Sales just dropped by 40%, must be those damn pirates, not that fact that the music people wanted isn't for sale.

Re:Well...

[bonch]

I love Slashdot. "If anything this refutes the RIAA's claim that P2P has any significant effect at all." All the sudden, it's magically proven that P2P has no effect on sales simply because their are online music stores. Scientific principle applied at its finest.

Re:Well...

[Danse]

No, the RIAA is evil for purchasing laws to extend the timespan and scope of copyright to the detriment of society as a whole. That's reason enough to hate them. Throw in the fact that they're a pack of filthy liars who spout off about how they are concerned that artists are being harmed when they do more to rip off artists than all the world's pirates combined is just gravy for the hate train.

Re:Well...

[radishthegreat]

What kinda depresses me was the point in the article that the reduction of top acts helps to boost sales

Depresses me, too. I didn't buy any CDs in 2003 because it was All The Same Crap(tm) as the last five years.

I was at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago last week and saw the exhibit on the Chicago Blues, which also encompassed the Delta blues before they worked their way north. Anyway, they had a lot of old records and posters, and one of the things that stuck out was the sheer number of different small and local record companies independently producing records from hundreds of musicians--and they were musicians and not "recording artists" ;) The Museum put out some CDs of blues from the 1930s by people I'd never heard before. I bought one. I like it. But except for a few very famous musicians who kept recording into the 40s, 50s, and beyond, that whole genre of music is almost impossible to find on contemporary media. As a casual listener, I never would have found it.

A lot of good (and not THAT old, even) music is going to be lost to new and younger fans--who goes to museums to buy music? Who buys old vinyl without first being introduced to their music in some other way?--when the RIAA behemoths pare their catalogs down further. This can't be good for anyone.

Re:Well...

[stiggle]

Strange that the US sales have fallen and yet the UK and Australian sales have both risen (by a similar amount) for album sales - the Singles market and dropped completely.

I've bought more CD's this year than previously

[Kope]

but of course, almost all of them are direct from the artist purchases.

The remainder are bought per-track off of Rhapsody and burned by me.

It's not that music sales are lagging, it's that the RIAA, and to a smaller extent, the record companies, doesn't need to be involved in them anymore.

2003 CD Sales Officially Down 7.6 Percent

[James A. M. Joyce]

But what does that actually mean, beyond the fact that 2003 CD sales have fallen by eight percent? Can one reasonably draw any kind of further conclusions, or is everyone just going to jump on this result to further their agendas?

Re:2003 CD Sales Officially Down 7.6 Percent

[rjelks]

I'd like to know how many other industries' sales figures dropped in the same time period. The economy is still kind of in the crapper and unemployment is high. Do they consider that with less disposible income, people might not buy extra's like CD's? Maybe this is just propaganda to further their political agenda? I can think of lots of reasons that their figures are dropping: economy, online-sales, p2p, too expensive, crappy new music. I read that convertable cars sales dropped by 2.3% in 2003. Can I link the decline in convertables to piracy with any less acuracy than CD sales?

Re:2003 CD Sales Officially Down 7.6 Percent

[3terrabyte]

There's been rumors of a recession.

I'm sure that the RIAA would bring it up, but that would hinder their plans to lie about piracy and purchase new laws from Congress.

Don't forget...

[Raul654]

...the Clearchannel effect - the drivel gets all the radio airtime

Re:Don't forget...

[Justify]

I second that thought. The only way I learn about new music is on the radio. In my area, too many of the available stations are Clear Channel owned, which leaves me with a boring selection of billboard over-played music. Because I never get any "mix" of music (a jab at KMMX Mix 100.3), I don't want to buy any of the artists cd's. Either 1) I've heard the song so many times that I don't want to own it, or 2) I don't know of other songs that I would be interested in by that artist. I'm not devoted to the artist; I'm just a listener. If they want sales, then my demographic needs to be catered too as well.
These radio stations in my area have really irk'd me, and they're driving me away from recorded music altogether.

OH NOS!!~! TEH CNN SCOOPED TEH SLASHDOT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

so what?

[Frizzle Fry]

It's a good think that I know to trust the anectodal claims from complete strangers on slashdot who say they've bought more cd's due to p2p, and thus completely disregard any evidence to the contrary. It's a shame that everyone in the mass media is a clueless phb idiot who isn't as smart as me and can't do the same.

Re:so what?

[Thud457]

I've bought tons of CDs in 2003. I'm a burnin' fool!

Oh, wait, that's not what they meant...

iTunes anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, no mention of iTunes or other legal music downloading systems. My music buying habits are restricted to used CDs or iTunes Music Store. I imagine I'm not the only one.

New Data!

[ddelrio]

In a new report issued this week, eight-track and Atari 2600 game sales are down. Industry leaders blame rampant piracy and MAME.

Re:New Data!

[3terrabyte]

The search for the Horse-and-Buggy industry is still at large!

Re:New Data!

[lightspawn]

In a new report issued this week, eight-track and Atari 2600 game sales are down. Industry leaders blame rampant piracy and MAME.

You mean Stella, Z26 and PCAE. MAME's an arcade emulator.

And while sales of actual carts are virtually nonexistant (new 2600 games typically have production runs in the dozens), companies still sell PC/PS2/GBA versions of these classics through the magic of emulation - just as music companies sell music through iTunes (but of course iTunes sales do not factor into the 7.6 percent figure - they want to show how much their business is declining).

Re:New Data!

[ddelrio]

Well, no. Actually, I was just trying to make the point that ANY factor other than obsolence is a stupid excuse. MAME games are usually higher quality than the Atari games--but both are really obsolete. Imagine if Atari tried to sue to prevent MAME from being redistributed because they felt it was cutting into their sales.

The point is, I don't believe the music industry's current business model is valid. That's the problem. People just aren't as interested in buying CDs--particularly at their bloated prices--as they used to be. For the same price or a few bucks more, you can pick up a movie complete with comentary, music, and story. CDs rarely offer extras--and the music industry's copy protection attempts often do little more than reduce audio quality (which really isn't all that great to begin with).

That's an excellent point with regard to not factoring in online music services in the sales figures. That's certainly something to consider.

Carefully chosen words...

[tweakt]

Total sales of singles, including cassettes and vinyl, which have dipped significantly since the Internet file-sharing and CD-burning craze began in the late 1990s, fell 18.7 percent in value terms between 2002 and 2003.

Riiiight. And the introduction of the Compact Disc had absolutely no effect on the sales of cassettes and vinyl. It was clearly completely due to the "file-sharing and CD-burning craze". Uh-huh.

Re:Carefully chosen words...

[EinarH]

When RIAA and IFPI whine about "falling CD sales" they use numbers from 2000-2003 and say that sales dropped almost 20%.
For example from here:

Total U.S. music shipments, including to direct and special markets, dropped 7.2 percent from 859.7 million units in 2002 to 798.4 million units in 2003. In dollar value, this represents a six percent decrease. The three year decline (2000-2003) of music unit shipments is 26 percent and the value of those units declined 17.2 percent since 2000.

They never mention that sales increased 80% in the 1992-2000 period though.
So sales is still over 60% higher now than in 1992.

more crappy bands. not enough interest

[bikepunx]

no one talks about the sub par bands that the majors are releasing. theres only so many crappy bands that can be released at one time. do we really need 100 creed rip off bands? did janet jackson need to release a new record? is justin timberlake adding to the integrity of music's history. i think not.

Lack of sales

[Grendol]

I would blame lack of sales on lack of descent disposable income or lack of descent content. Piracy is not worth the effort to me for the few things that I buy.

Does all of this anti piracy control stuff remind anyone of Ma-Bell and the monopoly, or is it just me?

Re:Lack of sales

[Anonymous Coward]

decent

3-4 minutes of entertainment vs. 2 hrs?

[Trixxter]

I simply won't buy a cd because everytime i've bought one in the past five years there has been one song i like on it. So that equates to $15 for 3-4 minutes of entertainment. With a dvd, for $15, i get 2 hrs. of entertainment. Why would i bother with CDs?

Re:3-4 minutes of entertainment vs. 2 hrs?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're obviously not a music lover. Go fuck yourself and die, you cold-hearted son of a bitch.

Quality of music is fading

[borghal]

I think this is merely an effect of music going more and more for quick and easy commercial fixes. Even people who listen to dance music used to buy albums, nowadays the quality is just so shite there's no hiding it. Personally, I made quite a few new discoveries last year, but ofcourse I don't pay attention to mainstream music&media, so my total number of purchases should remain about the same.

Re:Quality of music is fading

[SoSueMe]

Maybe everyone figured out that it all sounds the same because it all is the same. Covered here.

Most New Music Sucks

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

RIAA will site this as proof that P2P damages record sales. But could it be that most new music SUCKS?

Re:Most New Music Sucks

[ThousandStars]

(I posted an almost identical comment here first, but since the two parent posts are similar I'll try again)

I think you can find music that doesn't suck, if you're not listening to an inane top 40 station. You could ask friends for recommendations -- I've met two music afficiandos who go to local clubs and listen to all kinds of unique CDs, and between the two of them I hear about interesting stuff. But it seldom comes from the radio.

I think placing all the blame on Clear Channel is too simple. Public radio stations also exist. My favorite is KCRW in Los Angeles, which has a 24/7 music stream. Check out their weekend eclectic shows for new bands.

Finally, I haven't seen CDBaby in the discussion yet, but I'm sure they're bound to get more than a few mentions -- and for good reason. With free previews from 30 seconds to two minutes, good relationships with customers and a great selection, what's not to love? That line sounds like a commerical, but this is one of those rare cases when it's true. Recently I bought E.S. Posthumus and O.A.R.'s first CD -- and love both.

Even among big-label music good stuff exists, if you're willing to look for it. This post has gone on long enough, but there are solutions -- if you're genuinely interested in solving the problem.

Re:Most New Music Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

People who say that most new music sucks are just too damn lazy to seek out good music. Look beyond the damn mtv/clearchannel garbage and there is plenty of good new music out there, it just isnt being promoted by the labels.

Re:Most New Music Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. I have a wishlist of over 150 CDs. When I finally get around to getting back into classical, I'm sure that will more than double. No top 40 shit on there. Hell, I doubt there's anything that would get played on any radio station. And it's not that weird indie crap that a lot of people here seem to masturbate over. Just honest to goodness, damn fucking good music.

It's funny that our pop culture puts so much emphasis on music (in addition to TV and movies). I've come to believe that the average Joe doesn't really love music. For most people, it's just something that's on in the background. And a good portion of these people don't even really like it. These are the ones screaming about one-hit-wonders with CDs full of garbage and one good song. They feel compelled to buy music because pop culture tells them to do so. They can't find anything they like, not because all music sucks (yes, much of it does) but because they don't like music in general. And there's nothing wrong with that!

Then there's people like myself. I live and breathe music. I always have songs bouncing around in my head, and I play a few instruments because it's such a wonderful outlet. Good music gives me goosebumps. I'm not religious, but there's no experience more spiritual to me than sitting down in a nice environment and listening to a great piece of music -- really listening -- and letting it move you emotionally.

For me, even if I think 99% of music is crap, I'm driven to find the 1% that is great -- to me. And there's so much great stuff out there that I probably can't get to it all in my entire lifetime. Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Satriani, Greg Howe, Steve Vai, just to name a few that I'm really really into. Speaking of new music, this year I've picked up Larry Carlton's Sapphire Blue and Aerosmith's Honkin' On Bobo. Both a couple of amazing blues albums (Aerosmith's best in decades). Next week I'm lining up to grab Joe Satriani's new release and get it autographed by the man himself. Woohoo!

But that's just my taste. I recognize that many people think my favorites are crap, and that's fine. I think the same of theirs. :) But for anyone who truly loves music, any kind, you should be able to find lots of existing and new stuff to please your tastes. And for those who don't care much about music, don't worry about it, and stop complaining! :)

Maybe prices are also an issue..

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, a new CD is now $17.99, sometimes even $18.99 or $21.99. When I was in college 3-4 years ago a new CD was usually $13.99 or $14.99 at my local bookstore. I was at Borders the other day wanting to buy a new album (that I couldn't download!) and was blown away that they wanted $19.99 for ONE CD. Screw that, I'll search harder and find it online somewhere...

When iTunes first came out I thought $9.99 for a CD was silly, but now 50% off is starting to make sense... (Speaking of iTunes this study doesn't seem to take online sales into account...)

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[FingerDemon]

Absolutely. Lately, the only CDs I have bought were blues CDs from fatpossum records. Because their prices are reasonable and the music is just what I'm looking for. You can even listen to MP3s on their site before buying. I mean I'm still willing to spend money on CDs. But $20 for a CD? I've got to be pretty sure its good before I spend that much.

Plus, there is something endearing about the underdog look of the fatpossum website. fatpossum.com

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get too used to that $10 price.

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[Anonymous Coward]

I noted in your post that you were describing prices in two different locales, from two different eras. Perhaps Borders is charging ~$20 because they can. That is, they've driven all the "local bookstores" out of business, and are now in the process of jacking up their prices in order to maximize profits.

My recommendation is to seek out your local bookstore, and buy from them (heck, they may still be fixated on a ~$15 price point for CDs). If that's no longer feasable, then go online for your music, and dump the difference between what you saved versus a Borders CD into the local economy, via Mom & Pop shops.

If this plan doesn't appeal to you, then stop bitching about how you can't get anything cheap locally anymore.

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[Auckerman]

"CD is now $17.99, sometimes even $18.99 or $21.99...blown away that they wanted $19.99 for ONE CD"

I must be living in some other universe. I hear these price quotes over and over and I personally rarely pay more than $14 a CD, and $14 is considered a very high price to me. I have over 300 CDs, 200 LPs and about 150 tapes. I buy a CD about once a month or so, usually around $10-12 per album. Of course though, when you listen to bands labels like Dischord (which charges $10/CD), I guess you don't pay much.

On top of this, my very extensive 30s-40s jazz collection on vinyl. I guess children spending their daddy's money on Pop music just don't know better.

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[sweetooth]

I used to think the same thing when I would hear that prices were up. I've stopped by the music sections of stores the last few times I've been in them (big chain type places). Surprisingly prices had gone up from the usual $12.99-14.99 I was used to and were around $15.99-19.99.

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[Jacer]

Jazz from the 30's and 40's no longer have to fund the pop lifestyle of the stars.

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[shark72]

"In the US, a new CD is now $17.99, sometimes even $18.99 or $21.99."

You may be shopping at the wrong stores. According to NPD Musicwatch (and they know what they're doing; I've used them to track other industries) the average price of a new release is down to $13.42. That's the average price, the higher prices are offset by the new releases which are often $11.99 or $10.99.

" I was at Borders the other day wanting to buy a new album (that I couldn't download!) and was blown away that they wanted $19.99 for ONE CD. Screw that, I'll search harder and find it online somewhere..."

Borders does not offer competitive prices. They tend to favor selection and convenience over price. Try Amazon (selection/price but not convenience) or Best Buy (price/convenience but not selection).

Given prices where I live, I don't use iTMS to buy entire albums; it's roughly the same price to get it into the store and I get the album art and all that. iTMS is ideal for single tracks, however.

Re:Maybe prices are also an issue..

[Grishnakh]

Then the online music stores better not get too used to good sales; if they keep up with the crap discussed in that article (like raising the per-song price to $2.50, and charging more for downloaded albums that for physical CDs), people will just go back to downloading songs for free from the P2P networks.

But does file sharing really hurt sales?

[jonasmit]

NYTimes article TechnologyReview article

There's one more figure not figured...

[Chordonblue]

I think it's directly related to the fact that music QUALITY went down another 20% or so. Think Janet Jackson's breast will help sales, or will Justin Timberlake's musical talents sway yet another generation of gum snapping teens?

God, 'music' is the suck today! Either that, or I'm just too old.

Hey, you kids and your damn rap music! Shaddup!!

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[DonnieD701]

I think old Janet would help her album reach # 1 on the charts. If you were listening to the news today, it didn't. The album just isn't that good. I can't think of a single band that has come out in the last 5 years that made me even consider purchasing their album. I take that back, there was one, and I bought it. If the entertainment industry would release music that I liked (not the cookie-cutter hip-hop or teenybopper top 40) I would consider purchasing. If your product is bad, don't get mad that no one wants it!

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Throtex]

It's rather sad that I've resorted to 80s music for entertainment. Is Supertramp really better than everything out today?

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Chordonblue]

The predictable question here is:

How old are you - really? It definately has a direct relation to this subject. So does: Are you a musician?

As the in-house DJ for our dances here at the school, I can personally testify how far music has fallen - but not to the kids.

I take solace in the fact that in 20 years or so, these kids will most likely view their own music as memorable but cliched (Example: See Vanilla Ice). Many of them will have moved to other forms of music because of boredom or maturity.

Remember: A little boy will eat as much candy as you give him until it makes him sick. It takes maturity to appreciate a nice fresh apple.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[gad_zuki!]

Go indie. The factor the riaa seems to be ignoring is that many people are disovering indie usic thanks to word of mouth and the internet.

Lets see I spent at least 40 bucks on cds last month

Bought some Hefner CDs
Bought the new grandaddy EP
Bought a trail of dead EP
Bought the latest stereolab (they might be riaa)

Etc

That's money that isn't lost to "pirates" its just lost to the RIAA.

The RIAA packages fads, they don't really sell music.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[shambalagoon]

Oh there are a LOT of awesome bands out there. But you dont hear them on the radio or MTV. I've been introduced to them via mix CDs of MP3s from friends. If not for that I'd be sick of all the pop music out there and what's on the radio.

Another reason it's ridiculous for the RIAA to get so stringent with fair-use policies.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[what the dumple is]

Typically Stereolab are on Duophonic in the UK because that's a small enough makret. They felt they needed a larger label for the rest of world and have been on Elektra (IIRC) in the past. They also, have had releases on indie labels like Slumberland.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Nogami_Saeko]

I've (perhaps unsurprisingly) been buying CDs and DVDs from Japan.

I probably havn't spent more than around $100 on domestic releases in the last decade or so - I don't even bother downloading them.

Just doesn't interest me.

On the other hand, I've spent thousands getting CDs and DVDs imported. So the RIAA can go cry as much as they want - I'm not interested in their product and I'm not buying it regardless.

N.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Think Janet Jackson's breast will help sales,

I really don't see how, unless the CD includes a bonus clip of footage from the high-definition cameras.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Killswitch1968]

Give me a break. Pop music has always been shitty, it's pretty much engrained in the definition. Whether it's Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, MC Hammer, C+C music factory or whoever the quality of pop music has been steady.
In the genre I listen to the quality has been actually INCREASING, albeit none of them are RIAA bands.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Anonymous Coward]

I take solace in the fact that in 20 years or so, these kids will most likely view their own music as memorable but cliched (Example: See Vanilla Ice).

NEVER! Vanilla Ice is a GENIOUS!!!

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[ckaminski]

Um, it wasn't impressive. The goatse.cx guy's gaping anus was more attractive than Janet Jackson's nipple. And that's saying alot, cuz I'm a breat man...

<sigh>

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[alan_dershowitz]

Some of them will.

I can document the exact moment of my musical maturity. It was when I suddenly became aware, listening to an oldies station and hating what was playing, that there's nothing special about it. it was just popular music from the 50's0-60's. Maybe that's obvious to some people, but I was a late bloomer to music appreciation. The vast majority of it is crud, just like now.

Yet, people have elevated "oldies" to a freaking GENRE, like it is somehow better, that the music from this period will be remembered now and forever for its artistic integrity. I suspect that as the older generation dies and the current one ages, the same fucking shit that gets played in heavy repitition right now will be living on in brand-new format "oldies" stations.

I guess my point is, if people 60 years old right now haven't figured out that pop music from their era was mostly crap, the current generation is probably going to do the same thing.

This is how I view it. Is the (mostly) shit that gets played on oldies stations right now the majority of music that got played on the radio in its own era? There's certainly a lot of good stuff from that time period, but a lot of the "pop" stuff isn't any better than shit today.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[name773]

Hey, you kids and your [darn] rap music! Shaddup!!
are you so sure it's music?

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[abertoll]

Exactly. And futhermore, P2P really hurts those bands which produce 1 hit per CD (as defined by popularity) a lot more than bands which produce wonderful compilations which are appreciated by their "fans" (as defined by people who really like the music and aren't just into the "now"). This is because if you're just trying to keep up with the trends, you'll download the song and forget ever buying it--by that time it will be something new. However if you really appreciate music, you will buy the music you really like.

To me this means that P2P helps improve the quality of music by rewarding the better musicians a little bit more. However, I must admit I still don't think it's ok to copy music you don't own.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Cramer]

Woa! MTV plays music? I've never see any on any of their channels in the last decade (+/-). Seriously, I've seen more (and better) music videos on WE than MTV.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Freexe]

If you listen out there is tons of great music out there, its just you wont find it on mtv or the radio anymore (or ever) you have to troll through www.allmusic.com and look at other peoples music on soulseek (www.slsknet.com) I refuse to buy cds at the prices they charge, if i did i would have to spend a few hundred bucks (CD's here can cost 16 ($30)) a week to keep up with what i download and legal sites like wippit.com don't have any music that I like. (In fact in the promo section I found one good track for free, but they didnt have the rest of the album :() I would love to pay (monthly subscription) for quick legal downloads where the musician gets a fair share of the money but these dont exist (especcially in the UK). The places that do exist are inferior in almost every way compared with the free alternatives. Less choice being the greatest of these (in music and format). They never have the lastest stuff and never have the obsure stuff that i listen to. Soulseek has all this for free and in less than 5 minutes i could download a song.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[DonnieD701]

Yes, I guess my age makes a difference, being just shy of "over-the-hill". I can remember when some of the first rap songs came out (MC Hammer, The Fat Boys, and I hate to say it, the Beastie Boys), and I really enjoyed them. Now? Sorry... Maybe my taste in music has changed somewhat (I have recently downloaded songs played on the glass harmonica, along with some tracks from The Asylum Street Spankers and Jim Croche). Now, the question I have is-- What does it matter if you are a musician or not to personally believe that music recorded recently isn't good? Don't tell me that you have to be professionally trained for your opinion not to be automatically dismissed? DonnieD

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Chordonblue]

My dad has a major bitch about corporate-owned oldies stations (50's and 60's). He complains that they always play the 'top 10' songs. Well as you know, much of what got played on the air back then was NOT top 10.

As radio has become more monolithic and commercial, decreased music airtime (due to increased commercial time), payola (overt or otherwise), and promotions assures that only Top 10 (or wannabes) DO get played. I have come to the same conclusion about a LOT of radio out there, but for me, the proof came in a more horrifying way.

One day back in the late 80's a friend of mine invited me to his radio station where he worked as a 'DJ'. I quickly found out that being a DJ in a corporate station is more like being a button pusher/commercial pitchman.

I asked him where the records were and he just smiled and took me into the back room where four reel to reel 1" tapes were cued. Each tape could hold 15 hours or so of music and once one played through, it automatically rewound to the beginning. The tapes were automatically cycled through in series and were initially started off in random places (although the result certainly wasn't very random!)

He told me that every other month, the oldest of the tapes were changed to something 'new'.

Nowadays this is all handled digitally, but from what I hear, it's the same kind of playlists. Only top 10, only 'the best'. There's a station locally where we've been able to predict what songs are coming up based on the announced artist.

DJ: "Next up: We've got some Neil Young.." ('Needle and the Damage Done' - Live or 'Heart of Gold'), "and some Paul McCartney..." (Admiral Halsey or 'Jet'), "coming your way after these announcements..." (cue SEVEN minutes of ads).

GrrrrrrRRRRRadio SUCKS!

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[nathanh]

God, 'music' is the suck today! Either that, or I'm just too old.

The "you're too old" argument seems to be used often (and for every generation, which is a point in its favour) but I don't buy. I say the way to settle the argument is to look at the top-100 lists from the past 50 years and evaluate these criteria:

• How many of the artists could actually play an instrument.
• How many of the artists were ugly as sin and/or were older than 30.
• How many songs were original and not just covers or remixes.
• How frequently did new genres emerge (eg, jazz, rock, punk, techno, grunge).

I've not done the figures on anything other than a casual (superficial) level but it's my impression that today's top-100 is dominated by gorgeous young people, wearing very few clothes, who can sing and dance but not play a musical instrument, and they're singing covers of older songs. There are _rare_ exceptions to the rule.

And the interesting thing is that it's not a recent phenomenon. Looking at the charts, I see it started in the early 80s. That ties in very nicely with music videos. Hrm.

That's not the same thing as saying that all modern music is like that. Just that the top-100 is like that. Go back 50 years and you had ugly people singing _and_playing_ original stuff. Now we get anonymous backing bands and choreographed dance troupes with gyrating bikini babes to add scenery. Pop quiz: who is Britney Spear's lead guitarist? I bet even Britney's fans don't know.

The interesting thing is that even though the RIAA only promotes pretty people - for example, Christina in 5 square inches of cloth, and 50-cent with his shirt off (again) - the music fans aren't that shallow. American Idol is mindless drek but it's interesting to see who wins. The Australian Idol is a homely looking chubby guy with bad hair (and he beat the handsome "stud"). The World Idol is an ugly man with bad teeth. The Canadian Idol is a geek in glasses. The American Idol is a fat bastard. But they could all sing. There's no denying that there was talent in them all. Appearance and pretty bodies isn't the #1 concern for the audience. So why do the top-100 video clips look like an episode of Baywatch?

Fortunately there's plenty of good music out there. It's just no longer on the top-100 (or, sadly, on the radio). I think the RIAA figured out that sexy bodies sells better, especially when the target audience is sexually repressed Americans, so they stopped caring about talent and started looking at the package it came in.

Maybe video really did kill the radio star.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Pxtl]

You also neglected to mention how few artists even wrote their own music. I mean, how is it that people even care about Britney? She is nothing but an instrument in her producer's orchestra. A sexy instrument, but an instrument.

I even respect pure vocalists when they at least write the songs (including the score for the instruments) that they perform.

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[rhuntley12]

I sure as hell hope you aren't dissing Ice Ice Baby?

Offtopic but a paper I had to turn in last week I ended up fitting about 25% of that song into the actual paper. Meaningless but I enjoyed doing it. Trying to fit, "Slice like a Ninja, Cut like a razor blade." Into a paper about a ninteenth century French woman is NOT easy. Anyway...Back to pretend work..

Re:There's one more figure not figured...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have faith, disco died, rap will to.

question

[andy1307]

"a strong second-half recovery in the United States, Britain and Australia

Is that an improvement in the economy or an improvement in the quality of music?

Something tells me we'll be seeing more wardrobe malfunctions in an effort to sell more CDs and promote more tours(which generate good revenue for the artist).

Piracy must be the reason

[nizo]

After all, it couldn't be:

- Lame new music

- Increased prices of CDs

I keep waiting for a law firm somewhere to offer "RIAA insurance": pay $5/month and they offer to defend you if you ever get sued by them.

Re:Piracy must be the reason

[3terrabyte]

I keep waiting for a law firm somewhere to offer "RIAA insurance": pay $5/month and they offer to defend you if you ever get sued by them.

That would be awesome!
I'd buy it! (However, my rate my go up due to being high-risk)

Re:Piracy must be the reason

[aardvarkjoe]

But of course, it's perfectly all right for slashdotters to point to other reasons for music sales falling, and thus unauthorized copying of music has no effect on CD sales.

Both sides have resorted to "proof by assertion" rather than making any attempt to determine the real causes. Honestly, it's getting pretty old by now.

Re:Piracy must be the reason

[FsG]

I keep waiting for a law firm somewhere to offer "RIAA insurance": pay $5/month and they offer to defend you if you ever get sued by them.

Excellent idea. Maybe broadband companies could offer that as part of a 2500/768 "music lovers' heaven" broadband deal? Now that would be worth paying good money for.

Re:Piracy must be the reason

[ckaminski]

mostly because of an observed effect. I know LOTS of file traders who purchased more CD's because they grabbed something interesting and unexpected off of napster or kazaa than I know traders who wholesale download albums without paying for them. I personally have purchased 50+ cd's because of napster and it's ilk, and about 10 I aborted because I found out before I was parted with my money that the CD sucked.

Personal observation leads to correlation in this case. I can't be the only one. I do however, recognize that the inverse may be true as well.

Re:Piracy must be the reason

[Anonymous Coward]

For what its worth, I cancel you out. I've downloaded 50+ CD's off of IRC/Napster and haven't bought a CD since 2000.

Granted I was never an music-addict who bought more than 4-5 CD's a year anyhow, so I suppose I only cancel out maybe 25 of your albums.

Re:Piracy must be the reason

[aardvarkjoe]

Well, perhaps I should have said "proof by anecdote" as well as "proof by assertion." I'm not saying that this never happens. I'm not even saying that it's not possible that P2P really does increase music sales. But the attitude on slashdot (as a whole) has been "of course it does, so the validity of a study/statement depends on whether it reinforces that belief." (And, of course, the music industry does exactly the same thing.) That is the nonsense that I find a bit irritating.

Re:Piracy must be the reason

[themusicgod1]

Causes? Who cares about causes? The riaa, all their member companies, and everyone who works for them, needs to be burnt at a stake, and urinated on. 10% loss of their revenue is a great thing for musicians and the people as a whole, and must be celebrated!

It will be 'getting pretty old by now' when they stop sending SWAT teams into dorm rooms and kids bedrooms, suing people for outlandish amounts of money, taking away basic civil liberties, and threatening to use their political and economic forces to cut off all original artists from being able to play at all.

DVD Sales UP?

[AMG]

It should be interesting to see if the DVD sales rose up. If Ive to choose between a live CD concert and a live DVD concert, I get the DVD. Dont you?

A Informed Public

[Lewis Daggart]

More and more people are sick of CD price gouging, yet the decline of sails is blamed on on rampant piracy and the economy. Look in the mirror.

Re:A Informed Public

[SoSueMe]

"...the decline of sails..."

The decline of sails would mean a decline in piracy.
They would have reduced activity, right?

Can someone tell me

[kemapa]

How an industry that makes so much profit can be considered a "beleaguered industry"? I'm sure the gas and cable industries are suffering heavily as well these days, huh?

Sure could fool me!

[bev_tech_rob]

I work part time at a local Best Buy running a front register and CDs fly off the shelves at a real good clip. Almost every person coming thru has at least 1 CD with them. If CD sales are slowing down, I don't see it...

Re:Sure could fool me!

[PhxBlue]

Best Buy actually has pretty decent prices for CDs, which might have something to do with that. Although, as someone else said a few days ago, the plural of "anecdote" is not data.

Murder rates are down too. You know why?

[Neil Blender]

I haven't killed a man since 1984.

piracy

[JunichiTelex]

Sales down because of Piracy? heck I got 3 Radiohead songs at one time and ended up buying 5 of there albums, in my case it definetly helped them out.

I have heard lots I want to buy...

[Black Art]

Just not sold by the RIAA.

There are some great artists. I buy their albums whenever they appear in concert, at the concert. Then I know that at least a fraction of the money will actually go to the artist.

For example, check out Vienna Teng. Great music and even better live!

Re:I have heard lots I want to buy...

[Qbertino]

Yepp. Just not sold by the RIAA. Or the european equivalent.
Here's my special tip from last Winter:
http://home.t-online.de/home/ullavandaele n/index.h tm

Of course P2P just has to be the culprit, right??

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA wouldn't dare point their fingers at the Bush economy. Personally, there are a lot of things that I've wanted to buy, CDs included. I've wanted to buy a new vehicle and I've wanted to put a new roof on my house. All of these things have gone by the wayside because 1) my expenses have gone up due to higher gas costs and higher local taxes/property taxes 2) my income has remained stagnant for the past three years 3) I'm reluctant to go into debt because I don't want to be in that situation if I lose my job, which is very possible in this economy and 4) I'm trying to put money into savings in case that happens.

So yeah, I've bought less CDs (among other things) in the past couple of years because my disposable income has dropped precipitously. And when the RIAA sees its sales drop, rather than point their fingers at the economy in general (and the man responsible for it) they instead go after the Big Bad Bogeyman of P2P. Color me completely unsurprised. But they're completely wrong.

How 'bout...

[djtripp]

Lack of good music? I myself bought more Music last year than the 2 years coombined before, but last year, I also had something called money... And I don't think it has anything to do with P2P... People are broke, and parents aren't giving their kids as much an allowance.

Re:How 'bout...

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

--
Why do people ask rhetorical questions?

'Cuz there's always some freak who answers them. oh wait...

Overkill on the radio

[flashbang]

You know, I bet if you did a study looking at the increase of air play of songs compared to the CD sales you would see a decrease.

I for one may like a song at first, but when radio stations are forced to play it over and over (every hour...) I get sick of it. I'm not going to buy that CD anymore - thanks radio...

That would be an interesting study...

Re:Overkill on the radio

[gcaseye6677]

This is exactly why I haven't bought any Red Hot Chili Peppers CDs. I actually like their music, but if I hear it on the radio every 20 minutes before the CD is even in stores, I'm pretty much sick of it by then. That's the problem with flavor-of-the-week marketing, you've got to get lots of different flavors since they wear out so fast.

Re:Overkill on the radio

[denis-The-menace]

That's because of ClearChannel and rest of the Radio Cartel that controls 90+% of the content on the radio.

It is Payola all the way. The Music Cartel (RIAA, CRIA, etc) only need to pay an "Indi" (Independent Promoter) that in turn pays the radio station to play the wannabe hit ad-nausium.

NOTE: If the Music Cartel paid the Radio Cartel directly that would against the law. ;)

Re:Overkill on the radio

[Ithika]

Damn good point. I never listen to the radio, so whenever a song comes out that I like I may hear it occasionally but not to the point that I get sick of it. If I then obtain a copy (legally or otherwise) my friends often complain of not liking the song cos they've heard it too often, even if they admit it's a good song.

I suppose the best example of this would be Christmas jingles. Nobody likes Christmas songs, even ones with musical merit, because for a solid 6 weeks at the end of every year they're played round the clock in every superstore and shopping mall in the land.

Re:Overkill on the radio

[stedlj]

I too would put big part of the blame on the radio stations. They play so few new songs and many of them play the same junk that another station does. It seems as if they each pick 15-20 songs and those are played over and over for the week. Next week the change 1-2 and repeat again. I remember only a few years back when a number of stations would have a new song each day. People would call in if they liked it or not. Now some of those new songs died right there but you got more new music.

Here http://www.musiciansnetwork.com/mnet/indie44_sampl e.html they say that 38,000+ CDs were released in 2003, where are they? With that many a radio station could play new songs for 2 months straight with out repeating one. The music is there, the art is there we are just being feed 'product' to make money.

So I blame Clear Channel Communications Inc. and the music industry for their own problems.

Re:Overkill on the radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I love Christmas songs. I have a ton of Christmas CDs, most of them are pretty damn good. Some are fucking excellent. It's just a shame that the malls play all the crap like Mariah Carey and NSync. YEck! But then, I do all my xmas shopping online, so no crappy malls for me! :)

What the article missed...

[GreenCrackBaby]

An industry that has started a warpath suing children, the elderly, and many more of its potential customers is suffering from poor sales. Shocking!

Re:What the article missed...

[Joe the Lesser]

This is quite true. Why should I support the industry that epitomizes greed?

Re:What the article missed...

[SoSueMe]

Kinda makes you wonder how many congress critter's, MP's, and diplomats' children/relatives have been sued, doesn't it?

Re:What the article missed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like SCO

Re:What the article missed...

[JoeBaldwin]

Uh, CNN are owned by AOL Time Warner, who have big ass links to music companies like EMI. They'll obviously not want to point out the RIAA's flaws.

The reasons...

[tuxedobob]

'rampant piracy, poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs.'

Not necessarily in that order.

Conspiracy Theory - it's all deliberate

[jkeegan]

One almost has to wonder if some brilliant yet lazy executive proposed:

"Hey.. let's not work too hard this year.. Don't try too hard to find good talent, and don't go crazy promoting what we currently have. Sure we'll all pay in the short term, but we'll get what we want - a report of lost CD sales.. We'll benefit from whatever corrective measures are taken, and then we can sit back and make more in the long run without trying so hard to find quality work, because we'll have more rights on the music and stronger copyright laws."

(Cue the "you give them too much credit" replies. :) )

Harvard Study says otherwise...

[BenSnyder]

News of the Harvard study which seemed to rule out piracy as a economic factor was carried earlier on Slashdot, but even the NY Times picked it up.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of piracy...how long did it take you to plagarise that post?

Canadian sales show recovery in 2004

[djmurdoch]

If you go to the CRIA web page, you'll see that CD sales (and gross revenue, though not revenue from CDs) were up over the same month in the preceding year in both January and February. The CRIA is the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA.

DVD sales are way up in all of the months I looked at. VHS and cassette tape sales are down, which isn't too surprising.

Re:Canadian sales show recovery in 2004

[SoSueMe]

This, when downloading is legal in Canada (for now).

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Whitney Houston's drug usage has wen't down 7.6% in the year of 2003 compared to the prior year.

Its called iTunes

[arakon]

I haven't bought a CD since. Honestly I hate buying CDs cause they usually only have one song I like.

I hope CD sales continue to decline, they need to move along into the next century. And I concur with the previous statements that there just aren't really that many bands out there that make anything worth listening to.

"I'm going to my room to lishten to my Britney Shpears records."

Guess I just posted another worthless opinion to /. .

Re:Its called iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Worthless opinion is right! You're obviously not a music lover (nothing wrong with that), so you shouldn't try to form opinions about stuff you don't even care about!

--Anonymous Music Lover

Could lack of sales be related to....

[Nuclear Elephant]

.... all of their artists in jail?

Buggy Sales

[SomeOtherGuy]

The RIAA Must feel like the horse and buggy companies did when paved roads became a reality...and that evil pirate automobile started to overpower them.

That being said. Have they ever stopped to think maybe when you sale a product that can be variable based on quantity, that it will not always be a % increase each year. I mean very vew CD's were released in 2003 that I figured were worth my money....(had nothing to do with piracy). 2004 is looking better...As far as my taste goes.

not much worth buying

[troyef]

as the story states, there really isn'y much worth buying right now. even MTV ran a story that stated piracy wasn't the reason for the sales slump....

it is recording contracts for american idols and the next flashy bubble-gum band (or should I say, performer)... the record companies are pouring money into crap that won't sell... or they get the new face to sing a song they know will sell and put a horrible album around it...

all the new stuff tends to sound the same... buy one and you have 90% or music covered...

Re:not much worth buying

[Anonymous Coward]

NEWSFLASH: You odn't have to buy only stuff that's played on the radio! Dumbass!! If you've truly searched and found nothing worth buying -- to you -- then you're obviously not a music lover. Nothing wrong with that. Just stop buying stuff you don't want anyway, and stop complaining about it!

--Anonymous Music Lover

Since its from Harvard

[Anonymous Coward]

it must be true!

Re:Slashdot and US-ASCII

[CrazyTalk]

Will someone PLEASE mod this trash down into oblivion?

I bought lots of CDs in 2003...

[armyofone]

... but they were all out of the used bin. The RIAA can have some of my money again when they give me a decent product at a decent price.

Why does a DVD with 6 hours of material cost $14.99 while a CD with 1 hour of material cost $16 to $19?

Re:I bought lots of CDs in 2003...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does a DVD with 6 hours of material cost $14.99 while a CD with 1 hour of material cost $16 to $19?

Because in the course of a year, I might watch a good DVD once. I'll listen to a good CD 20+ times. Sounds like a bargain to me!

Piracy, or Crap Product?

[Baron_Yam]

I once used P2P to download MP3s of everything I owned because my connection was faster than my processor - I could download faster than I could rip and compress.

I then used P2P to download some obscure stuff you can't find for sale.

Since then I have yet to hear something on the radio I bothered to remember the name of, nevermind download or buy.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

So Internet piracy is affecting your christian, wholesome family, music store? I'll calling BS on this one. Piracy isn't leading to your shitty store's downfall, the economy is. Suck it up, it's happening to small businesses all across the US, not just in the music industry.

Sham

[kajoob]

Not only is the 7.6% number a shame, it's nearly insignificant to what the RIAA is claiming is happening to the CD market. If you haven't already seen it, watch Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture" lecture from the 2002 OSCON, it's friggen brilliant. (heads up - it's an 8mb flash presentation, but is well worth it.)

Most albums of 2003 were terrible

[NaCh0]

2003 was a sad year in music if you listen to the radio or M-Viacom-TV. Pretty much all they played was blink 182-esque pussy punk.

There is one exception to the rule that got almost no airplay...Chimaira's Impossiblity of Reason. Look it up on Amazon or your favorite site. Truly an amazing metal album.

Boomers?

[jridley]

You know, the population is aging. The music industry is persuing the young crowd, because they're the ones who buy the most music, but there are steadily less of them as the boomer bump moves down the timeline.
Maybe that has something to do with it? Probably not all, but maybe some.

Hopes?

[Anonymous Coward]

"a strong second-half recovery in the United States, Britain and Australia... has raised hopes that the worst is behind the beleaguered industry"

Well, I for one am hoping that the worst is ahead for the beleaguered industry. If anyone deserved to get jobs at McDonald's, it is the fucking music execs.

Trying to use up my free iTunes songs...

[gozar]

This brings up a good point about what to buy. I've got ~10 free songs coming to me from the Pepsi/iTunes giveaway, and I don't know what to buy with them.

I start looking around for a song I want, and I usually end up buying the entire album instead (latest purchases, Gershwin's Greatest Hits and Buffy: Once More with Feeling). My tastes in music are pretty varied, going from classical to hip-hop, but I'm having a tough time finding music I want to get.

I don't even look at CDs anymore. Too expensive and takes too long to find something you like.

I'm sure every record exec started shaking in their boots with the USA Today article that shows that a lot more youth are turning to their parents CD collection of Queen and ZZ Top. No new sales.

what do I want?

[Anonymous Coward]

when I want a song I download it

when I want an album I buy it

Piracy up 450%

[DR SoB]

See for yourself:

http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/iias/agenda/040903.htm l

I think it's all the RIAA's fault myself. I mean with these overpriced songs, what's a pirate to do? He _must_ pirate in order to buy the latest pirate music.

Re:Piracy up 450%

[Anonymous Coward]

Arr.

Popular Music Blows

[jgerry]

Give me something to listen to that doesn't suck and maybe I'll start buying CDs again. A quick look through the Billboard top 10 curbs my appetite for new music very quickly.

Am I just getting old?

How do

[jlechem]

The two phrases: "Global music sales fell 7.6 percent in 2003 to $32 billion" and "However, a strong second-half recovery in the United States, Britain and Australia, boosted by top-selling acts such as Justin Timberlake, Beyonce and rapper 50 Cent, has raised hopes that the worst is behind the beleaguered industry." go together? 32 billion dollars is a lot of money. I don't feel sorry for them. What they only made 65% profit intead of 85%? Time to get out the big guns!

Sales down

[greygent]

Right, because none of the reasons could possibly be that the music the industry is releasing these days is mostly impotent and complete shit.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

someone please mod this troll, or at the very least flamebait

CDs are becomming obsolete.

[jetkust]

Enough said.

It's the economy, stupid!

[jenohn]

The amount of disposable income has decreased (presumably - I didn't check) due to unemployment and the desire to spend has lessened due to uncertainty in individual economic futures. With this economy, is it unreasonable to presume that sales of music might be down?

It's The Outsourcing, Stupid!

[tds67]

...and points to 'rampant piracy, poor economic conditions...

If economic conditions are poor then the obvious solution for the music industry is to eliminate those high dollar western musicians! They could then hire musicians on-the-cheap from third world countries, repackage them into an image of their choosing (e.g., Appu Timberlaku) and have the CDs manufactured in sweatshops in Freedonia.

Vinyl Sales were down When Tape was released.

[jellomizer]

When they made cassette tapes and after a while the sale of Vinyl Records went down because tapes were more portable and lasted longer.

The sale of cassette tapes went down after CDs were released because CDs were More portable and lasted longer.

Now the sales of CDs are down due to the fact that MP3s are more portable and can be backed up thus lasting longer.

I am finding a trend. The only difference is that the CD distributers didn't choose MP3s to replace their CDs. The consumers have spoken and they said they want MP3s and other form or portable digital music where they can just get the songs they want.

Re:As a record store owner

[Cruciform]

It would be funnier if it wasn't a blatant cut and paste of this post.

Today's music...

[Rick Zeman]

...bites, from what I've heard. I can count on one hand how many CDs I have that were published this millennium. I'm sure there's lots of good stuff buried out there, but Clear Channel won't let me near them.

Plus, very few people even know how to play a guitar anymore (Joe Bonamassa being a big exception).
I didn't see a "it sucks" cause in the article...

Yeah, I'm geezing, I know....

Re:Today's music...

[radish]

music == guitars? Maybe you need to broaden your horizons ever so slightly...

Re:Today's music...

[Rick Zeman]

music == guitars? Maybe you need to broaden your horizons ever so slightly...

That's just one (major) facet of the overall suckiness to me.

Re the previous poster, that was more the obligatory dig (you know, on slashdot one has an obligation to bust on MS, SCO and Clear Channel) than anything else. The only radio I listen to is news and sports. The radio choices for music in Washington DC span the gamut from horrible to "there oughta be a law."

Yeah, there's Internet radio, but nothing I've heard is worth the effort. Yep. Catch-22 there.

Re:Today's music...

[k_187]

iTunes really is a nifty thing, while browsing for stuff from the pepsi thing, I've found loads of stuff I never would have considered had I not just been clicking everything and listening to their previews.

Re:Today's music...

[Anonymous Coward]

Joe Who? If you want someone who knows how to play a guitar, try Satriani. Hell, check out all of Steve Vai's Favored Nations record label. Tons and tons of amazing guitarists as far as the eye can see. I think there's only about 5 albums on that entire label that I don't have or want.

One resource that's been great for me is Amazon's 'people who bought this also bought..." listing on every CD's page. I've greatly broadened my horizons by checking out those recommendations, and added a ton of CDs to my wishlist due to that. There's a ton of great stuff out there, you just have to look! Don't assume the crap that they mass market and spoonfeed is all that exists.

I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[weave]

Amen about there being nothing you want to hear available. I have 40 credits in itunes I need to use before the end of the month, and I haven't found anything good to use it for yet -- FOR FREE.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

the have BRMC, queens of the stoneage, the new cypress hill album, or anything by Dead Prez on that thar thingy?

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[ecliptik]

Try other types of music out that you wouldn't normally listen to. There's plenty on the what's new pages, emerging artists, etc.

A brief glance at itune's main website shows Ben Kweller, Johnny Cash, and Guster, three very respected musical talents.

And if you can't find any, don't let them go to waste, give them away.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[Cyph]

iTunes Music Store has a few William Hung tracks available for your perusal. Enjoy!

*snicker*

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[Gulthek]

Rap:

Blackalicious
OutKast

Downtempo:
Zero 7
Portishead
Tortoise (their new cd is out!)

Classical:
Yo Yo Ma

This is just off the top of my head on a few seconds thought. Also check out the iTunes "Next Best Thing" collection.

Of course the best thing would be for you to just gimme those credits. ;-)

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Leon Redbone, he's good blues and different.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[weave]

I'll find something to use them on. And thanks to everyone for the suggestions. Part of the problem is lack of exposure to new music. Radio really sucks bad. I do listen to the streaming stations on itunes and get ideas from them. It'd be neat to be able to integrate that better into the itunes store. Listen to something like Radiostorm Hardrock, click a link while a cool tune is playing, go into itunes and buy it, and the streaming station gets a commission for the referal.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here, except that I've only got about 10 credits. Problem I have is that I prefer to purchase my music on CD and many songs I want to buy are on albums I'd like to purchase. So the dilemma becomes what songs do I want are on crappy albums I'd never buy.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you've either got a massive catalog already, or you are not trying hard enough.

Check out the Bad Plus.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[ecliptik]

I found a really good strategy is to go to a meta music site like All Music[allmusic.com] and put in a artist you already know you like. Then look at related artrists, influences, and who they've influenced.

I've found a lot of good stuff that I probably would have never heard of normally.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[pdwestermann]

If you can't find 40 songs out of 500,000 that you enjoy, you must live a sad, depressing life. I'm not sure if Best Buy carries that much music, where oh where do you buy music?

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Jennifer Daniels
Acoustic alt-folk. Just saw her in concert for the second time and she's awesome. Also, she's unsigned and could use your money.

Re:I have 40 song credits in iTunes

[intheory]

Email them to me -- I'll find something!!! Seriously...

"beleaguered industry"

[Anonymous Coward]

awwwww... poor li'l beleaguered [multi-billion dollar] industry.

it almost makes me well up with tears. oh wait, overall economic conditions are tough, tons of people out of work or under employed.

i guess i'm not that broken up 'bout it after all.

Entertainment dollars and poor quality

[Amigori]

With so many different types of media competing for my entertainment dollar, the music industry needs step up and realize they are not alone any longer. People want flexibility with their music because there's many more ways to play a song today than 10 or even 5 years ago. The day of the discman is nearly over. Hello iPod! If you can't provide me with the type and format of music that I desire, I will find it elsewhere. The iTunes Music Store is great and its where I've bought 95% of my music since it was launched last year. The only place that I use CDs anymore is in my car, and they're almost all custom mixes. That will change when I decide to get an FM modulator or the line-in jacks for my iPod.

The other factor bringing down my music purchases, other than higher prices and a lower paycheck, is lack of quality. Most of what I listen too, you would never find in Best Buy or FYE. You're too concerned with "golden money makers" than with providing us with interesting original music. I understand the business principles behind trying to make a profit, but when you minimize your risk, you potentially minimize your return. Think of all the CDs in the past 2 years that you (RIAA) have released? I can't really name any that I've liked the entire CD, except for Coldplay's A Rush of Blood To the Head. One. Oh well, you may learn someday, and someday may be too late.

Amigori

Re:Entertainment dollars and poor quality

[hacknslashdot]

With so many different types of media competing for my entertainment dollar, the music industry needs step up and realize they are not alone any longer. People want flexibility with their music because there's many more ways to play a song today than 10 or even 5 years ago. The day of the discman is nearly over.

I couldn't agree more. I listen to mp3's here at work all day but don't listen to as much music at home, so when I buy a CD i'm going to want to rip it to mp3 easily. I recently went into a CD store here, and the 2 CDs that I was planning on geting were both copy protected .. making them significatly more awkward to rip to mp3, significant enough that I didn't end up purchasing the CDs.
I imagine that I'm not the only one who does this, especially with the increase in availability of mp3 players.

Re:Entertainment dollars and poor quality

[sootman]

I bought and FM thingie for my iPod. It sucked. Returned it the same week, went to Best Buy, and got the cheapest (~$150 installed) AIWA with a line-in jack they had and it's great. A friend, who also owns an iPod, tried too, with a newer model of FM thingie. A little better but overall it still sucked. The same week he bought the mod, he returned it & got a deck with a line-in.

Bite the bullet. Spend the money. Go get the cheapest deck with a line-in you can. (Even mine has 2 sets of preamp outs, for when I save up enough to get a new amp, subs, and separates.)

Re:Entertainment dollars and poor quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude you have an ipod, like coldplay and boast about it! Interesting indeed! what is it, gay pride week?

Online sales?

[ryanw]

Would that 7% decrease be the increase in purchases from iTMS or Napster or other online PURCHASES??

Too many CDs

[suso]

I don't buy CDs as much as I used to. I have over 600 CDs now, but most of them where bought between 1990 and 2001. I still bought CDs even after I started listening to mp3s. I haven't bought any recently because I just don't need anymore right now. I have quite a few to listen too.

So maybe it's the same reason with others, they are all saturated with CDs. A generation is growing up and has other expenses, likes cars, houses and kids.

I hope they go to crap

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one buisiness that DESERVES to be left in the 20th century. Good riddens.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a troll. You plagerized. You are a pirate. I read this crap before. I doubt too many people are pirating christian music. And for good reason. It sucks. I guess what I'm saying is that you're full of it.

Re:Slashdot and US-ASCII

[Anonymous Coward]

You once wanted to know why Slashdot only did support 7 ASCII, namely has not lengthened ASCII, Unicode or ISO-8859 character?

Because Slashdot completely is an American and the patriot website, that' S why.

Consideration! Where are you at to want Slashdot to be allowed to become for a terrorist forum, they freely discuss the plan for to take away our freedom and to kill our brave soldier through the fearful act of terrorism in they language and heathen's Arabic script? Unicode, causes the terrorist world plan terrorist motion and the correspondence passes the Internet the system. Though most attempts covers it, it is does not have the secret to be most its astute American, the Unicode development by France, the government which the dictator supports partially subsidizes by Al Qaeda and the part.

Whether there is that counter- society trash here. Slashdot support only US, patriotic character. Eurotrash, look, because of your can' The t use you should die umlauts and ~' S here. We will preserve the buttocks which you was sorry to be able most little to do in Second World War -- you demonstrated some should die the respect and used our alphabet. Slashdot does not support your counter- American character. 7 ASCII (US exchange of information standard code) knew together takes US-ASCII. This speech for itself. Some choices for the patriotic American are only US-ASCII, the standard code is US. I' M is arrogant is an American, with I' M is arrogant is this lack of patriotism, the American Slashdot community's member. I do not let freely hate the terrorist to conspire the evil plan to have in by US, freedom of speech website.

Do not believe the terrorist propaganda rumour.
Resists the Unicode -- its terrorism tool.
Used any thing and the terrorist already to win except US-ASCII outside.

Re:As a record store owner

[withak53]

Piracy aside you may want to reconsider owning a record store.

As more and more people are turning to legally downloading music your business model is becoming obsolete.

Simple...

[Hu's_on_first]

Personally, the largest single reason I bought fewer CDs last year than anytime in the last 16 years is there is simply few new recordings that I'm actually interested in. Sure, I'm now in my mid-thirties and my interest in new music has waned slightly, but it's the lack of quality product more than anything else that accounts for my decreased consumption.

Yes, I do use P2P software to download some music, but it's usually when I'm looking for a song I've heard on the radio or TV and I want to listen some more to determine if I want to lay out the cash to buy the CD.

So, to the recording industry I say, we've heard enough manufactured, cookie-cutter, schlock pop. Spend some of that A&R money and let the public hear some real artists performing real music.

Truly astounding.

[Anonymous Coward]

In a decade of creatively inspired lyrics, bold defiant artists and entertaining yet intellectually challenging music why could sales be declining?

(Turns on radio, fliping through 5 channels of boy bands and "hoes and BLING" before becoming disgusted and turning it off).

Slashdot and US-ASCII

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you ever wonder why Slashdot only supports 7-bit ASCII, i.e. no extended ASCII, Unicode or ISO-8859 characters?

Because Slashdot is a wholly American and Patriot website, that's why.

Think about it! Do you want Slashdot to become a forum for terrorists, where they can freely discuss plans for taking away our freedom and killing our brave soldiers through HORRIBLE ACTS OF TERRORISM in their own language and the heathen Arabic script? Unicode, a system that enables terrorists worldwide to plan terrorist actions and communicate through the Internet. Though most try to cover it up, it is no secret to most IT-savvy Americans that Unicode development is partly funded by Al-Qaeda and partly by the French, dictator-supporting government.

There is none of that anti-social trash here. Slashdot supports only AMERICAN, PATRIOTIC CHARACTERS. Eurotrash, look out, because you can't use your fucking umlauts and ~'s here. We saved your sorry asses in World War II -- the least you can do is show some fucking respect and use our alphabet. Slashdot does not support your anti-American characters. 7-bit ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is commonly known as US-ASCII. This speaks for itself. The one and only choice for PATRIOTIC AMERICANS is US-ASCII, the STANDARD CODE for the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I'm proud to be an American, and I'm PROUD be a member of this patriotic, American Slashdot community. I am not going to let freedom-hating terrorists plot evil plans on an American-owned, FREE SPEECH website.

Do not believe the terrorist propaganda lies.
Boycott Unicode -- it is a tool of terrorism.
USE ANYTHING OTHER THAN US-ASCII AND THE TERRORISTS HAVE ALREADY WON.

New technology took its place

[q-the-impaler]

I didn't buy CDs much before P2P. Then when it came out I DLed a bunch of music. When Napster died I got bored with downloading music and stopped altogether.

Now I have XM radio, which I pay for monthly, and will probably never buy another CD again. There is always something entertaining on, so I never feel the urge to swtich it off and grab a CD.

So are they accounting for XM radio play too?

I haven't bought a CD in about 5 years, but...

[infosinger]

Pepsi gave me a couple of free songs on iTunes and I am hooked. I have spent over $30 in the last month from groups I never even heard of 2 weeks ago. Between iTunes and Rhapsody I have all the music I need. If there is something I want for the car or on my home server, I buy it(a track at a time). Because of this online model I am going to be buying far more music than I ever did(except maybe in my teen years). Frankly, I don't feel encouraged to by any music at the conventional record stores because it is usually noisy and I can't listen to it in my normal frame of mind while working or relaxing. Sure, P2P probably has an impact, but so does online, quality of releases, and most of all price. I agree that the CD business model is broken now that we have other alternatives for entertainment. I think that for most of us, Kazaa, etc. is too much a hassle when we can get the song we want for less than $1.00. I have better things to do with my time than wade through 2-3 songs to find one that was ripped half decently.

Piracy is good for the consumer.

[Nosf3ratu]

So I recently heard that songs "Maps" by a rather obscure band called the "Yeah Yeah Yeahs." The song is infectious. So I downloaded their entire CD from the soulseek network (using nicotine) and hated it. I hated it so much I actually *deleted* it (which is rare for me).
And if not for P2P, I would have wasted nearly $20USD on that piece of crap.

Actually, I wouldn't have, because I wouldn't have bought the CD, ever, even if P2P did not exist. It's a genre that I don't typically listen to, but P2P gives me the freedom to "expand my musical horizons" to be cliche about it. Now, consider if I had loved this CD. I would probably consequently buy some of the band's tshirts, or visit them in concert. Would I buy the CD? Eh...still, probably not. P2P doesn't detract from people that are going to buy the albums, it just gives people who WOULDN'T buy the album a chance to listen without being tied down financially to something. I honestly don't see the harm in that.

RIAA free top 100

[vossman77]

I'm a big indie rock fan and I find this site to be a good break down of non-RIAA bands:

RIAA Safe Top 100

RIAA Safe Top 10 Alternative Rock

all based on Amazon Sales

Re:RIAA free top 100

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod: Fight THE MAN +1

Re:RIAA free top 100

[GothChip]

Great!. Two of the top three selling non-RIAA albums are by Hanson.

That's really going to make me support non-RIAA music.

Re:RIAA free top 100

[rsadelle]

Did you stop there or did you continue reading? Number 27 is Jordan Knight's New Kids on the Block: The Remix Album.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are an asscork.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

my heart is bleeding for you pal.. you think you can have a profitable business for 12 years and do nothing different and its just going to continue to be profitable? Instead of blowing the money when u had it you should have run some local marketing.. or better yet.. foresaw the technological revolution and sold your silly store and used the money to start an online store.. then you would have global sales and u can sit on your duff @ home instead of in your store.. i can't believe you put this sob story on here when its simply a matter of u working a bit harder to pay your bills.. lets ban the internet cause your business is going broke.. you are a dumbass! Not to mention that the only reason the record industry made money was because of albums like 50 cent.. maybe if u started selling top 40 stuff you would make a buck.. get a clue!

Slashdot and US-ASCII

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you ever wonder why Slashdot only supports 7-bit ASCII, i.e. no extended ASCII, Unicode or ISO-8859 characters?

Because Slashdot is a wholly American and Patriot website, that's why.

Think about it! Do you want Slashdot to become a forum for terrorists, where they can freely discuss plans for taking away our freedom and killing our brave soldiers through HORRIBLE ACTS OF TERRORISM in their own language and the heathen Arabic script? Unicode, a system that enables terrorists worldwide to plan terrorist actions and communicate through the Internet. Though most try to cover it up, it is no secret to most IT-savvy Americans that Unicode development is partly funded by Al-Qaeda and partly by the French, dictator-supporting government.

There is none of that anti-social trash here. Slashdot supports only AMERICAN, PATRIOTIC CHARACTERS. Eurotrash, look out, because you can't use your fucking umlauts and ~'s here. We saved your sorry asses in World War II -- the least you can do is show some fucking respect and use our alphabet. Slashdot does not support your anti-American characters. 7-bit ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is commonly known as US-ASCII. This speaks for itself. The one and only choice for PATRIOTIC AMERICANS is US-ASCII, the STANDARD CODE for the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I'm proud to be an American, and I'm PROUD be a member of this patriotic, American Slashdot community. I am not going to let freedom-hating terrorists plot evil plans on an American-owned, FREE SPEECH website.

Do not believe the terrorist propaganda lies.
Boycott Unicode -- it is a tool of terrorism.
USE ANYTHING OTHER THAN US-ASCII AND THE TERRORISTS HAVE ALREADY WON.

No big surprise!

[OverwhelmingAmoeba]

The price of a CD is so outragous. Even my Mom is using P2P software to get music because she dosen't want to pay $17 bucks for a CD that contains two good songs out of twelve. The "filler factor," as I call it, is another hit against CDs. Most CDs have a few good songs with the bulk of the album consisting of substandard, half-baked songs. Why buy the CD when you can get the two good songs of a P2P network.

Correllation != Causation

[aduzik]

It always annoys me how quickly people, like the RIAA, like to point to P2P for decreased sales. I don't use P2P myself... well, pr0n notwithstanding... but a decrease in sales does not necessarily mean that P2P is entirely to blame.

Let's not forget that America, like most of the world, is still trying to pull out of a recession. Luxury goods -- CD's included -- are always the first to go when money gets tight.

Also, the CD sales figure does not include sales from other sources. I'm thinking in particular of iTMS and iTMS-oids. And, perhaps people are choosing to spend their "luxury budget" on other stuff, like games and DVDs.

Long story short, do I think P2P is harming music sales? If it is, then not by much. Also, as many have pointed out, the quality of the product is slipping rapidly. I know the last time I looked at music at the mall, there were maybe a couple of CDs I would consider shelling out $15 or more for.

It doesn't surprise me that CD sales are falling, because I feel that we're getting much less bang for our music dollar anymore, and online music stores are a much better deal. After all, other than CD's for the car, I listen to all my music on my computer or iPod. There's getting to be less and less of an incentive to actually go out and buy physical CDs

I don't put much stock into numbers like these, because they don't reflect the true financial situation of the affected parties well. This does not bode particularly well, however, for brick-and-mortar retail music stores, which is why I think you see so many of them carrying games and DVDs now.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

This troll gets posted on almost every music discussion. Its really getting old now, as if it were ever funny to begin with.

What was their investment?

[k3v0]

I remember after last years 9 ish % decrease, it came out that they released less that year, and the decrease in sales was less than the decrease in releases.

Used CDs

[thebus]

With the increased high prices I have almost completed resorted to buying used. I can usually find great buys at amazon, ebay, or half. I seldom pay more than $5.

There is so much good music from the past that I haven't heard yet, why do I need to pay full price for the new stuff.

When I do buy new I try to do so directly from the artist.

I love this.

[Bluesman]

Dear RIAA,

HAHAHA! RIAA, the music industry has changed! Technology has allowed greater sharing and therefore we don't need to go to a brick and mortar store to buy your crap!! Information wants to be free, it's everywhere!!! No laws will stop this!!! YOU are the thieves!

Yours truly,
Slashdot Crowd

Dear Congressman,

Due to recent changes in technology, American businesses are now looking overseas to cheap labor to perform what used to be my job. This is economical for them because of increased ability to communicate cheaply and ubiquitously over the Internet.
THIS HAS TO STOP. You MUST do SOMETHING to protect my job. EVIL corporations are taking advantage of Americans by using new methods and technology to their advantage. This is not fair.

Yours truly,
Slashdot Crowd

Re:I love this.

[back_pages]

Dear Troll,
Some people are dumb and nothing can be done about that.
Dumb people do not represent all people.
You got that one for free, next time you'll owe me a dime.

Yours truly,
~Graduated third grade

Re:I love this.

[Dirtside]

Right, because there's just no way that it's different sets of people who say those two things.

What fucktard modded that insightful?

OB Simpsons Quote.

[dhalgren99]

Principal Skinner: That's two independent thought alarms in one day. Willie, the children are over-stimulated. Remove all the colored chalk from the classrooms.

Re:OB Simpsons Quote.

[CrazyTalk]

Bart (paraphrased) : "Mp3s my butt! When I was a kid all we had were CDs, and that was plenty good enough"

So...

[Frac]

When CD sales are down, Slashdot says:
* It's not because of piracy
* It's because RIAA sues P2P pirates
* It's because the music is crap
* It's because all 10 people around you are buying through other means
* It's because all 10 people around you are buying from independent labels
* It's because the economy is down

When CD sales are up, Slashdot says:
* It's not because the music is better
* It's because all 10 people around you are buying more music because of P2P
* It's because the economy is up

How convenient.

Re:So...

[delld]

Since when do all posters have toe the slashdot line? A varied bunch post here, so you can not really expect the message to be consistent can you. Some of us like microsoft, some of us would rather have billy dead, some think cd sales are directly proportional of the size of J.Lo's ass, some think the inverse. (And some don't really think at all). Are really surprised that the posters of the dotslash are hypocrites when sampled as a single group?

Anyways, the fact remains that when CD sales are down,

• It's because few people are buying fewer CDs.

And when CD sales are up,

• It's because more people are buying more CDs.

Beyond that simple observation, everyone, including myself, is talking shit.

Re:So...

[aspirationz]

CD sales are down because the atomic weight of boron is ten.

Re:As a record store owner

[Rude-Boy]

"They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?"

Oh yeah, the war on drugs has worked real well.

In Other News

[QuijiboIsAWord]

In Other News, it was also reported that vinyl record sales are down an astonishing amount from their all time high. RIAA representatives point to this as more evidence that piracy has hurt yet another segment of the music industry.

CD Sales

[Shant3030]

CD sales are probably hurt by the amount of sucky music being released.
Pop music is terrible and heavily influenced by hip-hop, which probably detracts some potential buyers (like myself). Rock and Roll has pretty much died and we are in an age of bad music.

It's the economy, stupid!!

[paulexander]

Uhhh, the economy is still flat!!

But for these morons, they prefer to scapegoat P2P, not their ridiculously expensive pricing, or stagnant artist syndrome. Irregardless of whether P2P existed or not, their model just don't work no more.

I'm making 60% of what I did four years ago, and I still have the same house note - oh wait I re-fied to pay the mortgage...

EITHER WAY I HAVE TO DISCUSS IT WITH MY WIFE WHEN I WANT TO BUY A CD !!

Who are the "one hit wonders"?

[turnstyle]

"I'm not buying another 1 hit wonder that has only one song"

This is one of those common excuses, but I'm genuinely curious:

1) Who are these one hit wonders with only one good song on their CD? Can you cite the one good song on otherwise all-crap CDs?

2) Do you think such CDs are intentionally made with the idea that it's all crap, except for that one song? In other words, does the band, producer, etc, not stand by their work?

Re:Who are the "one hit wonders"?

[stecoop]

I guess have the obligation to address your issue since your asking a perfectly legitimate question.

Start here at VH1 one hit wonders.

You're kind of correct - the statement was taken out of context. What people are tired of is paying a bunch of money for something that is played over and over on the Radio anyway. So much so that you get tired of hearing it and that Artist then becomes associated with one song and is thought of as a one hit wonder in which cannot ever achieve the same greatness.

Re:Who are the "one hit wonders"?

[platypibri]

Sheryl Crow, "C'mon C'mon." I bought it for 18 plus tax and "Soak Up The Sun" was the only song worth a damn. There's an example.Also, Trust Company "The lonely position of neutral" I loved "Downfall", I ripped it to iTunes and never listened to the CD again. Luckily it was a gift.

Those are opposed to U2's "All that you can't leave behind" where I love every song. Yes, Limewire has helped me weed out the crap.

Re:Who are the "one hit wonders"?

[turnstyle]

"Sheryl Crow, "C'mon C'mon." I bought it for 18 plus tax and "Soak Up The Sun" was the only song worth a damn. There's an example."

OK, and Allmusic (a source I find to be quite reliable) gives "C'mon C'mon" 4.5 out of 5 stars. (and Trust Company got a respectable 3).

Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, gimme a break about this tired "today's music sucks" cliche. For every modern crappy artist you can name, I can give you their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s counterpart.

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[what the dumple is]

Knowing me what the dumple is, know you anonymous coward, ah-ha!

Excellent point. I find that most people who say, "today's music sucks" are either OLD or ignorant, i.e. the only music of today that they know about is what they see on TV or hear on corporate radio.

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[Chordonblue]

At least ABBA knew what harmony was.

Harmony - the lost art.

Maybe Antares can get DMX to harmonize with himself though...

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Harmony? You mean like Sloan, The Flashing Lights, The Sneetches?! Lost art. HA. Just goes to show how uninformed you are.

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think the people who state today's music sucks are referring to the mainstream music that is being promoted by the radio stations and major labels. In most cases they are absolutely correct. Most artists from previous generations were able to read music, play instruments, and understood how to sing in tune and even knew music theory on some elementary level. These days, anyone with a pretty face and/or fancy dance moves becomes a rock star, regardless of musical talent. Hell hardly any of them write their own songs anymore. Granted, there are exceptions like Norah Jones, Josh Groban, Sting, Outkast, and I'm sure a few others. But in general the popular music of today is filled with American Idol rejects who have no business in the music business.

Independent artists, by definition, are not included in this because they are actual artists who usually write their own music, can play instruments and sing in key. Unfortunately, most people lack the time and ability to find these artists. I know I have a difficult time learning about them.

You can say that I'm old or out of touch if you want, but you should know that the current crap they call music these days IS target at my generation. Unfortunately, I'm a music major and understand how awful the stuff their passing off as music really is. It's all the same beat, just different words and cliches.

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[Chordonblue]

Hmmm.. Top 10 artists, all of them, huh?

You're proving my point. The INDUSTRY is the issue. I didn't point to musicians. I believe there is still musicianship out there - you just can't tell by listening to popular crap.

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[what the dumple is]

Sloan are the biggest rock band in...(wait for it)... Canada. They were big here with their first album on DGC. They didn't have the happiest of relationships with their label and when they did a beer ad in Canada they made enough money to buy back their catalogue of recordings that DGC owned.

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[what the dumple is]

Mainstream stuff has always been utter crap*. That's why it's mainstream. It's not supposed to be earth shattering. It is simply supposed to appeal to as many people as possible and that isn't possible if ones music is intelligent or challenging in any way.

* Every once in a rare age something that has some sort of merit will chart. This is usually a fluke and not some stroke of marketing genius.

Re:Oh, like ABBA is the shiznit?

[MushMouth]

You forgot the Super Friendz dude.....

Beleaguered????

[Weaselmancer]

Hilary Rosen, head of the Powerful Trade Organization for the $15 billion recording industry, is full of contrasts...*snip*

Fifteen billion?? May I please be next in line to be beleaguered???

Weaselmancer

Re:Beleaguered????

[Anonymous Coward]

There's just yet another similarity between the recording industry and Apple. :)

Re:Beleaguered????

[hether]

Even more than that, the article says that they are down to $32 billion from $32.2 billion for the previous year. Waaah. We should obviously all feel sorry for a company with sales greater than the GDP of many countries.

Re:Beleaguered????

[General Wesc]

The RIAA is not a company. It's an association, representing over 50% of an entire industry.

Bad music anybody?

[GillBates0]

rampant piracy, poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs

Looks like the quality of music doesn't even enter their equation anywhere.

I, for one, haven't listened to new "popular(pop)" music from Brittany and Co for years now -- not from CDs, I don't even download music from these so called artists - not because I can't but because I don't think their music is any good.

A friend pointed out the difference between the new artists/music and the older ones - artists nowadays are "fabricated" by the music industry based on polls and trashy shows like the American Idol -- potential musicians are chosen based on their looks among other things, rather than on *innate* talent.

As a result, unlike the musicians of yore, the current breed of "artists" gain popularity not because of their talents/love for music BUT due to their "good looks" and ability to mobilize the audience. It's a sad world we live in.

For all the anger/abuse directed towards Michael Jackson, he became popular because of his musical talents and love for music...and that's a quality none of these "artists" possess.

Re:As a record store owner

[Skip666Kent]

No, its funnier because it is a blatant cut-n-paste from an earlier post. The fact that some idiots responded to it seriously is funnier still!

Newsflash for the Industry

[mgrassi99]

Sales of EVERYTHING are down. It's not just you guys who are feeling the pain...

Re:As a record store owner

[domodude]

Blacklists do not work. People would be unwilling to give out their name when they buy a CD. There is this amazing thing in our country, innocent until proven guilty. We tried this with the communists. That sure worked.

Re:As a record store owner

[Cruciform]

Hahaha. I've never heard that one used before. Asshat, yes. But asscork is new.

Explains why he's full of shit though.

What I've heard...

[NickRipley]

As a person with a high level of interest in the music business, I've noticed (and heard, and read) that the actual number of releases from major labels is fewer than in years past. I don't think that CD's are the only thing being "manufactured" in this case.

Also, does anyone know any statistics for how much indie cd sales are up? Of course not. The guy selling his CD-R out of his car doesn't report to SoundScan. I am almost certain they have to be on the rise.

Who needs the stinking RIAA affliated labels?

[Anonymous Coward]

The last two records that were from RIAA labels that I bought were the first For Stars album (Future Farmer) that was in 1998 and the Boyracer In Full Colour album (Zero Hour Records) which was in 1996. I'm not sure how many records I'm supposed to be buying. What does the RIAA recommened? Three a week? Ten a week? Every new release that comes out?

I have spent over $40,000 on albums in my lifetime. I can count on one hand how many were from RIAA labels.

New Music Sucks? Haven't been listening

[bzipitidoo]

I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy... how about you?

I haven't been hearing much new music. I've tuned out. Bit depressing to walk into a record store and see rows of music that I don't have a clue about. Maybe I've heard some of it on the radio, maybe not, I don't know. It's not motivating me to find out what it is, that's for sure. Lot of record stores have added samples you can listen to on headphones. But after hearing 10 or more horrible songs in a row on those, well...

Best new stuff seems to be on movie sound tracks. Get the DVD, it's cheaper than the CD and there's a movie included for free.

I would like to buy lots of CDs but

[Anonymous Coward]

When I walk into the store and see
$19 for a CD that just came out I don't.

I can live without it. That is three
lunches at the restaurant I go to.

I don't do any p2p either. I prefer my own
wav files.

$10 would be an acceptable price for a CD.

More sales? More variety.

[Lewis Daggart]

I can not think of a single CD released in the past year that I would personally buy. The music from the past year has basically been formula stuff. If you like formula, this was your year.. but really, I think the lack of variety is what killed sales.

A good example is the 80s. Finding music then was like buying NES games. Theres a hell of alot of crap, but within it there was actually a decent selection of good stuff for a variety of tastes.

The corporate mentality is to hone into what sells best, cut back on everything else, and mass produce it. Take more chances. Give us something like Enya, far from the norm but strangely compelling. Symphony X, Weird Al. Stray from the norm, take risks, and you'll find that the market is there, waiting to be filled with something other than Britney.

SUPERTRAMP!

[Chordonblue]

Wow, first try - that's my favorite band. Roger Hodgson was/is the shit. Now if only we could get his ass back here from India...

Anyway, true musicianship will not die but it will transform itself. I've personally found that it's better to view all this borrowing of 'old' music in rap and pop as more of a sign of respect then theft. How can you not respect the fact that those 'old fogies' had to actually PLAY their instruments and sing without an Antares Vocalizer?!

Don't forget the tide

[Atario]

How about a list of every other industry that's down 7.6% or more for 2003? I'm guessing music is far from the only one.

On second thoughts, never mind. The only conclusion the RIAA will reach by seeing such a list is that P2P hurts those industries too! AIEEE!!

Re:Don't forget the tide

[Anonymous Coward]

Was the porn industry down by 7.6% in 2003?
Was the DVD industry down by 7.6% in 2003?
These are both impacted by piracy to a similar extent.

copy protect

[MiSTa' CHRiSTiE!]

My car is a 1997, my stereo a 1994 and I run Linux.

For me to listen to new cds the record companies are telling me I have to buy a new car (or at least car cd player), buy a new home stereo, and downgrade to an inferior operating system.

how about NO record companies!

I haven't bought a CD yet this year...

[Anonymous Coward]

and I haven't downloaded any either. I can't think of a single recent release that I've wanted to hear.

GOOD!

[P0lyh34)]

Hope the industry loses its ass! Tell you what, at this point, the lower sales are, the more straped for money they are, the happier I am, They coudln't stop poliferation of drugs and they won't stop downloading either. And personally, after their conduct, i won't be happy until every major record label on the planet is dead. And i'm not refearing to the RIAA.. oooooh no, i refer to a far worse crime the record labels have commited. the creation of BOY BANDS! They must die for that!

Re:As a record store owner

[Cruciform]

Hmm, I guess you have a point there.

Lions 1, Christians 0

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohhhh DRUGS! I thought it said RUGS. I figured that's why I hadn't seen a hair-club for men ad in awhile.

How about "it had to happen eventually"?

[MythoBeast]

The rate of sales for music has been increasing considerably faster than the rate of population increase for many years now. It's entirely reasonable that their last sales values exceeded the amount of money that people really felt comfortable spending on music and that, as a country, we've cut back.

One of the things that a lot of people have been incorrectly assuming is that music sales should react proportially to the economy. This theory doesn't hold true because (even at $15/CD), CD's are something that people can afford one or two of in order to nurse themselves through the disappointment of (for instance) not being able to replace their failing appliances, or remodel their kitchen. It's a small enough expense that people use it as "brain candy", or as consolation spending.

The drop in music spending may just be because more of us are back at work now, and don't have as much time to moon over the music that we don't have time to purchase.

P2P trading continues to be a non-issue (and possible a net positive) in the music industrie's income balance, they're just too greedy to realize it.

Re:As a record store owner

[CashCarSTAR]

Actually, I remember some Christian rock label claiming that their sales have been steadily increasing over the last few years. More interest in it..now for the most part that is a captive audience, but whatever.

I'm not sure if you're a troll or not, but to be honest, P2P is the last bastion of hope for the indie-record store. The small store just can't compete on price-point with the large box stores over the Top-40 hits. The only thing it can do is stock the things that the big stores won't/can't stock. Unfortunately, with the radio consolodation, promotion of those smaller acts is a much more difficult proposition.

I see people raving about a band, and instead of having to sit there and send the MP3, they just say, well get it off of Kazaa. That's how these bands grow in size.

In any case, I have a suggestion for you. In my neck of the woods, CD shops such as your own are being killed by the presence of used CD shops. A friend of mine owns a used CD shop, and his business couln't possibly be better. It's booming. And this is a huge part of the drop in sales being reported. (It's about a 25% increase in business for these shops around here. Again, do the math. I'm assuming with some bigger markets and bigger used shops, the number goes up even more. Plan 9 in Richmond..*drool*)

In any case, if you're looking to save your business, that's where you should look. If you're so moralistic on helping the artists, instead of giving in to the trend and becoming a used (some would say pirate) vendor, you should start an information campaign and explain to people why getting CDs cheap like that is what is really killing the industry. Sure it's legal. But the question is...

Is it ethical?

If you follow that path, I wish you the best of luck. If not? You're just a tool.

Same dam thing

[IneffibleMind]

This is very similar to what happend with hollywood with the invention of tv. pre affordible tv's everyone who could went to the movies all the time. when tv prices became affordable more and more people bought them, and more and more programing was avalible. With the advent of the internet and affordible decent connection speeds the whole media industry is once again reeling. they simply dont have a business model that allows them to keep up with changing technology, so they are trying to effectivly put a lid on the new technology with legal matters. the problem is you never can put jack back in the box. instead of wasting millions sueing their customer base, they could be remodeling their business so that when the next new way for media to be distributed rolls around they can take advantage of it and the current new distribution methods. that and it seems that most music released in the last few years has really sucked.

Analog Content Updated.

[decipher_saint]

For a while I've been buying CDs to replace analog stuff that I don't use anymore (because it's worn), well I'm finished now. And while there is a world of music out there I haven't heard yet a lot of "new" stuff doesen't really appeal to me so I don't buy it.

There are a lot of other people I know who are in the same boat and have slowed in their buying of music. Maybe this accounts for the numbers.

2003 was a good year for music

[TMB]

Weird... I was just noticing the other day how good a year 2003 was for music. Among the better releases of the year:

Afro Celt Sound System - Seed
Aghast View - drifter.ep
Blue Man Group - The Complex
Collide - Some Kind of Strange
The Cruxshadows - Ethernaut
F-Space - Preliminary Impact Report
God Module - Empath
Incendio - Incendio
Pzycho Bitch - The Day Before
Tanzwut - Ihr Wolltet Spass
T.Raumschmiere - Radio Blackout
v/a - 2003 Hands

Of course, out of those only the Afrocelts and T.Raumschmiere are on RIAA labels... I'm not sure which labels report to the IFPI - the article says "The IFPI represents hundreds of the world's independent and major music labels including Warner Music, Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI and BMG", but there are thousands of independent labels, so it makes a difference!

Ah, here's a list: http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/directory/member_ sites.html

Looks like Tanzwut and Incendio are also on reporting labels... but still, most of the best releases of the year aren't in those stats.

[TMB]

Where is the innovation?

[macshune]

A look at the Billboard Top 200 is an easy way to figure out, at least on an anecdotal level, that popular music sucks right now. For the most part, it's the same old artists, singing the same old things within their same old already-established genres. It's the same problem with the video game industry that everyone always complains about -- it's a lot easier to go with established acts (or artists or licenses) than to risk capital on something new that has the potential to either suck or be incredible.

This general trend of homogeneity has really been brought to bear over the last decade, from what I can tell. Companies really like sustained sources of revenue...ok, yeah, that's a given and has been since the beginning. Companies need it to survive and to grow. But isn't it good to create some nice challenges so that the companies can grow?

Challenges, like, say, the removal of perpetual copyright? If, for example, Disney couldn't keep making money off of old cartoons, wouldn't they have to seriously start making up some new stories or at least go back to the children's section at public library and read some Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson?

In the end, it's all about how we the people want corporations to act in the context of our republic (both the United States and in the larger sense of the collective of industrialized nations). Do we want to give them carte blanche to not innovate? Or do we want to help them along by pushing them a little? Folks, from what I can tell, will almost always take the road that's easiest and offers the most return for the least amount of risk or investment. Sometimes you have to guide them down that road, or at least show 'em where it starts.

My 2 cents, anyhow...

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Chordonblue]

A better question here is HOW do you innovate and with what?

Here's a short (very short) history of innovation in the last 60 years:

40's: Swing. The idea of using big band in a fast and fancy musical tone while borrowing from early blues and jazz really took it to a new art form.

50's: Emergence of Rock 'n Roll and the multitrack recorder. This is where tech started to make inroads in music. The Electric guitar and bass finally get airplay.

60's: Stereo rock and studio tricks. This is when the experiementation reached an all time high. Things started to be heard on radio that simply weren't possible in the 'real world'.

70's: More studio refinement and the synthesizer finally takes lead. More sounds no one had ever heard, or heard together.

80's: Early 80's saw better synths producing increasingly more realistic sounds. Glam metal makes a comeback as it is mixed with more attention to sound detail and synthesis. Rap makes it's national debut in the song "Rapture". New genre started.

90's: Rap meets metal. Studio techniques are perfected to a point where any differences in sound quality appear negligible. Synthesizers focus on producing more 'natural' sounds. Machiens are developed to help improve vocal tracks (for those who can't sing worth a damn) and/or create backing vocals (for those who can't AFFORD those who can sing with them). True technical innovation has 'jumped the shark'.

00's: For the first time in over 80 years of music, all forms of music that started this decade were around last decade. All technical innovations in the studio have been minor or non-existant as digital equipment is considered standard issue.

The music companies - more than ever - are pushing personality rather than the substance of the music because there is no more innovation, but they are making a mistake.

When Norah Jones outsells a pop star 5:1 and surprises the hell out of everyone for doing it, it's not because she's hot, it's because her music speaks to people in a way that has not been heard in many years. In many ways, it is music that could have been produced 30 years ago (albeit with primative equipment).

If the music industry wants to survive it will need to innovate, but as you pointed out, this will mean returning to the roots of the music itself and not the 'flash in the pan' futures of personality.

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Note: a lot of this is speculation and heresay.

One thing that hasn't been noted so much in this thread is that in the last few years, the music industry has supposedly been signing fewer new bands and investing less money in putting new titles out.

One thing I've heard is that average per-title sales have been up and increasing the past few years, but when there are fewer titles being introduced, that limits growth.

I wonder if bands are starting to wise up and avoiding the whole label-signing thing, and that is why the RIAA can't recruit as many new bands as they had before. It could also be possible that the RIAA is trying to reduce or slow the number of new titles to help them create their ruse to gain control of internet music.

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Chordonblue]

The other thing that is making bands wary of the established labels are some of their more recent money-grubbing practices.

In the past, t-shirt sales and concert profits ALWAYS went to the artists - no more. Bands used to depend upon this income because CD sales just aren't enough for most anymore. Now the labels are demanding a cut of even this one thing.

Most every band out there would like to make it big, but the Internet has gone a long way in being able to show them just how twisted the industry is, what not to do (sign a blind contract for instance), and good general info.

The industry has been used to dealing with uninformed musicians in the past. Granted, there are still some out there, but many more have wised up.

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget... In 1985, Austrian rock singer Falco records Rock Me Amadeus!

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the rise of "Hip Hop" throughout the 90's and 00's in that analysis. Personally, I would like to ignore it too, but it is the latest "revolution" in the music industry.

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Chordonblue]

You're right, but I usually throw it into the same bin as 'gangsta rap'. I know the difference, I'm just wishing I didn't. :P

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Anonymous Coward]

When Norah Jones outsells a pop star 5:1 and surprises the hell out of everyone for doing it, it's not because she's hot, it's because her music speaks to people in a way that has not been heard in many years. In many ways, it is music that could have been produced 30 years ago (albeit with primative equipment).

Norah's music doesn't sell because of her looks, but she's surely more attractive then that rung out "Spears" critter. :)

Re:Where is the innovation?

[nahorniak]

It's also 2004. There's still 6 years left!

Re:Where is the innovation?

[turnage]

Another note of speculation.

Online music sales exploded in 2003. I don't believe those numbers are being included in the "CD sales" figures. If that's true, then there's nothing surprising about CD sales being down. Few people will buy an entire album's tracks online and then also buy the CD.

It also means that it's possible that music sales have actually gone up, just the medium has changed, and unless all mediums are counted then the numbers will be naturally biased.

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but I usually throw it into the same bin as 'gangsta rap'. I know the difference, I'm just wishing I didn't.

Hip hop the same as gangsta rap?

You're either retarded or have no idea what hip hop is.

Re:Where is the innovation?

[Guido von Guido]

The labels purged a bunch of artists a few years ago--it made the press, but I can't recall much of the details.

Re:Where is the innovation?

[gfody]

the difference is in the lyrics

hip hop: "gotsta get to hoppin in ma air force ones.. wop wop in ma air force ones"

nigga rap: "guess what daddy's bringin home fo suppa.. nigga nuts an guts an slabs of human meat motha fucka.. now EAT"

Re:Where is the innovation?

[nfotxn]

There is lots of musical innovation happening both stylistically and technically. There are new forms for rock music even in the form of the growing disco punk trend (see Liars, The Rapture, Tv on the Radio, Franz Ferdinand). IDM (that's Intelligent Dance Music. See Venetian Snares, Kid 606 Four Tet) and various electronic forms continue to develop without big record label A&R money. There are countless ripe new trends that with the right investment could be as big as Grunge or Metal, easily. It's just the investment isn't there.

I have to disagree with the assertation that somehow the world has come to a cultural full stop and that there's nothing new. There's nothing new on the shelves of major record stores. Human creativity remains as vital as ever.

And that's just it really. As you proved above there is no investment in artists, just popstars and idorus. As somebody highly involved in independent music I can attest that the big label A&R money is NOT there anymore. If bands or artists get signed it's without any investment at all really. More and more often the labels are just distributing records that have been produced by the artist already. All they really do is put it on the shelves and maybe some promotion. If anything the artists are working harder than ever touring and finding innovative merchandising to fund their records. I would even go as far as to assert that this is all part of the RIAA's plan to litigate themselves the sweetest profit margins they can.

I've heard lots of music I like...

[jone_stone]

... you just have to know where to look. It's extremely rare that I listen to mainstream radio. Instead I listen to KCRW (a listener-supported Los Angeles radio station known for its eclectic music programs and for giving many fabulous musicians their first airplay) and Radio Paradise (an internet radio station that describes what it plays as "eclectic intelligent rock"). I've discovered a number of bands that I absolutely love through these stations, and I never would have heard them on mainstream radio. -David

so p2p is about 2% of that 7.6%?

[t_allardyce]

Music these days is so bad i dont even download it!! generic blur style bands, generic radiohead style bands, generic britneys, teeny-pop, pop-idol cover-singers thats all there is. That goes for DVDs too, remakes, sequals, adaptations, every single film, theres nothing original or worth watching! I say fine, blame the 'pirates' but in 3 years when you've sued every kazaa user in the world and sales are still going down, we're gonna want a 'sorry' and all our law-suit money back plus interest.

I fucking hate arrogent stuck up stars and producers i wish they would all loose their money and end up on the side of the road, unfortunately no ammount 'piracy' is going to do that.

Re:Slashdot and US-ASCII

[Anonymous Coward]

CmdrTaco, please set up a filter for this crap, along with the GNAA trolls.

CD sales slumping

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for others but I haven't bought a new CD in ages (and I don't download them either), rather I spent my time on Ebay and Half.com looking for the CDs I want. How do these sales effect their numbers? I know plenty of people who buy some if not most of their music through these services.

Music died the day...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Aqua broke up.

Flogging Molly

[Daytona955i]

Since then I have yet to hear something on the radio I bothered to remember the name of, nevermind download or buy.

Check out the band Flogging Molly... Their record label isn't part of RIAA and they are a great band. While not really "new" per se... I have just gotten turned on to them. The best way to describe them is Irish Punk... they sound a little like the Pouges. Just a suggestion if you are looking for something different. Their web page is here

Just doing my part

[uumlaut]

I know I have been contributing to the downturn in CD sales by only buying vinyl! It's just better. I'm sure you older geeks know what I mean. I also buy mostly from independent labels like victory and Fat Wrech Chords.

Re:As a record store owner

[stinkwinkerton]

I was about to post the EXACT thing you just said. I can't believe anyone is taking this post seriously. If you didn't chuckle at the first part of the post, then at least figure it out when it says " the powerful pirate lobby"

It's a pirate of a post about being pirated. If that ain't funny, I don't know what is!

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

The business model is definitely his issue. Might want to think about selling music on the net instead . Change is in the wind whether you like it or not. Continue to blame everbody else for your problems instead of your lack of vision. Maybe if you spent less time writing poor me letters on slashdot and spent more time coming up with creative ideas to promote your business you wouldnt be in this situation.

Lets also remember how much more diversified....

[jamesdood]

There are so many more labels out there now, I wonder if the report takes into account all of the private labels, i.e. bands making their own CD's etc. There are out there. There is music available today for EVERYBODIES tastes. Since radio has reduced itself to playing the same stuff over and over again (think about it, there is a "classic rock" station in every major market!) People are looking elsewhere to fufill their musical desires. (Live shows and festivals come to mind) Overall sales are down because places that sell the most CDs (Wal-mart Bestbuy etc) have a very limited selection of choices, mostly whats on the radio (see above). I know my music consumption has dropped quite a bit in the last 10 years, but then there just isn't that much that I find compelling to listen to anymore.

Some of the reasons that weren't cited

[Anonymous Coward]

The 7.6% decline was in dollars, not units sold. Much to the disappointment of a lot of record stores, there has been a shift recently to other sales channels. Large retail chains like Walmart and Target are selling CDs. Amazon is as well. Part of what is driving this shift is price sensitivity. A lot of the CDs sold these days are cheaper. Sure, the hottest new stuff is priced higher. Most of the rest is available a lot cheaper.

Also, with the consolidation of the US radio market under a handful of companies like Clear Channel, there are a lot of listeners who are fleeing to other sources and formats. We listen on the net or to smaller indy stations. And we're buying stuff that isn't coming from the record industry. I'd guess that at least 20-30% of my music collection is made up of CDs from publishers who aren't counted in these numbers because they serve very low-volume specialty markets. I paid $14-22 each for those CDs, but they aren't appearing on this particular bottom line.

I'm not an industry analyst but I pretend to be...

[Atroxodisse]

...one on slashdot. I direct you now to the fact that there has been a severe economic down turn and massive jobloss in the last few years. It is only now that the economy is starting to turn around. Now the RIAA could turn around and perhaps say that in years past music sales went up during times of economic stress due to people needing more stress relief in the form of entertainment media. But since they didn't point it out to begin with they either didn't consider it or the reverse is true. When the economy is bad, music sales are bad. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Classical Perspective?

[LaupRellim]

I used to buy hundreds of classical CDs a year...now I only buy a few dozen. Am I a pirate that deserves to be blacklisted? Absolutely not. First off, I have so many recordings that I'm just now starting to listen to all of them. Second, I'm a graduate student at a large university that has a huge library and enough recordings that I couldn't listen to them all even if I spent the rest of my life doing so. Third, there aren't all that many great classical recordings being released on the big labels. I mean, how excited can I get about the 3000th recording of Bolero, even if it is by the Berlin Philharmonic?

Many of the best musicians these days are being recorded by small, independent labels. I just heard a recording of the six Bach violin sonatas relased on some noname label that was completely amazing. There are so many brilliant artists that just can't compete in a marketplace dominated by huge names. How can a beginning artist get their CD in a store, when stores are constantly going out of business, and stocks are being slashed?

One more thing: it's nice to have five different recordings of, say, the Mozart operas, but once you know the work, it's a hell of a lot more fun to go out to actually hear a live performance and to support musicians and the (mostly) non-profit arts organizations that support them.

It's cheaper and easier

[Anonymous Coward]

When I download music:
-the price is right free(ish)
-the format is nice, I'd want to rip a CD to mp3s anyways
-less clutter in my life. I really don't need another stack of CDs

Forget the arguments about "no good music", if there was "new good music" many of us who would of previously bought the CD would now just download it. Myself included.

Bundling

[vlad_petric]

There are extremely few albums with more than a third of the tunes "interesting" (de gustibus non disputandum, of course). IMNSHO most artists do one or at most two hits, and fill the rest of the CD with lameware. I don't mind paying 1$/good tune or even more (Apples' itunes is great in that respect), but don't force lameware down my throat.

Eventually, on-line music distribution will increase quality, as artists will focus on making a couple excellent songs instead of many lame ones.

Re:Bundling

[weopenlatest]

I've heard this argument many times, and I have to disagree. If we abandon the album model and return to the single-based model (which is a throwback to the 50's and 60's), we're going to find ourselves with a whole lot of one hit wonders. Stick with the album format, and let the real artist release real albums filled with real songs. There have been plenty of bands out there that have come out with albums full of good songs, and there are still plenty out there now that are capable. The only problem is they all get drowned out by all the teeny-bopper crap.

Re:Bundling

[nickboos]

The problem with this that I see, as a huge music fan who has over 400 CDs, and I usually get a new one every 2 weeks or so, is that all of this hype about a.) selling the single and b.) hyping the pop artists has effectively killed the album as an art form? Why are there few good albums (this isnt true, go check out pitchforkmedia.com for good new records)? Its because record companies are shifting their focus and plugging artists who can't write an albums worth of material. The album is an amazing art form when done well, creates a mood, evokes a feeling and moves the listener just like reading a good book or watching a really good film, a song is something you can tap your toe to or shake your ass or whatever. I personally don't download anything, I'll listen to clips and then I'll go buy an album. Independent labels also seem to know how to price CDs, which is interesting, you've got these small labels who sell their discs for 11-12 bucks, and they obviously are making some money, and you've got these huge mega labels who sell discs for 18-20 bucks, its makes no sense. If you lower the prices, and give people a better product they will buy it. There are some of us that still love albums and getting them and experiencing the artwork and the whole thing, I feel that this can be found at the independent label level, and there are few really good records coming out at the major label level (modest mouse, radiohead to name a few).

Can't find it

[jdavidb]

I haven't bought four movie soundtracks I want to buy because Wal-Mart doesn't seem to have a movie section anymore, and our local Best Buy closed. And I don't listen to much besides movie soundtracks.

Maybe sales are going down because the quality of Wal-Mart's music section is so crummy?

Re:As a record store owner

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business.

Many bookstores make more money selling coffee than they do selling books. If the small record stores want to stay in business, perhaps they should take a hint from the bookstores and open a coffee shop in the store?

Actually... you could make so much money selling coffee you wouldn't need to sell any CDs at all. So here's my business idea: Put a coffee shop in your record store. If someone comes in, buys a cup of coffee, and burns some CDs, look the other way just like Borders looks the other way when someone buys a cup of coffee and reads a book they don't intend to buy.

Just make sure it's a USED cd store so customers don't have to bother with that pesky shrinkwrap on new CDs.

Quick logic refresher

[Jtheletter]

Hey RIAA:

Correlation is not causation, bitch.

Re:New Music Sucks? Haven't been listening

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Best new stuff seems to be on movie sound tracks. Get the DVD, it's cheaper than the CD and there's a movie included for free.

Shhhhhhhhh!

I switched to DVDs ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They offer much more value for me.

Moreover, after Nirvana I simply do not see
anything worth buying ...

Choice between Firefly and Shakira is a no-brainer for me ...

Attention RIAA

[Tsiangkun]

The excessive application of a 'tried and true' formula for success has produced many 'excellent' sounding songs. Unfortunately with so many 'excellent' songs on the market, the value of an excellent song is decresed. I figure anything I hear on a clear channel station is worth jack shit . . . If it was worth paying for you wouldn't be giving it away free every 25 minutes . . . would you ? Alternatively, maybe I have heard your song . . . about 25bajillion times before I get a chance to make it to the record store. By the time I get to the store, hearing that song again is more akin to torture than an experience worth paying to have. A third. Music has quit sounding good to me. I already bought everything I wanted by 1998. I'm just replacing my collection using p2p because I don't want to pay $24.99 for an album released in 1978.

--Tsiangkun

Declining sales, but no mention of sky high profit

[Mattsp]

Its ironic that the article points out how the total revinue of the industry has dropped 200 million so they ONLY have 32 Billion in sales. It does not make any mention of how much of that was pure profit. This industry is by no means hurting and still brings in far more money to some industries which provide more useful things then entertainment.

DVD vs CD - floorspace in "record" shops

[decapentaplegic]

I'm amazed at how much floor space in the "music" stores is dedicated to DVDs. When you read about other types of retail, the mantra is "Placement. Placement. Placement." For products sold at the grocery store, being on an eye-levelshelf vs down by the floor can have huge impacts on sales. Cola companies are eternally at war with each other for shelf space. It would be interesting to do a survey of how much retail space CDs have lost relative to overall reduction in sales.

Of course, there's a chicken and egg problem... Did flagging CD sales force music stores to bring in more DVDs or did increasing sales in DVDs push the stores to dedicate more space to them. My hunch is the later has had a much bigger influence, but I don't have any data to show that.

I think the demand is less for several reasons

[artifex2004]

1) I think consumers are just backing off in general from spending on music. There's been a new wave of introspection in general that began when 9/11 and other terrorist attacks started, and I think a lot of people have just decided that large cd habits are now too frivolous.

I have almost a thousand legitimately purchased cds that I never, ever listen to, and that I keep telling myself I will someday dump at the local used cd store. I deleted my 30 gigabyte mp3 collection last year (most of it was saved internet radio, anyway), and haven't downloaded anything since then, but in the meantime have only bought a couple of cds.

2) In the market segments that were responsible for buying most cds in the past, that is, teens through 30-somethings, the price-adjusted relative disposable income has probably gone down noticeably since 2000, as a lot of us lost our good jobs and moved to McJobs or are otherwise underemployed, and many others have not seen wage increases in some time. The first things that rational consumers tend to cut out when things like this happen, of course, are the entertainment expenses. Meanwhile, CDs don't seem to be getting much cheaper, even after the class-action lawsuit, and in fact on average are higher than the days in which Best Buy and others regularly priced their new releases around US$10-12.

3) There are more alternatives competing for that shrinking entertainment budget. The money that I used to spend on CDs every month, for example, now pays for my Netflix and Greencine habits. I didn't used to rent movies at all, mind you, so this is a real shift. A lot more people are starting to have MMORPG expenses and daily "gourmet coffee" habits, too, to give just a couple more examples of where the money now goes.

4) The music business has successully breeded for mediocrity and "face" in the "talent" they push that more of us simply have nothing worthwhile to buy from major publishers. Some of us do turn to indie sales, but I doubt indie sales get reported properly.

Maybe I'm weird...

[jhoffoss]

I bought more music this year than in the past three or four. I also graduated college and got a real job, though.

This year and in years past, I've gotten more copied CDs from friends than I have pirated music from online.

BAN TEH CD BURNERS!

Barriers to entry

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

One day, music will eventually become what alot of things are inevitably destined to be - a commodity. Like rice, electricity, etc (sure the prices on some of these items are artificially inflated).

Of course the industry is trying to hold onto it's stellar profits, but it can't last.

CD copying & P2P aside. More and more people are creating THEIR OWN music. With the price of content creation software & Computers decreasing in real terms anyone can create a catchy 'hit' song. Well, not anyone, but a growing number of people.

Think about it, many moon ago, entertainers had to travel in order to make money (no easy distribution methods). They were paid what the market would bear for their services (a live performance). Easy distribution methods (for the artist, production company) came around, resulting in a windall profit for some artists (mostly the companies). However, given the barriers to entry to the distribution model, the companies could hold onto their profits for an extended period of time.

Now, the barriers to entry in the distribution game have collapsed. CD copying, personal music creation software, studio on a PC, P2P. This happens in a great number of businesses, and it WILL happen here. HAVE A NICE DAY

accurate numbers?

[werdnapk]

These numbers I'm sure don't include sales by independant labels. I'd be curious to know how much their sales have changed recently. I'm not surprised CD sales are down from the major labels... have you heard the stuff they're selling? Independant labels are where you find the the real deal IMHO.

Maybe the decrease in sales...

[SlySpy007]

...is related to the fact that record label buyouts continue at an alarming rate, and with each takeover somewhere between 50-70% of the label's previous roster of artists is cut due to 'poor sales'. The fact is that in today's music business talent and innovation have taken a backseat to image, star power, and the willingness to sell your soul to a corporate god to make millions. Make no mistake - there is some great music out there if you're willing to take some time to find it. A few disgustingly rich dudes own all of the major labels, and radio stations are simply mouthpieces of the major labels, and soon enough people like (insert name of talentless pop star) are being called 'the voice of our generation'. Sorry, but count me out.

unemployment

[Anonymous Coward]

For my part I have not bought a CD in three years, because I got caught in the 'dot-bomb' crash and was out of work for almost a year.

I don't use P2P stuff, so I mostly listen to internet radio streams.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if you're a troll or not

(-1,15,22) Michael's a Jerk! | As a record store owner.

Re:New Music Sucks? Haven't been listening

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Zero 7 - Simple Things.

My purchases

[Fizzlewhiff]

Most of my purchases have been through iTunes this year. Go figure.

supply side economics

[glean]

If every industry association was as ignorant as the RIAA & MPAA, we'd have farmers suing people for growing their own produce. To equivocate these statistics with piracy is a farce - they must get their news from the same sources as Mr. Bush. Have they even heard of 'the economy'? supply and DEMAND?

Think of the older stuff

[Toxygen]

I hope you're not boycotting buying ANY music you're listening to because of your 1-hit wonder rule. There's a huge amount of stuff out there, and most of it hasn't been made in the past year. In other words, if you can't find any modern music you like, then work your way back through the years. Surely there are bands you like that you don't have every album for, so why not go deeper instead of skimming the surface? Just because a cd isn't on the "new release" rack doesn't mean it's no good anymore.

It's great that people aren't buying music they don't like, but if they aren't buying anything how will the riaa's business model be able to improve at all?

Re:Think of the older stuff

[stecoop]

FYI - I've recently bought a collection of Roy Orbison; Looking at maybe a little Elvis. I don't mind paying say 4-8 bucks off of eBay if necessary.

Re:Think of the older stuff

[Sylver Dragon]

Personally, this is what I have tried to do. However, I generally expect that as a product ages, its price tends to go down, CD's just don't seem to do this. Having been stuck in the 80's, musically, now for quite some time, I tend to look at the prices of CD's of artists I like from time to time, and am shocked to see them at $15 or more. While I will grant that the distributor needs to make money on the sale, I simply will not pay that much for a CD, new or old. So, the end result, I do without. I only listen to CD's in the car during my commute to and from work, and can put up with not having anything new. Also, half my drive is covered by a radio station that isn't horrible, and one that used to be ok but is starting to suck. The radio station's problems can mostly be blamed on the trend towards more talk and less music. Afterall, when a radio annoucer says, "comming up this hour" followed by snippets of three songs, and they aren't kidding, those three songs will be the only ones you hear for an hour on this station; there is a problem, in my view.
In all, I think the RIAA labels are just facing the results of more competition, in the form of games and movies (I know that I don't listen to music much at home), and also people not spending as much on luxury goods right now. Also, as someone else mentioned earlier in this thread, the buying from conversion, from tape to CD has probably just about ended, so sales are going to go down. Now, should this absolve P2P and piracy for its role, no. But, I somehow doubt that dumping millions of dollars into chasing down the pirates is going to have a very good ROI. Even ignoring the PR aspect, are they ever going to recover that money? I doubt it, the pirates will simply fold up shop, move to a different street corner, and re-open. There may be a short term slump in piracy, but long term it won't matter. Better yet, they are also educating people in how to pirate along the way. Personally, I had only heard of Napster in passing, before it became national news. And it was in one of the articles about the Napster case that I read about Audiogalaxy, Kazaa, etc. Also unknown to me at the time. I have to wonder how many pirates got their start thanks to those articles?

Same old same old

[nightsweat]

I hear the occasional record that I'd like to buy and I buy it. I used to be a fiend, though. The corporatization and homoginization of radio left me unwilling to listen to much beyond NPR or my CD's and records, and after 38 years, I find I have a LOT of CD's and records (they're those big flat black plastic things).

I would attribute it to age, but its something different. I like a lot of the newest stuff out there, but I can't hear it. I found the Postal Systems' new one, but that was sheer luck that came from living in an urban center. If I lived in the stix, I never would have come across them.

Add the RIAA to the mix, and I don't even WANT to give money to the industry. I used to feel good that a Kate Bush or Bjork or Violent Femmes was gettign some cash from my purchase, but no more.

DOWN from what??

[goombah99]

presumably the 7.6% figure means down from some sort of trend line. If it's just down from last year this means nothing. CD sales have had a downward pressure since the initial up-tick during the 90s due to turnover of Vinyl to CDs and people repurchasing their old music. Now all that sustains it is new sales.

thus CD sales ought to be shrinking and there would be something wrong if it were not.

I have to second (or 200th?) the crappy music...

[NitroWolf]

The music has been so crappy lately, I haven't even DOWNLOADED a pirated MP3 in about 6 months. There's literally been NOTHING out there that I've wanted to even bother with downloading, much less going to purchase for a ridiculous price.

Boy, what a sad state of affairs for music if there's nothing out there even worth getting for free. It sure is a bit sobering, now that I think about it. I use to download MP3's all the time; I'd hear a song on the radio that I liked and go snag it off of a P2P network, but now I can't even recall the last time I fired up my P2P software to search for something. It was at LEAST 6 months ago, though.

So gee, I don't think the CD sales being down is in any way due to piracy, because even piracy is down. That would indicate a product no one wants, not a product that's being stolen.

CD sales down 9.1% -- NOT 7.6%

[jdunlevy]

The 7.6% figure is for Global music sales. The article states that "Global compact disc sales -- the most often cited figure in discussing the health of the industry -- fell 9.1 percent in value in 2003, the IFPI said."

(Of personal interest to me, since I've <shameless plug>just released single on vinyl</shameless plug>: "Total sales of singles, including cassettes and vinyl, which have dipped significantly since the Internet file-sharing and CD-burning craze began in the late 1990s, fell 18.7 percent in value terms between 2002 and 2003." It should be noted, though, that quite probably the majority of independent record labels ' sales aren't included in these numbers: IFPI-related releases compete, possibly increasingly, with small independent labels.)

Re:CD sales down 9.1% -- NOT 7.6%

[Cyberllama]

So their sales went from 32.2 billion to 32 billion and I'm supposed to shed a tear for them? Give me a damn break. It's been on the rise now for so many years that a tiny drop like this one still means they made alot more this year than they did just a couple of years ago.

Not to mention that popular music this year has just been twice as awful as normal. They're lucky they got what they got. They should bow down before P2P services and chant "We're not worthy!" for making it possible for them to have a good year despite having only crap to sell.

Re:CD sales down 9.1% -- NOT 7.6%

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for releasing a 7". there is no cooler format. there never has been. there never will be. period.

after being hip to the indie/D.I.Y. scene for nearly 2 decades, i get no end of pleasure out of watching kids get busted for dloading corporate garbage. watching the big 5 squirm over it is equally entertaining.

i'm all for the RIAA prosecuting these lamers to the fullest extent of the law. they should be prosecuted for perpetuating a hideous industry by listening to drivel like blink182 or creed or britney or whatever, but i'll settle for this 'cause the weak shits deserve it and it's long overdue.

remember:

friends don't let friends listen to corporate rock!

Only 7.6%!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think everyone is doing their part to kill the RIAA and rid the business from the music business.

If every down load kills one record sale then the download meter should look like the burgers sold sign at McD's. (or the deficit, your choice)

Payola, Clear-Channel, work for hire and every other offensive act of over consumption committed by the industry could be eliminated or at least reduced by our reduced consumption of their product. Just a few more percentage points and watch the fallout.

Re:Only 7.6%!

[pclminion]

If every down load kills one record sale then the download meter should look like the burgers sold sign at McD's.

Are you stupid?

You don't need to break the law to hurt the RIAA. Don't buy their music, period. This has nothing to do with whether it gets downloaded or not. Downloading music does not hurt the record companies. Failing to buy it is what hurts.

Speaking of McDonald's, it baffles me why so many people denounce the current popular music as "trash" and then turn around and download it as if they will cease breathing if they don't get their fix. Quite like how people gorge on the shit they call "food" at McDonald's.

Either stand up for what you say you believe in, or quit saying it. If the RIAA sucks, then stop listening to the music produced by its member companies. Otherwise you're just a fucking hypocrite.

I'm at about average.

[Anonymous Coward]

I usually buy 3-6 new cds per year. The rest are bought used. Heck, this year I might beat my max, of course 3 of the 4 new CD's I've purchased so far have been EP's.

I'm suprised that more people don't buy used CD's. I can buy a CD that came out less than a month ago for $8. Same quality as buying it new, only you don't have to break out the blowtorch to get through the shrinkwrap.

Add to it the fact that as long as you take care of your CD's you can always trade them in for money or store credit. It's a nice system if you ask me.

Music industry victim of its own success model

[SuperBigGulp]

The pop music industry's current model of "success" is to find (or create, if you can't find) a hot artist and encourage the two US radio stations to play the hell of them. Relatively little effort is spent on artist development, and few artists have the same type of following previous artists enjoyed. For example, there was a time when people bought the latest Pink Floyd/Who/Stones/Led album because they were fans of the band and trusted that any new album was one they would like. Now, if we lose Britney then we have spares in the form of Mandy, Jessica, Christina, and Hillary.

To the extent that everyone likes exactly the same type of music, this is a good model for selling music to the masses.

To the extent that people are different and would like to by music by different artists, this sales model is horrible.

Just as TV networks benefit from me watching a variety of shows (rather than lots of people watching one show), the music industry would be well served to promote more diversity in their offerings.

Depends on perspective, I guess.

[ThousandStars]

Other methods exist aside from the radio. You could ask friends for recommendations -- I've met two music afficiandos who go to local clubs and listen to all kinds of unique CDs, and between the two of them I hear about interesting stuff. But it seldom comes from the radio.

I think placing all the blame on Clear Channel is too simple. Public radio stations also exist. My favorite is KCRW in Los Angeles, which has a 24/7 music stream. Check out their weekend eclectic shows for new bands.

Finally, I haven't seen CDBaby in the discussion yet, but I'm sure they're bound to get more than a few mentions -- and for good reason. With free previews from 30 seconds to two minutes, good relationships with customers and a great selection, what's not to love? That line sounds like a commerical, but this is one of those rare cases when it's true. Recently I bought E.S. Posthumus and O.A.R.'s first CD -- and love both.

Even among big-label music good stuff exists, if you're willing to look for it. This post has gone on long enough, but there are solutions -- if you're genuinely interested in the problem.

The music industry

[pretzel_logic]

The music industry needs to help musicians promote themselves instead of looking at their bottom line.

The idea that millions of people have their hands on a Compact Disc should be glorious for the musicians. Their music is being spread by word of mouth and for free. It doesn't cost them a thing to get it in the hands of the consumers.

When music really took off in the early 80's and record labels realized they could take advantage of musicians they changed their business plans accordingly.

Currently, in order for a group to be promoted to corporate rock specifications, the label did not break even until the third album release. This is due to methods of marketing, overpriced radio air play, and the rates to get a video on MTV.

When they say they are looking for revenues in cell phone ring-tones and Internet based mp3 stores they are simply avoiding their problem.

Their new business plan is weak They simply need to go back to the way they did it in the 70's.

I personally have been buying vinyl records. They didn't mention a slide or climb in vinyl sales.

If a band is good, they do not need marketing, it will travel by word of mouth. People will buy the CD for memorabilia.

Overpaid executives, talent scouts, and studio producers are creating a fake sense of music with no root culture. Did you know that Matchbox 20 was put together the same way as The Monkees. It shouldnt surprise you. Most bands touring the arenas today are. The neighborhood garage bands just cannot compete with the human resources department aka talent scouts of multi-million dollar enterprises. This is why many people are not buying current releases. IMHO, There is simply no soul in the music.

Punk Rock \ Indy

[(1)down]

Anyone remember the 'punk indie' craze that was pushed by the major lables, including such fine acts as blink 182 and sum 41. I belive that the kids who were turned to this style of music dived into the independant music scene. A major paradigm of this culture is if its on a major, it blows. I've seen many many good suburban kids who would have otherwise still been buying shitty #1 hit single records follow this path away from the RIAA and its goons and closer to indie labels... my 2 cents..

Re:Punk Rock \ Indy

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Being from Seattle, and all, and with this week being the tenth aneversary of Kurt Nobrain blowing his all over a nice hardwood floor, just a reminder, tons of so-called "inde" bands on obscure lables owned lock-stock-and-whatever by the "big" lables.

Don't blame everything on the RIAA

[Junks Jerzey]

In short: Don't use the RIAA as a scapegoat for everything. There are hundreds of little CD labels out there. Hundreds. Featuring thousands of bands. Similarly, there are many musicians who produce and sell their own CDs. So:

1. Don't say that all new music is crap, because that just means you don't have a clue what's out there. You can say "much of the stuff played on some top 40 stations is crap," which has always been true. Look around. Go to smaller labels. Look for independent bands. There's much great music to discover!

2. Now really, even if 95% of all music you hear on the radio is crap, then there's still good stuff--five percent--out there. You can't just apply blanket opinions about Creed and Britney Spears to everything. There *is* a substantial amount of really good music on RIAA labels. Don't oversimplify things.

3. Remember that we're not just talking about new music here, but music produced in the last fifty years. So you don't like Nickelback? Fine! So you think all new music stinks? Fine! But surely there's music from five or ten or twenty or thirty years ago that you treasure. Does that music now suck because the RIAA is involved?

4. Be careful with the price fixing arguments, because they can apply to everything. Why do hardback novels cost $25? Why do "Learn PHP in 24 hours" books always cost $50? Why do videogames cost $50? The RIAA is not behind all of these conspiracies.

Re:Don't blame everything on the RIAA

[night_flyer]

but were the independents' sales down?

Re:Don't blame everything on the RIAA

[themusicgod1]

We must purge ourselves of the music from the past 25 years that we treasure. We must find it in our hearts to not listen to it, and to let it away from our lives, lest the riaa continue to influence us in any way. I havn't listened to my records in almost 4 months, and while i have a playlist of 6 cds i'm working that down. But this is what we must do! The RIAA must be destroyed, and the way to do that is to not let them into our minds, and not allow them to inspire us beyond the obligatory them pissing us off.

Nothing good?

[Bobman1235]

Look, I'm the first one to agree that there's not much good new music out, but how long has this whole internet piracy thing really been going on? Five years? Napster came out in '99. You're telling me five or six years ago there was something worth buying out there? Music was equally crappy in 1999 as 2004. Early '90's I'd say there was some good stuff out there (see Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc) BUT if the numbers do point to a decrease since the popularity boom of music downloads I don't think the "there's no music worth buying" argument works for shit.

Personally, I doubt the numbers are that bad, when you factor in the economy and such. I'm just saying if you buy into the "record sales are declining" propoganda you can't use the "no good music" excuse. Music hasn't changed much in the past half-decade. Wish it had.

I got burned once - never again...

[Seng]

Being a long time Metallica fan, I bought that St. Anger album without so much as hearing a single track. I listened to the album once, and was absolutely shocked to hear how HORRIBLE it was. Lars, the RIAA, et al., can bite me - Next release from Metallica will get downloaded. IF it doesn't suck, it'll get burned on a CDR, and I'll call it even for making me spend $15 on a shitty album the previous time!

A Radical Thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Naaaaa, sales can't be down because of the fact I feel all the new bands out there suck and I don't want to spend $20 for a 30 minute cd with probably only one song on the album which is decent. Naaa, it can't be because of those reason. It has to be piracy!!!!!!

Re:As a record store owner

[BaronAaron]

I don't know if this is real or not, but anyway ...

I seriously feel for you and your family. I can only imagine how hard something like that is to go through.

That being said, the writing has been on the wall for quite a while now. The second someone could digitally copy a CD to a computer the record industry's old bussiness model was ruined. Illegal or not, right or wrong, the cat is out of the bag and it's not going back.

You say you want to save your industry. What you really are saying is you want to save your industries old business model. You, and your industry in general, are all afraid of change. All the signs of change were ignored until it was to late and now you strike out in anger. It's interesting how your lashing out at young punks, mirrors the RIAA's rounds of lawsuits. It's all amounts to nothing more than the last futile roars of some trapped and injured beast.

My point is you and the RIAA should have seen the trap before you got caught in it.

Of course it might not be to late for you or the RIAA to adapt to the changes. This will mean accepting the fact your world has changed, and like it or not it's not going back to how it used to be.

Flimsy Industry

[zwaffle]

The idea of making huge amounts of money by selling patterns of air pressure change is kind of flimsy to start with. No?

Why did my CD purchases go down last year?

[grahamtriggs]

1) Industry forcing botched copy-protection on to CDs, so they don't work on my perfectly 'normal' CD player.

2) High cost of CDs.

3) Industry trying to stamp on the global market that helps reduce the above problems.

4) Complete crap being produced by the industry.

5) Nowhere to store them.

6) Plenty of better things to spend my money on?

How many tracks (not just albums - individual tracks), did I copy in the whole year? How many did I download?

None.

They're out of old material!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing no one EVER brings up, and this pisses me off, is the fact that a lot of the CD sales over the past years have been from OLD MATERIAL being released on CD. People have been replacing their records with CDs since 1985. That has to end at some point, and I would imagine that sales would DROP because there isnt' enough NEW material to make up for the missing OLD material.

DUH!!!!

Slashdotters always say this

[bonch]

But the fact remains that everyone else likes the music coming out, especially young kids. You guys sound like old fogies--actually, you sound like my parents when I was growing up and they heard my music. Meanwhile, a lot of people DO like today's music, from the Strokes to Clay Aiken to Norah Jones to so on and so forth. But downloading is so easy and convenient now, today's youth don't give a second thought about it anymore. And that doesn't make what they're doing suddenly a-okay.

Yet, you people don't seem to care because you've grown accustomed to the convenience as well, and in order to remove the label of criminality, you've tried to brush it off on to the record label lobbying group that just so happens to be doing the *exact thing Slashdotters said they should be doing* a few years ago--suing individual copyright infringers.

This is silly. There are online stores now. There are services like iTunes. How many knocked-down excuses will people keep using to justify that they've got eMule down there in their system tray right now?

Artists willingly sign their contracts, and I find it hard to feel sorry for them when they shit on gold toilets, have antique car collections, and do movies all the time. Yet, Slashdot pretends they're fighting for the artist by ripping them off and not paying for their music.

What's amusing is that there is somewhat of a stigma when it comes to pirating games and apps simply because a lot of people here are programmers. Are you guys going to talk about "sampling games" when Doom 3 gets leaked a month early (as they all are now) and kids, college students, and people on high-bandwith connections pirate the fuck out of it?

If everyone here at Slashdot was a musician, the message would be completely different. What I find most amusing, however, is the double-standard pointed out in my sig.

But go ahead and play the "b-but the RIAA is *evil*!!! That gives me the right to pretend their copyright was magicaly transferred over to me to illegally distribute all over the place" game.

99% of the users on Kazaa aren't "sampling" those albums. Hell, on eMule they're just RARing up entire discographies now and sticking them online. I'd respect pro-piracy people more if they just admitted what was going on and that it was legally and morally wrong. At least I can debate your position logically because you know where you stand. But this bullshit "it's the RIAA's fault we're illegally sharing all their copyrighted materials!" mindset will never, ever fly.

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[TheSpoom]

Of course it's morally wrong.

You know what else is morally wrong? Suing your customers because you're not willing to explore other, decent ways of selling a digital product.

Copyright DOESN'T WORK with digital, copyable works. If the RIAA et al wanted people to respect them more while simultaneously stopping the need to sue their own customers, they would explore some of the new ways of selling works in this age, such as the Digital Art Auction or the Street Performer Protocol, where basically, money, or offers to purchase a work at a specified price, and the work is released to the public domain when the artist gets the money offered for the creation of the work and the offers reach a certain, specified level.

One of the problems is that these both have a one-time payment, and don't offer a renewable source of income from a work, but really, we want to pay for the work itself, not the marketing, advertising, and so forth that go along with it, right?

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[skifreak87]

I have illegally downloaded music and never once thought it was right. However, I don't feel bad about it because almost all of the time, I download music that I would never pay for. So I don't view it as a lost revenue stream for the RIAA. It doesn't make it right, it's just my justification. I've done the same thing w/ expensive software programs (think Mathematica). I've had assignments that require me to use it and my school only has so many copies of it on public cluster computers, I want to use it from my computer and am not going to pay for it. Granted, I should not have the opportunity to use stuff I don't pay for, but if I would never pay for it, it's clearly not stealing and fails into a moral gray-area for me where I default into doing what's in my best interest.

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[_Griphin_]

> If everyone here at Slashdot was a musician, the message would be completely different...

I know quite a lot of local musicians, and a lot of them are thrilled whenever I post there EP onto the Usenet (I also include contact information, and background history so that the listener knows what he/she are listening to). Some artists even don't mind MP3s, they'd rather have the music out there then making a dollar from sales of the CD. Go figure, huh? I guess it boils down to the point that some artists like making music, and some artists would rather see the $$$, which is the wrong reason for doing music in the first place.

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[EvilAlien]

At least you didn't refer to Clay Aiken as an artist. Music, maybe. Artificially produced mass-market garbage, yes. Artist, no.

I went to a Matthew Good Band concert once, after that even lamer Canadian imitation of the vile Idol thing (Pop Stars) started churning out music for the pop drones. Matt tapes a Sugar Jones (I think that is what they named the crappy "band") cd to a stuffed animal and has an audience member come on stage and light it on fire. Now that was art.

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[ect5150]

it's clearly not stealing

C'mon now... what you talked about is clearly stealing. Its just not appropriate that the companies claim X amount of dollars were lost when they never would have gotten it in the first place.

But you know its still stealing.

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[zsau]

Incidentally, I've never heard of Norah Jones, Stokes or Clay Aiken; I don't know that I've ever heard the music of Justin Timberlake or whatever his name is. There's plenty of good music out there if you want to find it. New good music. New good music being written by bands who live in your city. (More addressed to all the 'old fogies' then the OP.)

And secondly, I will agree that copyright infringement is legally wrong; I'm yet to be convinced that it's morally wrong.

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[nathanh]

But the fact remains that everyone else likes the music coming out, especially young kids. You guys sound like old fogies--actually, you sound like my parents when I was growing up and they heard my music.

Yeah, but the counter argument is that I like modern music. And I like my parents' music. And I like my grandparents' music. Each generation has had great music. Looking at my own CD collection (600+ and that's pressed silver CDs bought legit from the store, not burns) about 50% was produced in the last decade.

My tastes are eclectic. A short sample of music that I like: Prodigy, Roxy Music, Ravel, Fear Factory, Satriani, Prince, Groove Armada, Queens of the Stone Age, Tracy Chapman, Daft Punk, Led Zeppelin, Robert Johnson, Megadeth, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Aphex Twin, Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers, Propellerheads, Ween, Robert Miles, Underworld, Oscar Peterson, Faith No More, Cure, Rammstein, New Order.

That's just my current playlist. But how many songs do I like in the current top-100? I think 4 and The Darkness counts for 2 of those. It's not that I don't like modern music - that short sample list up above should prove that - but rather that I don't like the current top-100. In fact, I have never liked the top-100 (I started listening in the early 80s). Oh sure, sometimes there is a song I like, but 95% of it sucks.

But even though 95% of the top-100 for the past 20 years has sucked, I've noticed that I like more than 50% of the music on the top-100 from the 60s and 70s. That was before I was even born! So I think the top-100 really has declined in recent years. I can't accept that personal tastes alone could account for such a dramatic decline.

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[skifreak87]

Stealing requires depriving someone else of something. Making a copy isn't stealing, it's copyright infringement. Huge difference (maybe not morally but legally).

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said dude. Finally a +5 comment that deserves the rating!

Re:Slashdotters always say this

[Anonymous Coward]

they shit on gold toilets

Sheesh, talk about decadence...

It's a lack of good musical talent

[vudufixit]

Who's out there right now making music that's relevant to our times, makes you think, but also makes you want to sing along? Answer: hardly anybody, and that's perhaps the biggest part of the probelm.

WOOHOO ONLY 92.4% TO GO

[fadethepolice]

I will go to the mall for music right after I go to the well for water.

http://www.erowid.org/

Only CDs I bought last year were because of P2P

[Retired Replicant]

The only CDs I bought last years were Rammstein's discs and their Berlin concert DVD. I never would have bought them if it wasn't for sampling some of their songs using P2P (actually, downloaded using Google to search for mp3s).

Could it be?

[ScottGant]

Perhaps it's down 7.6% because the costs of CD's are up and the quality of music on them is way down?

Nah...can't blame the music industry! Have to lay the blame on someone else.

I'd be interested in knowing if the music industry went through a down period in the past...before digital music. Did they go through a slump in the 70's or 80's? If so, what did they blame that on then? I mean, if you have "up" years wouldn't it stand to reason that you'd have a "down" year in the past? Just wondering.

...and this

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Hmm.. they seem to have missed "boring bands, unoriginal music and inflated CD prices."

To which I wouold add "non-compliant formating of media." If it's copy protected, it's not a CD, and I won't buy it. All of my MP3 files are from cd or vinyl albums that I personally own.

>Shrink-wrapping dog shit does not create a market for shrink-wrapped dog shit.

To borrow and extend the metaphor a bit, copy protecting some of this stuff is like chaining dog shit to a Harley, so no one will steal the dog shit.

The CD format is too old

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the 24-bit/192 kHZ 7.1 channel surround DVD-Audio discs we were promised? The record companies are making a KILLING on CDs because they are so cheap to produce. God, even the average consumer can mass-produce CDs with a burner and a few spindles of CD-Rs for very little cost. Imagine how much EMI can do it for.

That being said, I don't mind buying CDs at all. I like to give the revunue to the artist (especially an artist I like). But as many others have pointed out in this thread, prices are so inflated. In fact, on-line music actually encourages me to buy the CD because you can only hear maybe 10-20% of an album via mp3/wma etc, and the sound sucks unless you can find the rare 192 kbps track. That is why I still buy the discs. I am still however waiting for the long-promised DVD-audio (or SACD) to become popular and for record companies to ACTUALLY RELAEASE MATERIAL that people want.

And if I could state a little irony here...the best thing I've heard in a LONG time in the Grey Album (Dangermouse) which is NOT available on CD. Go figure!

"If you can't respect that your whole perspective is whack.." (Jay-Z)

DVDs going up to over $23.00

[MisanthropicProgram]

I've been seeing a trend lately of adding much, much more stuff to a DVD ... more than I really want. For example, "Boogie Nights". I don't want to pay $25 for the double DVD with the John C. Rielly stuff, I just want the movie and pay the $15. Therefore, they lost a sale. And no, I refuse to steal too. I refuse to give those people more ammunition to charge more for their product becuase they have to make up for piracy or whatever their reason du jour is.

Re:DVDs going up to over $23.00

[Anonymous Coward]

The market disagrees with you. They want a high quality product and are willing to spend a (fairly reasonable) premium in order to get it.

Cry me a river.

DVDs are _STILL_ the most reasonably priced bit of entertainment.

What about distribution deals?

[Tom Courtenay]

Like the parent, I don't buy from RIAA-affiliated labels either. This can be annoying, but for the most part it's easy to maintain. I'm not buying the new Modest Mouse for instance, being that it's on Sony.

BUT I'm really curious about labels that are "distributed" by the majors. Take Sub Pop for instance. I was sure that back in the Nirvana heyday they were owned by DGC, which was in turn owned by Universal. Nowadays sites like RIAA Radar claim that their releases are "safe". But if they're being distributed by a major, is any cash from the sale of say, the last Shins album getting into the pockets of the RIAA?

Nobody seems to know this, can anybody point me to a good source of information on distribution deals and the RIAA?

I also don't trust the magnetbox.com site...it claims that NIN's "Pretty Hate Machine" is safe, but wasn't TVT bought up by Universal?

Bah. At least Matador & Drag City are safe.

Re:What about distribution deals?

[SophtwareSlump]

Matador (or a controlling interest anyway) was sold to Beggar's Banuqet last year. I'm not sure of BB's status with the RIAA.

The new Modest Mouse is only $7.99 at Best Buy this week. It's hard to find anything on a moderately sized indie for $8 new... Touch + Go, Drag City, Sub Pop, Kranky, etc.. all hover around $12 for a new disc. Most of the indie bands make most of their money touring anyways.

Re:What about distribution deals?

[Anonymous Coward]

AT least Constellation Records is and always will be free

www.cstrecords.com

Re:What about distribution deals?

[Nodatadj]

Most of the indie bands make most of their money touring anyways.

Possibly only because they then end up doing 4 month tours, which is a killer for pretty much anyone. Mogwai have reportedly lost a lot of personal money because of tours which just haven't made enough money, and they would be a fairly major "indie" band.

Jobs being outsourced

[8400_RPM]

When college grads cant find jobs, they cant buy CD's. Also, we aren't exposed to music like we used to be. Maybe if MTV played music...

puh-leez

[acidrain69]

I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy... how about you?

Spare me. I have heard thigns I would like to buy, I just can't really afford them. Contrary to what the underground hipster I-hate-everything generation would have you believe, there ARE bands and artists out there doing worthy things. It's not the record industry's fault that you USED to know how to find music you like, but now, conveniently, there's nothing "Good" out there.

New stuff worth listening to:
White Stripes
The Shins
Jet
Modest Mouse
Rasputina

Go listen to some college radio, or have someone find you something to listen to.

Correlation isn't Causation

[bangular]

That's a great point. Just because p2p is on the rise and cd sales are down DOESN'T mean p2p caused it. Maybe consumers are getting smarter. Maybe people are fed up with greedy execs. Maybe I want to be able to have the quality of a Coltrane box set every time! I mean, the same argument could be made as to why VHS sales are down. Just because they correlate doesn't mean one caused the other.

Depends

[Marc2k]

You're right in that the RIAA will get their cut no matter what, however, depending on the size of the band/label/distributor, on who sets up tours, etc. the band might make more money on the cd from a tour. For a most "independent" labels (quoted because some labels called independent still may distribute through major label distribution channels, or may be members of the RIAA themselves), the band sees a larger cut of the merchandise sold on tour. I can't vouch for the specifics (i.e. whether or not it's because merch sold by the artist at shows doesn't officialy enter any distribution channels, and thus they don't get charged distribution fees) of the matter, but from what I've been told, it's generally the case for medium to smaller labels.

Re:As a record store owner

[No. 24601]

Speaking of piracy...how long did it take you to plagarise that post?

This same crap was posted anonymous last October. If his business doesn't go under, at least he can look forward to dying of monotony.

Just look to American Idol 3

[night_flyer]

1/2 of those people couldnt sing their way out of a paper bag, yet that seems to be the kind of "talent" they are looking for...

Legal Online Downloads?

[theraccoon]

Know who got my CD money instead of the retail stores? Instant Gratification.

"Other Reasons" Are Phony

[Anonymous Coward]

I always hear two alternative reasons why CD sales are dropping, besides piracy:
(1) Most music sucks, no one wants to hear boy bands
(2) CDs are overpriced
Here's my rebuttal:
(1) Just because you hate pop music and love indie music doesn't mean the rest of the world does. The record industry knows they can make the most money by pumping their advertising budget into a small number of mega-stars. If they could make the most money by trying to promote thousands of indie bands, they would. The RIAA doesn't have an ideological hatred of indie music, it just doesn't create as much profit.
(2) How cheap does a CD have to be in order to compete with FREE? If I have a choice between paying $1 per song and paying NOTHING for a song, I will choose NOTHING. If I have a choice between paying $.01 for a song, and paying NOTHING, I will chose NOTHING.

Some other possibilities for shrinking CD sales could be growth of online sales (although I think these are still hard up to compete with FREE piracy), and (more plausibly in my mind) shrinkage of disposable income due to the economic downturn. The downturn basically coincided with the explosion of internet piracy, so there's no good way to separate the variables. But maybe someone with more free time can calculate change in CD sales versus change in disposable income and see what happens.

Anyways, my main point was that the two common arguments bulleted above are logically unsound. They address things that may suck about the music industry, but don't offer solutions to the problem.

Re:"Other Reasons" Are Phony

[mankey wanker]

Why should any of us care about a solution to the problem? We just calls 'em as we sees 'em.

Re:"Other Reasons" Are Phony

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, you don't have to care about solving the problem, but if you're going to attempt to explain the problem, your explanation has to be valid. A valid explanation would (most likely) lead to a solution, e.g. the RIAA says piracy is the explanation for declining sales, so the solution is to prosecute pirates. If "pop music sucks" is the problem, then "market more indie music" would be the natural solution.

Movies

[KalvinB]

I buy a movie or two every couple weeks. Usually for $15 or less unless it's something I know is really good. Kill Bill will get whatever they charge for it when it comes out. Depending on what they're charging I may pick up Matrix 3 just so I can complete the set or wait until I can get it used for $10.

Music on the other hand is meh. I bought nearly all the music I own during the period the lawsuit covered. I was constantly hearing music I liked and nearly all of my CDs are not one hit wonders.

Since then I've not really felt any compelling reason to buy a CD. I'm not hearing anything decent on the radio although one of these days I'll probably check to see if any of the bands I currently own CDs for, have any new ones or ones I missed.

Ben

The Price of Litigation

[Dotnaught]

Maybe suing your customers isn't the best way to keep their business?

How people listen to music has changed.

[Anonymous Coward]

My children listen to music quite differently than I did at their age.

They like mixes. They don't usually listen to two songs by the same artist. Most of the artists that they like don't even play on the radio. How the heck to they find all this stuff? "New trance hardcore jungle" what up with that?

They really like Johnny Cash. I have no clue how the industry can figure this market out. How can you sell CDs if your artist is only popular for three milliseconds.

Slashdot and US-ASCII

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you ever wonder why Slashdot only supports 7-bit ASCII, i.e. no extended ASCII, Unicode or ISO-8859 characters?

Because Slashdot is a wholly American and Patriot website, that's why.

Think about it! Do you want Slashdot to become a forum for terrorists, where they can freely discuss plans for taking away our freedom and killing our brave soldiers through HORRIBLE ACTS OF TERRORISM in their own language and the heathen Arabic script? Unicode, a system that enables terrorists worldwide to plan terrorist actions and communicate through the Internet. Though most try to cover it up, it is no secret to most IT-savvy Americans that Unicode development is partly funded by Al-Qaeda and partly by the French, dictator-supporting government.

There is none of that anti-social trash here. Slashdot supports only AMERICAN, PATRIOTIC CHARACTERS. Eurotrash, look out, because you can't use your fucking umlauts and ~'s here. We saved your sorry asses in World War II -- the least you can do is show some fucking respect and use our alphabet. Slashdot does not support your anti-American characters. 7-bit ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is commonly known as US-ASCII. This speaks for itself. The one and only choice for PATRIOTIC AMERICANS is US-ASCII, the STANDARD CODE for the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I'm proud to be an American, and I'm PROUD be a member of this patriotic, American Slashdot community. I am not going to let freedom-hating terrorists plot evil plans on an American-owned, FREE SPEECH website.

Do not believe the terrorist propaganda lies.
Boycott Unicode -- it is a tool of terrorism.
USE ANYTHING OTHER THAN US-ASCII AND THE TERRORISTS HAVE ALREADY WON.

7.6 % seems about right

[fuelled by caffeine]

The ability to download music has definitely had an impact on the amount of CDs I purchase. Downloading is just too damn convenient, frequently I hear or read about an artist and I download some of the music right away, this may or may not lead to a sale, it has definitely stopped me from buying just because I heard some good things. I end up with a lot of "one hit wonder" mp3s, instead of a lot of CDs that have one song that I like. I don't think the quality of music has changed. I am just not buying as much crap. Paul

Try Progressive Rock Internet Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

If you like 80s music, like Supertramp, then I am guessing that you might like other progressive rock music, like Yes, Genesis (with Peter Gabriel), Jethro Tull, etc.

And I recently discovered, much to my amazement, that progressive rock didn't die in the eighties -- it's still being made today (it just doesn't get played on the radio, or sold in the stores).

There are quite a few Internet-based progressive rock radio stations. For example, I enjoy listening to these two stations:

Delicious Agony Progressive Rock Radio

Canvas Productions

As a result of listening to these, and similar Internet radio stations, I have bought over 100 CDs in the last year. That's ten times as many as I had bought in the previous decade!

You might also like to check out the Gibralter Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock.

Lastly, check out CD Baby, which is an Internet music store that specializes in Progressive Rock and other esoteric music that you will never hear on the radio. Play some of their samples, and I think you will be quite surprised.

Stop Ignoring Facts

[Ageless]

I can't understand how people just continue to ignore simple facts. People really are pirating music a lot now. Some of those downloads are going to result in lost sales. While not everyone would have bought the CD if they couldn't download it, at least some are. Maybe's it 7%...

Now, I know the RIAA is evil and they don't pay artists enough and CDs are too expensive and they are suing people (who are stealing music) but pretending that they don't have a right to do that is absurd.

Before you fly off into a fit of frothing rage, ask yourself this:
Do people get commercial music today without paying for it?
The answer is yes. Oh, I realize YOU don't. No Slashdotter listens to popular music, or downloads anything they didn't buy, or would have bought it anyway, but a hell of a lot of people do and it can't be denied.

On a side note most popular CDs can be had at Best Buy for around $10. Comon folks, that ain't that expensive for something you'll likely enjoy for years and years. If you can't get it at Best Buy you can probably find it online for about the same. Stop being such cheap asses.

Spank them HARD

[poptones]

Bullshit. those labels were riaa affiliates long before the artists signed to them. what you are saying is pure apologist copout. no one MADE those artists sign with their labels, and there are several alternatives out there now. If these artists are not economically "encouraged" to flee the majors then change will never happen.

Spank the shit out of RIAA signed artists. Beat them until they bleed money - that's the only way change happens in this world.

And if you buy cds at shows you're still just feeding the RIAA - twice in fact, since you also pulled their pud with all that grand cash paid to get in the fucking door... do you think ticketbastard is some artist affiliated non profit organization? Pull your head out of your ass and maybe the sunshine will clear away the industry brainwashing that has befuddled your logical processes.

Well, _my_ CD purchases didn't go down.

[Qbertino]

When I find a CD I like and I've got the money - I buy it.

Unfortunately I found a style of music I got fond of last year: modern cafe house music / lounge and modern easy listening. Nice stuff to relax and tune out. Great soundtracks for coding too.

The downsides: Lot's of compilations out there. Some very good ones in serials.
Nothing of that kind on gnutella.

The upsides: You usually get a lot (dual CDs) or very good quality music for your money. And they also have very good re-listening qualities.

slanted opinions by CNN - A Time Warner Company

[tweedlebait]

Seriously, a few months ago durring the RIAA vs
Kazaa user suits CNN would air tons of stories and
have lots of self-rightous news anchor banter
about 'illegal' p2p, then hop right over to the
entertainment news highlighting all the time-warner-aol-whatever related album and movie hyping. No story on that topic that I saw was even remotely unbiased or covered facts. Just
an unrelenting villanizing of p2p networking.
Also included were stories about how broadband & p2p is killing music and movie industry. Hmm .. did AOL (a Time Warner Company!) pay for those stories?

What CDs? They aren't selling them anymore.

[kobotronic]

I'd be surprised if the global sales figure have dropped only so little. I'd expect the number of sold audio CDs in Europe to approximate zero. The shiny music discs sold in stores today certainly aren't the same kind as the audio CDs I used to buy until the late 90s. (I own just over 1000 of them.)

The new discs are some kind of bizarre crippled pseudo-CD format which doesn't work at all on my DVD player, nor does it work in my skip-protected car stereo or the DVD drive in my laptop. They also seem to omit the old Philips 'audio CD' logo, confirming my impression that they are not in fact music CDs but something else. So why on earth should I or anyone else in their right mind buy them?

Let's include high prices in there.

[ivanmarsh]

A CD costs about $2.00 (at most) to produce, unless the music industry is completely incompitent (snicker). Why do they retail for $18.00?

A Proof

[ruiner13]

Ok, so the Record Industry Ass. of America says that piracy is causing their drop in sales. So, to prove or disprove this, the only thing we can do is shut down the sharing services and watch their sales continue to plummit. I wonder who'd they blame then? The artists for not putting in the effort they need? Yes, I know it is probably not feasable to do, but I think it is the ONLY way that the RIAA will quit blaming sharing for their lack of good music.

Maturity

[filesiteguy]

Having been a music fan (and purchaser) for many years, I agree. I started out buying the latest crap being thrust upon the world (BeeGee's, Peter Frampton, Diana Ross) and quickly moved on to quality music when I was a little older (Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Church). I still buy albums from new artists when I see quality. One of my favorites to spin is an album by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. How did I find them? I downloaded a bunch of their songs on Audiogalaxy. Will I buy Justin Timberlake? No. Will my kids buy Justin Timberlake? Maybe. But then again, they're too busy playing Half-Life to notice the music.

Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an enlightened, modern parent, I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I encourage them to join team sports. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch, the company they keep and the books they read. You could say I'm a model parent. My children have never failed to make me proud, and I can say without the slightest embellishment that I have the finest family in the USA.

Two years ago, my wife Carol and I decided that our children's education would not be complete without some grounding in modern computers. To this end, we bought our children a brand new Compaq to learn with. The kids had a lot of fun using the handful of application programs we'd bought, such as Adobe's Photoshop and Microsoft's Word, and my wife and I were pleased that our gift was received so well. Our son Peter was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at surfing the net. When Peter began to spend whole days on the machine, I became concerned, but Carol advised me to calm down, and that it was only a passing phase. I was content to bow to her experience as a mother, until our youngest daughter, Cindy, charged into the living room one night to blurt out: "Peter is a computer hacker!"

As you can imagine, I was amazed. A computer hacker in my own house! I began to monitor my son's habits, to make certain that Cindy wasn't just telling stories, as she is prone to doing at times.

After a few days of investigation, and some research into computer hacking, I confronted Peter with the evidence. I'm afraid to say, this was the only time I have ever been truly disappointed in one of my children. We raised them to be honest and to have integrity, and Peter betrayed the principles we tried to encourage in him, when he refused point blank to admit to his activities. His denials continued for hours, and in the end, I was left with no choice but to ban him from using the computer until he is old enough to be responsible for his actions.

After going through this ordeal with my own family, I was left pondering how I could best help others in similar situations. I'd gained a lot of knowledge over those few days regarding hackers. It's only right that I provide that information to other parents, in the hope t

Re:Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?

[AgentAce]

This is a really bad joke, you're a catholic, or just fucking stupid...

Re:Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?

[Hassman]

I can't decide if I'm should laugh at this or hunt you down and slap you...

Re:Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, an ages old joke I had almost forgotten. It is still funny :) Even funnier were the flames of ~4000 comments that were posted after joke by people who took it seriously :)) Too bad I cannot remember where I saw it first. Try googling for "is your son a computer hacker" and you'll find it if you want to see the human stupidity for yourselves.

P.S. the man who wrote this joke is a genius.

--Coder

Just because you don't like it

[bonch]

Doesn't mean everyone else doesn't. You people assume your niche opinions represent all of society. I'm sorry to tell you that lots of people watch MTV and enjoy the rubbish that's on it. But we're geeks, we have this elitist attitude that we're "above" that and so is the music we like. That's just how we are. :)

Therefore, we assume because sales are down, it's because nobody likes the music. Sorry, but drive by a high school parking lot after school sometime and hear all the shit blaring from the cars. Kids like the music...it's just that they're downloading it all now. You think those millions upon millions of users on Kazaa right now are all file-sharing legal files? Give me a break.

Re:Just because you don't like it

[Rick and Roll]

No, sir. There is only one word for 95% of the new music sitting out on the typical music store's shelves, and that is

Wait for it...

DOGSHIT.

Because people are listening to less music.

[byoung]

I just read in McPaper (USA Today) that Americans, on average, are listening to less music. Something like 198 hours (down from 216). This is especially suspicious since the decrease is similar to the reduced CD sales number.

Maybe people *just don't like* the music that is being put out, and as a consequence, aren't buying and/or listening to CDs. Maybe they're out having lives. Maybe they are listening to live music.

Every time I see something like this from the RIAA, it sounds like, "our business plan isn't working! It must be a conspiracy! Piracy on the high seas!"

Whatever.

Maybe you should produce some music that we want to listen to?

Maybe you should make it easier to find music we *like*?

Re:Because people are listening to less music.

[crashnbur]

Maybe we're communicating more, in person and on the phone, because the Internet and cell phone technologies allow us a much broader range of communications and facilitate social activity. Cell phones especially have an effect here, as those who carry them carry them just about everywhere, allowing them to connect to just about anyone at just about any time. With communication being so much easier, and with the human naturally being a social animal, it makes more sense that we choose to socialize rather than sit in isolation listening to music.

Re:Because people are listening to less music.

[Peyna]

I think it's similar to the decline in television watching. Video games, the Internet, computers, TV, music, etc. are all fighting for our time; music and TV are losing their larger share they once had. (Although many ppl do multiple of these activities at one time, less people are watching TV and listening to music and instead doing other things.)

What about MP3 PLAYER sales?!??!?!

[MyDeity]

A cd is merely a method of holding music. An Ipod is another (akin to iRiver, and Creative, and Dell, and other PDAs...etc).

What about these type of devices? If a study finds that sales have increased with these devices, then the music industry should be very happy because the iPod is a AAC protected device (yes, I know about circumvention) - but with so many songs being sold via apple's website, how can the industry be unhappy?

I am hating them more and more. Especially with this Slashdot story: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/07/19 25222&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=129&tid=188&tid= 95

new music doesn't suck

[Anonymous Coward]

You just need to turn off your radio. There's tons of new stuff from all genre's. For example, I've been in an emo kick the last few years; I've been listening to Jimmy Eat World back when I lived in Mesa, Az and they played in bars.

This has brought me to seeing live shows with Juliana Theory, Jets to Brazil, Something Corporate, Brand New, Deathray Davies, Death Cab For Cutie, etc. So a few of these guys have made it big, signed record deals with Dreamworks, etc. So what? They worked their ass off for years to get that deal. Jimmy Eat World has 4 albums before Bleed American.

And Electronic music too. I've been to a few Paul Oakenfold shows, Orbital, Crystal Method, etc. And from these shows I find out about Kruder and Dorfmeister, Paul Van Dyke, Fluke, Hybrid, Massive Attack, Underworld, etc. It's all good, I love today's music. Maybe everyone needs to stop listening to 'pop'.

the lost fight of RIAA&co

[N3wsByt3]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the IFPI/RIAA is fighting a lost cause. And I think they know it.

First off all, I have difficulties with their acclaimed 'stealing' of music. As far as I know, stealing implies that the one that has been stolen has been derived of something. When you take a copy, you do not take the original away, thus they have not 'lost' anything. They might claim that they loose money when ppl d/l music, but even that is far from certain. Not only is it not shown statistically to have had that effect (they didn't even show a correlation thusfar - see former aussie music-news - let alone a causality). Ofcourse they *claim* they are suffering, and that it's all due to online d/l, but it's far from being a scientific valid causility. And frankly, even if it were true, it is partly their own fault, and partly because their sort of business (as it is today) has simply become obsolete.

Furthermore, in an individual case, they would have to show they actually lost revenue. Which is far from said, because I sure know some guys who d/l music, but would NEVER have bought that music if they were unable to d/l it. So, how did the RIAA/IFPI loose revenue, exactly? And if they didn't lose anything, how can the term 'stealing' apply?

It would still be copyright-infringement, ofcourse, but that's another matter. I think maybe it's time we went beyond our current system of copyrights and walk into the era of cyberspace. With the industrial revolution, patents and copyrights knew a high flight, maybe it's time to let it leave and try something new? Maybe something in the lines of this: fairshare.

And don't worry, contrary to what the RIAA claims, musicians will not starve to death, and music-making will not stop. We had music long before we had copyrights, and we will have music long after copyrights have vanished from the scene.

And lastly, it's something that *can not* be stopped. P2P progs and their development act as organisms that follow the darwinian rules of survival. When Napster was 'killed' by the RIAA, immediately others (like kazaa) took over, being more resistent to attacks from the RIAA&co. Whenever kazaa will be shut down, others again will take over. When endusers are targeted, systems that protect the user will become dominant (like FreeNet).

It really is a lost cause. But then again, they are not truelly battling for the survival of musicians (as I said; they will survive, just as they used to do), it's for their OWN survival they are fighting. There is no way in hell they are going to keep the giant profits that they have been gathering for the last decades.

But ultimately, they will have to do what P2P systems are already doing: adapt to the new circumstances (and forget about the former levels of profit), or whither and die.

P2P/Piracy makes a nice scapegoat

[Aumaden]

You don't hear the PC industry wailing and moaning about how their sales are down because people are installing Linuxinstead of buying new machines to run 2003 server. Were DVD sales down as well?

Blame it on bad quality

[therealking]

From what I'm seeing there's lots of crappy music coming out that is targeted at teens & pre-teens with no buying power. The trouble is that unlike the old days when parents would buy it for thier little boy or girl, this music is so profane/harsh/pornographic that they say no. The result is low sales.

The other half of it is a lack of some good new sounds. Instead it's alot of rehash of that sucky Justin Timberlake/Nick Lachea/Brittney crap they churn out by the butt load.

Pricing ... It's all about pricing

[AVryhof]

In 1995, CD Prices at the Average Media Play store was $11.99 each. Now the average price is $15-$20 a CD.

The average job in this area pays $7.50 - $10 an hour. Minus taxes, which leaves people about $300 a week to cover living expenses. Fill your gas tank twice a week, there's $46. Pay Mortgage/Rent, Insurance, Electric and Gas, there's $200 a week. So we have about $54 a week left for food, and other life related items.... I don't think CDs are selling too good around here.

Music Industry: Piss Off.
President Bush: Go fuck yourself. Trickle-down economics isn't helping when most of the people with money were born in the 20s and feel the need to pinch their pennies with all their might.

Classical Music

[AgentAce]

Then only kinds of CDs I buy are classical compositions/performances/cd sets, jazz, blues and early rock. Unfortunately, the RIAA tries to spoon feed everyone...well, cram down our throats...this new pop stuff that sounds absolutely awful. Sure I hear something that sounds interesting on the rock stations every now and then, but nothing to really warrant buying the CD; it gets boring too quickly. Classical, jazz, blues...this stuff is actually GOOD and hardly ever gets old. Bach has been heard by the masses for the past 400 years almost, can we say the same about the Hanson Brothers, Milli Vanilli, or Paula Abdul? I know virtually no one who listens to these groups regularly, yet I know many people who will listen to Mozart or Beethoven.

We live in a society of disposable music, and our pockets are running out of money, yet the RIAA continues to expect us to fatten theirs. To hell with that. I'd much rather give Deutsche Gramophone my money than Atlantic Records.

Re:Classical Music

[KD5YPT]

Ah... classical... how I love them... Come to think about it, I have several CDs on classical musics... Beethoven... Mozarts... Chopin... only 1 music in my collection was downloaded because I can't find a place to buy them. That was "Carmina Burana", and it's one kick ass classical music.

Re:Classical Music

[KD5YPT]

To illustrate the point further...
Carl Orff's Carmina Burana

That piece (it's classical) kick so much asses, that just about every action movie and video games (at least up until recently) featured them either in the movie/game themselves, or featured in the commercial.

Re:Classical Music

[servoled]

I am in the same boat musically. For the most part I am starting at the 60's and just working my way back through rock 'n roll, blues, country, folk, classical, etc...

There is an amazing amount of good music released before the beatles, bee gees, run dmc, guns n' roses, nirvana, boyz 2 men, britney spears or whoever people may point to as the great turning point in music today.

If anyone is interested in some of the music that layed the foundation for "classic rock", I'd reccomend these box sets (they may be better out there, but I own these two and am quite happy with them):

Mercury Blues 'n' Rhythm Story 1945-1955
Roots N' Blues: Retrospective 1925-1950

If anyone has any other good reccomendations for older music I'd love to hear them as well.

Re:I have to second (or 200th?) the crappy music..

[Qbertino]

Well, the current Nelly Furtado longplay isn't _that_ bad. I actually bought it.

The problem is, your customers have gotten smarter

[DAtkins]

Oh my, CD sales have gone down. Be sure to blame all of the pirates (arrg) and Indian outsourcing while you are at it.

The fact remains that you (the record industry) have lied to your customers for years. Remember back when CD's first came out, the recording industry said that the materials to produce the disk are much cheaper and would eventually cost less than a cassette. Hasn't happened.

I recently paid $26 for a 2 disk set (it was Outkast, so I at least paid alot for a good set, but it still pissed me off) at a local record store. As worthwhile as the cover art might have been (Andre's clothing is usually worth a couple bucks) it doesn't change the fact that everyone now knows the cost of the media and the case and realize that however nice the art might be, it isn't worth a $20 mark-up.

Everyone knows that the value of the media and case is less than a dollar now, and transportation costs have plummetted, yet still the prices have gone up. They still operate on the same lousy business model that rewards short term gain and ignores long term investment. Instead of delivering a wide array of options and thus fostering a musically inclined culture, they give us Justin Timberlake and Nora Jones and complain when someone doesn't buy it.

Look mac, I already have Justin Timberlake's album, it's called Thriller. I'm not spending $20 for another one. Perhaps you would make some money if you released some music that hasn't been done 30 times already.

What is 'cool'?

[Chordonblue]

But you're missing the point. You and I aren't the ones the industry cares about. It's all about the kids and disposable income.

Kids want to listen to what's 'cool'. To them, MTV and the radio shows/tells them what is cool and then they share this information with each other to reinforce it. Why is this so important? Peer acceptance - something some Slashdotters who had trouble getting dates will not understand.

I can look back at them and say, "What sheep! Back tatoos, piercings all over your bodies, wearing pants that would clothe 3 or 4 immigrants do NOT make you an individual!" But all of them will invaribly tell you that they are being 'different.'

You know what a joke THAT is, don't you? Or do you? Think back in school. What did you do to be different and how different were you really than anyone else?

Personally, I listened to Black Flag and the B52's (ok, I was a bit eclectic), but did that make me different? No, it put me in a strange minority, but MILLIONS of kids listened to them!

Those that are truly different - the true innovators and pioneers of our time are shunned or ignored, plain and simple. You can't be too different after all, then you're 'wierd', right? If it could happen to a guy like Tesla, you know it could happen to anyone.

Re:What is 'cool'?

[what the dumple is]

I'll tell you what, a lot of kids are using this thing called the world wide interweb. One would think this would influence to some degree what is cool. It would be interesting to see if there are any kids who are less influenced by TV and radio due to p2p, lj and what not. Like, "MTV is saying band a is the lick. Spin says band a is house, but everybody on my friends list says they're the suck!" or something.

At least that's what some of us are doing. Countering the bombardment of what the entertainment industry wants to market as total hipness.

Never stop rioting.

Re:What is 'cool'?

[Chordonblue]

I would like to believe this also, but I know human nature better.

Look, years ago when Michael Jackson's Thriller album came out it shot to #1 and sold millions. And yet... I couldn't find one person around me, not ONE who would own up to having a copy of it. Well SOMEONE was buying them!

I find it's a chore to listen to new stuff usually. There was one time I impulse-bought an album. I was standing in line at some record store when I heard this song come on. I asked the salesguy if it was a new Howard Jones album. He told me (with a smirk) that it was Duncan Sheik. Wow, was I way off! Or so I thought. I bought it anyway.

Later on, after I got this most excellent CD home, I read in the credits that Howard Jones played piano on a few tracks. Now, would I have fully appreciated Duncan's work without having first heard Howard's piano? Probably not, or at least not right away because without it, it would've been totally unfamiliar to me.

Hell, there's been bands that I LIKE, have bought their newest recording, then put off listening to it for a while. Maybe it's a function of getting old - dunno.

Re:What is 'cool'?

[what the dumple is]

Something else that is interesting... Take a band like the Blood Brothers who got insanely popular in the NW and in the hardcore scene in general. This occured solely by word of mouth. They've been signed by a major label now and one has to wonder--when people who haven't heard them before hear them NOW that they've been signed to a major does that change anything? If they were inclined to like hardcore anyway???

I mean, nobody needed to tell us kids this band was cool. We just knew it by going to shows and *seeing* them. But you know that the marketing machine will get into high gear. It won't be easy to say what is a factor in the bands continued success.

Actually, I'd recommened Schoolyard Heros over Blood Brothers. If the Blood Brothers are cool then (to borrow an 80s expression) Schoolyeard Heros are mass rad.

Also, somebody somewhere mentioned Top 40 all being suck-tastic and that's mostly true but Howard Jones had some Top 40 hits and he was fscking cool, 80s style.

postscript; about the MJ thing, people won't admit to owning it because they know they were duped and that MJ sucked all along and they just bought into the hype. HA! Michael Jackson is a tosser. Same thing will happen to Britney Spears. 20 years from now nobody will admit to buying her albums.

Re:What is 'cool'?

[Chordonblue]

About the happiest day of my life was when HoJo played in my small town (Lititz, PA) and I got to shake the master's hand! We have the famous Clair Bros. studio here and while he was on tour, he played an unscheduled date at the grand opening of our rec center!

Now the funny thing is, I was there with some close friends who understood what a big deal this was (being 1986 and all). But it was pearls before swine as 99% of the local guys were into Bon Jovi and other corporate metal bands. You can only imagine the comments.

Out of the 2,500 that packed the place, I suspect only 30 people actually understood what he was about. Having never gotten to see him live, being up front was just amazing. What a terrific talent - organ, synth, piano!

Ah well... :)

Re:What is 'cool'?

[Alcohol Fueled]

Screw what MTV thinks is cool. I listen to what I like, not what someone tells me is cool. I haven't even been listening to much new stuff lately.. its mostly older stuff I listen to. Older Metallica, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Iron Maiden, etc. Its what I like, so its what I buy and listen to. Fuck MTV and all of their stupid fall-in-line sheep. -_-

And in other news

[myowntrueself]

There has been a 7.6% increase in the amount of crap music available in stores.

Sure Blame P2P

[DarkOx]

Its not possibly do to other factors like the jobless rate being up and consumer confidence being low, and their product is a luxury item. Its not possible that people are simply to interested in what is happening in the world and the nation to spend their time on traditional pop-culture. Nope there are no valid reasons why CD sales would be down. How are other luxory items and goods doing, is the sale of $5 per glass coffee products down from last year, high end clothing, and other such itms how are they doing. I am willing to bet that sales of lots of things people *really don't need* have been hurt.

Mod Parent Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

You raise some very good points - and if I still had the mod points I would be giving you one. I was thinking the same thing as you - when I find a one-hit-wonder song that I like, I'm going to buy it off of iTunes instead of buying a crap album. Thats a revenue loss of ~95% for the record label, and IIRC the artist gets more money from iTunes then from the album sale.

I'm a music subscriber

[NanoGator]

I pay $10 a month to listen to a vast library of music. That's far cheaper than I would normally pay a month. They're not making as much money off me since the playing field has been leveled to 'fair'.

Frankly, they're lucky to even be getting that. Seeing as how they've already branded me as a thief for owning a CD burner, I should just go on an MP3 rampage.

Re:As a record store owner

[artifex2004]

Actually... you could make so much money selling coffee you wouldn't need to sell any CDs at all. So here's my business idea: Put a coffee shop in your record store.

Starbucks has already foreseen this - they're putting more CDs in their shops, now. If I remember right, a recent Slashdot article says they'll have burn-on-demand mix cds for sale.

Hint, hint...

[Kaa]

Big surprise -- suing your customers and generally pissing them off does not lead to increased sales... Who could have thought!

do the math!

[jeeryg_flashaccess]

Okay, so out of the 3 reasons for the GIGANTIC SLUMP in sales...how should we add them up? Well, CD sales are down...and guess what online music store is kicking ass in the recording industries territory??? iTunes. Folks, I don't see a problem here.

Bad cd sales 1/3 of 7.6%, poor economic conditions...another 1/3 of 7.6% (-2.5%), and another 1/3 of 7.6% for video games.

Instead of blaming iTunes, Bush's unpopular war, and kick ass video games (the causes CNN states for this 7.6%) pirates are blamed for the lower cd sales. Arrr.

Fallacy: Ad Hominem. Pirates != reasons for 7.6% slump. Discuss.

Greg

The number one reason CD sales are down...

[Astroboy!]

...is because current music blows. The current state of music is nearing one of the lowest points since the early 90's.

When the biggest names in music are no-name losers chosen through television competitions, or are former Mickey Mouse club members who've slid from vapid, no-brain bubble gum pop to vapid, no-brain slutty pop, there's a very valid reason why I'm not spending my $$ on CDs these days. The garbage getting release by the major labels just isn't worth it.

To avoid a (-1 curmedgeon) modifier, I have to say that I don't believe that good music ended in 1987 or 1969 or when Buddy Holly boarded a Cessna Cub -- the introduction of grunge, hip-hop and electronica over the past 10 years has greatly added to the possiblilty of good music. The problem is that the power has been in the hands of the powerful labels for too long again, and needs an indie (c.f. Nirvana, Def Jam Records) movement to re-invigorate the cycle (before the record labels drown everything back in a slop of look-alikes and sound-alikes again).

Personally, I think the Internet, mp3s and home recording tools like GarageBand will go along way to causing this renewal.

Music is full of peaks and valleys. It's just that this valley is so very deep, and so very, very dull.

Ring ring...

[World_Leader]

Mobile phone ringtones sold $3.5B in the past year, that's over 10% that of the global music market (about $32B.)

wired article (Reuters source)

Where do they expect all this extra money to come from if not drops in sales of similar market items such as music CDs? The pie does grow a little over the years, but these are 10% changes in market tastes and that's just one seemingly minor item!

competition from DVDs

[frovingslosh]

yea, this competition from DVDs is particularly awful; people are resisting paying $19.99 for a movie soundtrack when they can buy the movie itself on DVD for $12. Who do we have to bribe to get a law passed against this sort of thing?

Universal Price Drop?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Universal had dropped the wholesale price of their discs, in order to get the retail price in the $12-$15 range. What happened with that?

Let's adjust that math a little

[MythoBeast]

For starters 250m/32B = .78%.

Second, 2.5 million songs per week times 52 weeks = 130 million songs at $.99 each, or about .4% of 32 billion.

Third, $130 million spent on I-Tunes could be 130 million CD's not purchased at $15/hit (especially for the one-hit wonders they're publishing these days). Even after adding back the money for the itunes themselves, that's $1.82 billion in CD purchases, which is 5.6875%, which is pretty close to the entire decrease.

Although it is impossible to precisely determine how much effect iTunes has had on this number, it is really poor math (and thinking) to think that it had no significant effect.

Careful about criticizing other's nerdliness, for you bring your own failings to light.

Re:Let's adjust that math a little

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you!

Re:Let's adjust that math a little

[pseudochaotic]

Pot calling the kettle black, i think assuming every song sold on iTunes replaces a CD is overkill. After all, a lot of people but whole albums on iTunes, for 10 bucks, IIRC.

Good stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy... how about you?

Air: "Talkie Walkie."

American Hi-Fi: "The Art of Losing."

Basement Jaxx: "Kish Kash."

Black Eyed Peas: "Elephunk."

Blu Cantrell: "Bittersweet."

BT: "Emotional Technology."

The Crystal Method: "Legion of Boom."

Dave Matthews: "Some Devil."

Delerium: "Chimera."

Dido: "Life for Rent."

The soundtracks to "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions."

Fischerspooner: "#1."

Fountains of Wayne: "Welcome Interstate Managers."

Jane's Addiction: "Strays."

Massive Attack: "100th Window."

Michelle Branch: "Hotel Paper."

Norah Jones: "Feels Like Home."

OutKast: "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below."

Radiohead: "Hail to the Thief."

Sarah McLachlan: "Afterglow."

The White Stripes: "Elephant."

All from 2003 or early 2004. All bought either on CD or through iTunes.

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

I hadn't seen it before. I liked the "I don't know Jenny - I don't know" part.

is there a contractural number...

[zogger]

... of times that the music on a CD may be listened to? Is the listening supposed to be only the person who actually purchased the CD? Where's the line on using this stuff? How much more money do you want for copies of work that was done in the past?

I have a solution for the artists and distributiors, stop distributing completely. don't try to pawn off copies of work as something it isn't. Don't keep forcing people to believe that a copy is somehow all that valuable. In the olden days, ya, copies of anything were ridicvulously expensive in termsd of time and effort and materials to make, but today? GET REAL. Make your loot from day to day *working* live concerts ONLY,stop milking technology and BSing the people by recording and copying, and make all recordings illegal, then there won't be any conflicts or confusion, would there be? I say, put up or shutup. I will pay to enjoy being in the presence of someone WORKING, I WON'T pay for some vaporus copy of that experience. That's where I draw the line now. Any human on earth can make their own copies now with a pittance worth of gear, so that is where I draw the line, a copy is worth a PITTANCE. Same with movies, make those sorts of fictional representations be done completely live on stage, don't copy them to any media for redistribution. Same with television. Radio re broadcast. If the artist want to dilute their work by copying and distributing, then they can be happy with smaller amounts for a larger wider audience, by doing less work. Right now they want it both ways,sweet deal fopr them if they can manipulate the laws and media brainwashing mind control, big bucks for live honest work, big bucks for trivially copied media and the means to redistribute. sorry, it ain't worth it to more and more people because they can see reality.

When you go to a restaurant, you pay for the food and service, do you EXPECT to keep paying for the service, forever? I don't think so. Do some actual work, bring me some chow, and I'll pay you again. Virtual representations of real live work are COPIES and as such not "worth" what a live experience is, and never will be from here on out given our level of technology now. that's reality. too bad, expensive copies are the buggywhips of the 21st century, un needed, un wanted, and they WILL be ignored, more and more, except as curiosities for museums.

As long as they make up their minds I don't care, I don't download any music or videos, zip, nada, nothing, I could care less about it so I don't got a dog in this fight, but I can reason a little, and there ain't a hardly piece of this "official copy of work long done awhiles ago" stuff worth more than 2 cents to me. I've enjoyed live performances in the past,paid for it, that's cool, but reproduced fictitios representational copies... really... is just..so so, I could care less, it's not even worth unfilled hard drive space to me.

I think artists (and sports stars and movie stars) are tremendously over valued except during live performances, and with the new ways of copying, they are seeing what their non-live performances are really worth, about zilch. Live performance, equals work, day to day w.o.r.k like everyone else does, reproduced is a dilution,a chimera, it's attempting to get a lot of expensive somethings (everyones money) for the same labor, and in todays world, tough noogies. You can't keep pulling that trick.

That's my opinion anyway. And I'm sorry if that is semi offensive to anyone, but really. This is the year 2004, making copies of anything audio or visual is EXTREMELY easy to do, it's just not worth that much money, it's not even worth a bucka song. It's worth maybe a buck a cd, and that to someone to lazy to make their own copy for a dime.

I know I can't keep making "royalties" off the work I did last week, work as in "sweat outside doing heavy nasty dangerous stuff", if I want another check, I need to do the same amount of work. That's how 99.99% of the planet earth makes their living, too bad most "artists" and their le

Re:is there a contractural number...

[glorf]

How exactly does that theory work for writers? If I write a novel am I supposed to read it aloud to every person I expect to get paid money from?

And personally there are groups whose music I would pay for, but whose concerts I would not attend. That could be for any number of reasons. I don't want to get a contact high, or I prefer the quality of something done over and over in a studio until thy felt it was perfect, or I don't like crowds etc.

And as for your not getting paid over and over for your manual labor, think of it this way: What if you built something, then I burn it down, your work amounted to nothing, so should you not get paid? If you an arbitrarily change the value of deliverables (performance == $, result == 0) why can't I?

Re:is there a contractural number...

[iminplaya]

What if you built something, then I burn it down, your work amounted to nothing, so should you not get paid?

Then you can be charged with destruction of property. Quite different from copying. If you were to copy his work, he might not care. He may have gotten paid before starting the work. Media distibuters will always be able to serve a niche market. The concept created in Hollywood of "artist as king" is now obsolete, and was probably created to entice artists to sign over their rights.

Re:is there a contractural number...

[glorf]

Then you can be charged with destruction of property.

OK, then say his work was destroyed by a tornado. How the work is destroyed is not the point. The point is that he is redefining where the value lies. By saying the value of music lies in the work to create it rather than the enjoyment of it by the listener is preposterous. If I have a choice of purchasing a copy of music I enjoy versus attending a concert of some poor sap who works real har but can't carry a tune in a bucket, I am going with the copy. That is because my enjoyment of the music is where the value lies.

Re:is there a contractural number...

[iminplaya]

The fact that the work was destroyed is exactly the point. Copying does not destroy the work. or its value as a work. The work had value in that the person got paid for performing the work. The copies have no real value, except to people who get paid to make copies. If you value the copies, then, by all means, buy it and enjoy it.

Re:is there a contractural number...

[abertoll]

"It's peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." -- Thomas Jefferson

[Emphasis mine.]
Read: "idea" = "intellectual property"

Re:is there a contractural number...

[servognome]

I think your model ignores all the effort that goes into an artistic work in the first place. An author/painter/software writer/singer, can spend years thinking, creating, and building their work. How do you compensate the artist for that effort? With your logic, artists should be sponsored and paid by the hour. Which IMO would be worse because then you have somebody with the pursestrings directly involved in the creation process
The good thing about the current model is that the artist isn't cocmpensated unless they create something valuable, its not the amount of labor they put in that matters, but rather the value of their product to society. Also nice is that with cheap you are able to charge a small amount to a large audience to compensate the artist for the time in creating the work in the first place. Now how much that amount to charge should be what is debated, as the distribution costs get removed from the picture and we focus solely on the value of the work.

Re:is there a contractural number...

[seven of five]

OK dude... remove the financial incentive for artists and watch the artists disappear. Are a tiny minority of artists overcompensated? Yes. Are the other 99.999% scratching a living in dry earth?

Note: many musicans do not play live much or at all.
Having said all that, yours is probably the popular prevailing voice and it will be interesting to see what happens in years to come.

Re:is there a contractural number...

[Bob MacSlack]

I think you're going wrong on one thing. You seem to be assuming that it takes the same amount of "work" to create an album/movie/etc as it does to perform it live. But that's just not quite right. How long did it take to create movie X? Probably orders of magnitude longer than it takes you to watch it. When you go to see a movie, or purchase a DVD, you're not paying for the 2 hours of "performance" you're paying for the thousands of hours of labor put into making it. Same with a book. The author spent a huge amount of time creating it, even if you can read it in a day.

Now I'm not saying that prices aren't inflated, I agree with you there. But just because it costs less than a dollar to make a copy of a cd, don't throw away the value of what's on it. You're not paying for the disc, you're paying for the content of the disc. You're paying your share of the creator's time and energy aka WORK.

Re:is there a contractural number...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey loser,
I'm flaming you because you flamed me.

Firstly, with a comment like that point out that it's your 'opinion' in the beginning, not go on your ego trip as if it's fact.

Obviously you are not an artist. Your lack of compassion definately shows that.

I may also add that I, like most musicians am high as a kite, so bear with me while I hack away at your egotistical opinion.

There's already enough musicians out their tryuing to support their main career (music) while paying for it with a 9-5 job.

Then there's those artists who wish to purely focus on their art as opposed to working in neck tie and collared testosterone driven environment, stuck in a cubicle next to some loser like yourself.

If you take your crappy restaurant analogy. Your point of view is actually the equivelant of saying "The chef can only make one steak and we will all pay $40 to look at the chef cook the steak on a stage in front of us, but we deserve
to get our dinner (which we can take home by the way) for free.

Are you a software programmer? Would you feel so wrong in charging $20 per copy of an application you spent maybe 5% of the time and resource that goes into making an album?

If you feel that artists have no value, then I feel sorry for anybody that associates with a cold unemotive person such as yourself.

Artists (not just music) take the time to show us the beautiful things in the world, and despite how wanky that sounds, its true and I believe it is worth paying $8 a copy of CD for the same way as i would pay $30 for a print of a picture I liked.

I still don't know of an album that was recorded with a sum of money that is honestly called a "Pittance". If you know of such an example, please point it out othwerwise you are full of sh#$t.

If you excuse me, I will go back to writing music and being able to only afrford one meal a day, even though some idiot on slashdot thinks my gear cost me a pittance.

- SweetJesus

Re:is there a contractural number...

[Loconut1389]

How many -good- artists do you know that -start- singing for the money? Sure a lot become overly engrossed with the money, but how many with true talent and zeal really start that way?

Re:is there a contractural number...

[Solosoft]

Value ?

What is Value ? the Number they put on the sticker for you to buy ? Or Just what _you_ find as a value

CD's are ~ 15 bucks, to me they have 0 Value. I don't care, I pay some stuipd levy on my media so I should be able to download as much as I want.

Americans on the other hand don't pay these.

"Downloading Music Supports Terrorism"

Re:is there a contractural number...

[Mant]

I don't know where you get the idea a studio album is a copy of a liver performance, becuase it is not, it is a very distinct thing. I love going to live gigs, but I also love listening to music around the house, in the car or at work.

When I do, I generally don't want to listen to live tracks, but well prodcued studio stuff. It probably took weeks or even months for the band, the producers and other skilled technicians to create it, and it is a different creation from recording a live gig. They aren't "diluting" their work, they are make a different creation.

The thing about copies is, it is cheap to make the second one, but that first one cost a lot of money. Now, I'm no fan of the RIAA, and I think copyright needs a major overhaul, but someone has to pay for that original creation. If you don't want to, that's certainly your right, don't buy the album.

I strongly disagree with the notion distibuting it devalues it somehow. That non-live copy is worth something to me, and a lot of others. Like all economics the value of it is what we put on it as much as the cost of distributing. I've spent a lot of money in the past getting hold of rare or import CDs becuase they have a song I really want. Given the enjoyment I have had for listening to it, it has usually been good value for money in my opinion, and being my money that is the only one that matters.

You also seem to think most artisits make money from royalties, they don't. Since the record companies take all their expenses out of the artist's royalies, only very successful artists make much on record sales. Read some stuff by Janis Ian or Courtney Love, or previous Slashdot stories. Most artisit only make their money by the touring and live gigs, so your rant is somewhat misdirected.

Re:is there a contractural number...

[Anonymous Coward]

or just dont listen to music

Re:is there a contractural number...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're paying for the content, not the object, why are (were) Cassette tapes containing exactly the same content as a CD costing about 2/3 the price of the CDs? (Tape costing approx 10 quid, CD of same costing approx of 15 quid - are the CDs really 5 quid more expensive to make than Tapes, or do Tapes cost approx minus 4.50 quid to make?)

I haven't heard anything worth stealing either.

[GomezAdams]

I still get all my CDs/tapes/records at the local used music shop where I can fill in the gaps in my collections at a reasonable price. All the new stuff of nearly every genre is just pure junk or not worth the price.

Cliches

[poptones]

I'm 41 and there's not a great deal of music I listened to at 17 that I (and many others) don't still consider great. Of course, when most folks were lapping up Boob Seger and Foreigner and Boston and Journey and Kansas and all that other crap I was grooving with Lene Lovich, Sex Pistols, Phillip Glass, Wire, Cowboys International, Motels, Martha & the Muffins, etc.

I considered most pop music crap twenty years ago and still do today. and guess what? All those hairy palmed dolts who thought Bob Seger was god STILL think Bob Seger is god. Journey still goes on tour from time to time because so many aging stoners still don't have an ear for originality. About the only "pop" music from my youth I can stand is R&B, a genre mercifully spared most of they hype machine back then because the record companies still catered primarily to the white boys and hadn't a clue what to do with "ethnic" demographics of ANY flavor.

The only thing that's changed since twenty years ago is now the music playing on "black" stations (if there is such a thing) sucks just as much as the music on most of the others. Most folks still have no tolerance for originality and most folks don't seem to care about any of this politic - the only reason the record companies are hurting is because their business model is utterly obsolete. You would not believe the number of burned cds trading hands around my office for two bucks each.

Burn, baby, burn. Fuck'em into the floor.

Re:Cliches

[MikeXpop]

...I was grooving with ... Sex Pistols...

I cannot, by any stretch of my imagination, imagine anyone 'grooving' to the Pistols. Rocking out maybe, but not grooving. =)

*Is 16 and has The Clash on the turntable right now*

It all about used cd's

[future assassin]

I've only bought three brand new cd's in the last four years compared to the 50 or so I use to buy every year. All others in the last four years about 250-300 have been bought second hand. One of the local pawn shops gives me cd's for 2-3 dollars (CDN) since I've bought so many from them. I do download tracks once in a while but 99 percent of them get deleted with in a few days since I usually go out and buy the album used. The reason I buy used cd's is that 95 of them are in brand new condition at fraction of the price. So if that makes RIAA all anal that they are losing money so be it. They already made money from that product and the store transferred ownership to someone else, obviously while keeping copyright to the sounds. What matters here is I saved money and got the product legaly. Now multiply that by how many people do the same thing and Im sure the effect of P2P on music sales is will cut quite a bit. So fuck RIAA and CRIA and buy used cd's

Uninformed idiots always say this...

[Chordonblue]

"b-but the RIAA is *evil*!!!

Yeah, it is. So? I never said anything about copyright, but you bring up a good point.

How long should a copyright be good for? You know there's this Elvis revival going on in Germany right now - know why? They have a reasonable 50 year copyright law. All of his works are starting to come out in compilations and it's free and legal to do so.

I'm not suggesting that breaking the law is the answer. I'm suggesting that CHANGING A BROKEN LAW is. The 55 MPH speed limit was broken by many (were you a nasty-wasty law breaker yourself?) That law was found to be stupid and fairly unenforceable (especially out West), and so it was changed.

I'm a musician myself. I've personally watched the struggles of others who have tried to make it. I also know that 99.5% of anyone who signs a contract with these music company bastards commit themselves to being BOHICA'd.

With the self-serving record labels and the RIAA re-writing copyright law every decade it will be a miracle if ANY music ever again sees the public domain in this country. Don't think that you can take a superior tone with me or anyone else just because we don't agree with that fact and want to 'fight the power', so to speak.

If you can't see how one-sided the whole industry is, I would suggest that you report back to your corporate overloads and request more instructions on how to deal with people like me.

The taste of a GNU generation

[aspirationz]

No, it's not pepsi. It's the ridiculously shocking music taste of the shops and the greediness of the artists nowadays.

I don't know about any of you guys, but I wouldn't know of half the artists I do now, nor have anywhere near the diversity in my music collection if it weren't for P2P. If I had of been down at the record store browsing, I'd probably end up listening to Spears or Timberlake, or something as equally shocking.

I said to myself once, I really like this artist, I'm going to go buy his CD so I can contribute to him. Alas, I couldn't find any release with his name on it in my capital city. It's sort of apauling in a way.

I go around to my friends houses and browse through their CD collections, looking for a track that I like, but have trouble finding anything I could remotely listen to. I end up getting pissed off enough that I go back home, and bring my laptop around just so we have decent music to listen to.

What more, most people whom buy CDs couldn't figure out how to turn a computer on, let alone setup a P2P program and download a music track.

We need to stop blaming P2P for the loss of profit, and start providing the quality and diversity of music that P2P does. No wonder P2P is more popular.

Maybe someone wants to do some number crunching on how much bandwidth P2P generates compared to how much music is sold on CD. Maybe also what it is, I'm sure more Spears CDs get sold than Spears MP3s get downloaded.

Side note, the only thing I've ever bought, and that I -HIGHLY- recommend, is Dream Theatre's 'Scenes From A Memory', though I bought the DVD of their live gig in NY 2000. Best money I've ever spent.

aspirationz

Re:The taste of a GNU generation

[KD5YPT]

Greediness of Artists? From what I remember, they get VERY SMALL portion of the revenue from their song sell. That and MOST of the artists (most of the one who signed up with record label but fail to produce a hit music) are bankrupt.

Re:The taste of a GNU generation

[aspirationz]

Artists get an extremely small portion of the revenue but are still somewhat greedy, probably because of the small amount they make. It's more because they've signed for a record label rather than producing and distrubuting themselves. RIAA is definately a lot greedier, no doubt about that. They're probably the reason that most bands -ARE- bankrupt.

The number of albums released dropped 7.6% too?

[Ygorl]

I have a vague memory that something like this is true... If so, there's an easy explanation. Shocking!

Could part of it be to changing demographics?

[ted_the_canuck]

Perhaps boomers purchase less music now, since they have a lot of what they want on CD already, and spend money on other things. In a time of economic uncertainty, music purchases would certainly be less. I personally haven't bought a new CD in quite some time, even though I have a fair amount of disposable income. I don't find many new offerings that appeal to me enough to go to the store and spend my money to get the CD.

Why buy poor audio...

[AetherBurner]

I have virgin vinyl LP's (yes, played with a cartridge and needle) that were recorded on the Command Records label back in the 60's. Their analog audio quality is far better and more sonically accurate than the poorly recorded and mixed digital stuff that is out there now. Telarc back in the 80's was putting out some real good sounds but even their stuff is slipping. There is nothing out there that is, IMNSHO, worth buying currently on CD. Long live Enoch Light and the Light Brigade.

Re:Why buy poor audio...

[KD5YPT]

Considering CD (digital) is trying to compete with vinyl (analog recording device) under an analog arena (storing music), no wonder CDs are losing in sound quality because they can't possibly record an analog signal perfectly. Quality aside, CDs does store a lot more music then vinyl does.

WARNING, RANDOM RANT COMING UP, VINYL LOVER BEWARE...

Of course, let's look at this in another direction, using vinyl to store computer game... never gonna work.

Don't get me wrong, I respect vinyl.

Last CD I ordered (from Amazon) never came.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The last CD I ordered (nearly the only one I ever orderd online) never came.

(Interestingly, I had ordered it because the artist, who I'd never heard of before, made the full versions of three of the cuts available online, and there was a pointer to the cuts in a Yahoo ad. I liked 'em so much I ordered the album.)

As a member of the educated elite of...

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States of America...

Answer this:

why should WE care about this "RIAA" as they have proven themselves powerless to stop their own product being traded freely.

Laws only exist as long as they are enforced.
And as the RIAA and the United States government is ineffective in enforcing any trading,
I HEREBY DECLARE THE RIAA NONEXISTANT,

and will continue trading as much as I please.

#1 Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

So many jobs have been shipped overseas, which results in money flowing out of the country. Nowadays people cannot afford the simple luxuries like music, and it can be acquired by so many other methods, WHY pay for it? Punjabs don't listen to the same shit that we do, anyway. Maybe focus on catering to Indians :-)

Exactly!

[Danse]

I've been using MusicMatch.com for the last few months. For about 60 bucks a year, I can listen to as much music as I want. Granted it's only available to me at home and work (or wherever I happen to have access to a computer that I can install the software on), but for me it works well. There are limitations to it, caused almost entirely by legislation targeted at radio and web-radio stations, but it's good enough. I can buy MP3s there as well, but at $1 per song, it's really not worth it to me. I don't see myself buying CDs again anytime soon.

Now that I think about it, and this ties in with the earlier story about the broadcast flag, I don't spend much time watching TV anymore, and I haven't had cable TV (or indeed any TV) for the last 2 years. I go to a friend's house or to a bar sometimes to watch basketball games, but that's about it. Wonder what kind of legislation they'll try to cook up to get money out of me in the future?

I've Bought 150 CD's So Far This Year.....

[bfg9000]

... all of them from the Hock Shop at 2 bucks a pop. Cheaper than Kazaa, cheaper than iTunes or Napster, cheaper than anything else out there.

Does it account for online purchasing?

[acro-god]

Does that statistic account for the songs that are now being bought online thru services like Itunes and napster? Since you aren't buying full CDs thru itunes...

So CD Sales are officially down 7.6 percent, eh?

[twofidyKidd]

That's funny because my music purchases have gone up nearly 400%. I went from spending about $20 a month on music, to nearly $80 per month. Incidentally, I was spending less on music while I was working at a record store because, (1) promos are FREE, and (2) I had a discount. This was back in 1997 when there were actually a few artists on labels that I gave a rat's ass about. Now, at least a full 90% of that $80 goes to independent labels, the rest gets spent at the iTunes store, and most of those tracks are from obscure band or musician anyhow, the kind of band or musician that EMI is starting to cut from their label. The simple fact of the matter is (for me at least): The big labels rarely have anything I want from them. My downloading habits haven't changed, I can still find just about anything I want, and I've even increased the money I spend on music, but that money doesn't go to them because they have a product that I don't care to buy. How much simpler does the logic have to get?

Lack of Imagination

[Ted Williams' Frozen]

For an industry based on creativity, they have shown a total lack of imagination. Napster popped on the scene over 4 years ago, that deafing sound you hear is the lack of any online offering from the major record labels.

What have they done to increase sales?
-Sue their customers.
-Bring lawsuits against P2P companies.
-Develop weak and laughable DRM.
-Pay politicians to pass legislation to make music trading a felony.
-Lose a class-action lawsuit about gouging customers (I got my $12 check, what about you.)
-Try and pass a tax on blank CD-R's.
-Not give customers what they want, ie, decent music at a reasonable price and allow fair use.

What else am I forgetting? This looks like an industry in the last gasps of despairation.

And they are still trying to pass the same crap on consumers that they were last year.

Yeah, these folks are real creative. They are standing on the edge of an abyss, and are going to take a bold step forward.

Re:Where is the innovation? [mod parent up]

[macshune]

Thanks for that brief history of musical innovation:)

My 2 cents was mainly focused on the larger issue of innovation and how it's difficult to get the desire to innovate, or change or do anything different without constraints. Perpetual copyrights (perpetual, for the sake of dicussion:) do little to encourage so-called content producers to make more content, when they can just grow fatter off of already established streams of revenue.

This behavior is ultimately dangerous for them, though, as you pointed out with your example of Norah Jones. Eventually people will get tired of the same-old distribution systems, same-old musicians, etc, etc. They'll move on (in NJ's case, they have), leaving the industry stalwarts in the dust.

Thanks again for the type-up, very nice and very informative. I hope you get modded up!

It could be P2P

[sharph]

Or it could be the people just boycotting the RIAA. Theres too much good indie stuff out and not much great stuff from the major labels.

To the RIAA: maybe your sales are down because you suck.

everybody should go here: www.downhillbattle.org

- Sharp

7% in Dollars - how about CDs?

[Mr. Underbridge]

As we all know, the recording industry recently got busted for price-fixing or something similar, with the result that they aren't able to charge as much, per CD, now as they did before.

I would love to see sales volume in units sold, not revenue, and I bet the reason why we haven't seen that is because it doesn't reflect a decrease. Also, I'm so sick of seeing numbers showing net decreases since 1999 - what HASN'T decreased since then, except unemployment?

Re:7% in Dollars - how about CDs?

[shark72]

"As we all know, the recording industry recently got busted for price-fixing or something similar, with the result that they aren't able to charge as much, per CD, now as they did before."

I love these "as we all know..." statements. "As many Slashdotters think to be true..." is a more accurate phrase in most cases. In the case of the price fixing settlement, it was just a few stores, a few years ago, and there is nothing preventing those stores from continuing to sell at the same price. The record companies made the same amount of money regardless of the stores' markup. The record companies got in trouble for giving co-op advertising money to a few chains in exchange for MAPs (minimum advertised pricing) -- a practice which is common in many industries. The record companies did this because the Wal-Marts and Best Buys of the world were selling music at little or no margin as an incentive to draw people into the store, and the smaller CD-only chains (like Tower Records) were hurting.

Otherwise, your comment is spot-on. Average CD prices are falling, thanks to piracy and other factors affecting the supply-and-demand curve. A good part of the reason why total revenues are down is because the record companies are selling the CDs into distribution for less.

Re:7% in Dollars - how about CDs?

[Mr. Underbridge]

I love these "as we all know..." statements. "As many Slashdotters think to be true..." is a more accurate phrase in most cases. In the case of the price fixing settlement, it was just a few stores, a few years ago, and there is nothing preventing those stores from continuing to sell at the same price. The record companies made the same amount of money regardless of the stores' markup. The record companies got in trouble for giving co-op advertising money to a few chains in exchange for MAPs (minimum advertised pricing) -- a practice which is common in many industries. The record companies did this because the Wal-Marts and Best Buys of the world were selling music at little or no margin as an incentive to draw people into the store, and the smaller CD-only chains (like Tower Records) were hurting.

I'm aware of that, and I didn't want to get into the details. That said, the industries numbers, as quoted by them, weren't their revenue (ie, money from Best Buy, etc) but *retail* sales numbers, which were in fact affected by that decision. That's one reason why one can suggest that there are forces pushing retail, dollar sales down without invoking any sort of piracy argument. At the very least, the picture is nowhere near as simple as portrayed.

Someone had to say it....

[Trolling4Dollars]

It's also mentioned that "a strong second-half recovery in the United States, Britain and Australia... has raised hopes that the worst is behind the beleaguered industry"

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *The RIAA community when recently IDC confirmed that *The RIAA accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Slashdot Troll survey which plainly states that *The RIAA has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *The RIAA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Music Industry Sales test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *The RIAA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *The RIAA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *The RIAA because *The RIAA is dying. Things are looking very bad for *The RIAA. As many of us are already aware, *The RIAA continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. Warner Elektra Asylum is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its listeners.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

An RIAA leader states that there are 7000 consumers of WEA merchandise. How many users of the RIAA are there? Let's see. The number of WEA versus Columbia sales is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Columbia consumers. The RIAA saless figures are about half of the volume of Columbia sales. Therefore there are about 700 consumers of RIAA merchandise. A recent article put The RIAA at about 80 percent of the total music industry market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 RIAA consumers. This is consistent with the number of RIAA purchases vs. illegal downloads.

Due to the troubles of K-Tel, abysmal sales and so on, WEA went out of business and was taken over by AOL who sell another troubled product. Now AOL is also dying, its corpse soon to be turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that The RIAA has steadily declined in market share. The RIAA is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If The RIAA is to survive at all it will be among old business model holdouts. The RIAA continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, The RIAA is dead.

Fact: The RIAA is dead

Next Week: Someone tell Jack Valenti that he's been dead for the past twenty years or... OMIGAWD HE'S A ZOMBIE!!!! ;P

7.6%? My god, it's the second coming of christ.

[douglasmc]

7.6 percent... what has this world come to? God must be punishing us for having such hateful music.... or maybe... people have realized that most "artists" under the RIAA haven't put out anything worth buying? call me crazy... but last time i checked... the RIAA was single-handedly attacking its customers with lawsuits. maybe people are fighting back? I'm sorry, but this "we are victims" ethos is starting to get old. what can you expect? you sue the people who buy from you, and than complain when they want to cut ties. interesting... maybe its time for a re-evalulate your strategy Mister Bainwol.

The professional Economics of all this

[mac666er]

The same topics have been circulating for a while now in slashdot... the pirating, how CD sales are going down and how is DRM to help/fix/damage this...

I do believe that slashdotters are from all earth citizens... the bunch who are nearer to understanding the problem.

That is however a problem in itself. Do the average Joe or heck.. do even RIAA or the firms they represent, understand the problem? not at all...

I am currently a postgraduate student in Economics, and I am writing my dissertation (Thesis) on all of this. Several top schools (Chicago/Harvard) can't even agree by using postgraduate economic measurements if there has been ANY impact of P2P on CD sales.

What are we to do then? The problem is, as I said, a monstrous amount of misinformation. The all time cliche that we fear what we don't understand is specially true now. Two centuries ago Luddites smashed machines in England to *prevent* technological progress from displacing artisans... and of course, the government supported them... until they needed the machines to combat famine and other economic shocks...

Is piracy wrong? of course. Are we, users of kazaa and bit torrent, to blame? partly... the other persons responsible to that are the record labels themselves that didn't provide a business model before Napster came along. Had they understood the market.. they would have invested on it ages before and we would be enjoying new technological progress on music.. and later movies and software...But no.. they decided to sit on their comfortable sofas and watch the eternal kingdom of CDs.

But businesses that forget to watch technological trends are just too many. And we never learn. Of course a natural answer is to use the law or some other means to savage whatever is left of what they don't want to believe, but definately is, a sinking ship... I can safely bet that if Kodak could sue digital camera users they surely would.. that is certainly less expensive than investing tons on R&D and assesing the new tech threat.

Our children will still be complaining of how a company should stop protecting its old business model instead of promoting innovation. It always happens.

The answer lies in the record labels themselves.. the CD market is a gonner... they have to provide new ways to entice users to buy content... Did anyone care to buy the same CD even if they had an old vynil record? of course not... Did anyone complain in buying the same DVDs again in order to update your VHS libraries.. of course not... and that is because there is extra value on the new technology... (nonlinear search and extra features anyone?)

Come up with a new idea to sell content, *that is your job* spend on Research.. and customers wil surely come in droves... just see the i-pod...

Just my 2 cents...

Re:The professional Economics of all this

[KD5YPT]

I like your idea. I'm an engineer, and engineers create cool new stuff for the masses (and some obscure items that made stuff like flash-memeory works). More job for the engineers!

Huh?

[dolo666]

> All the sudden, it's magically proven that P2P has no effect on sales simply because their are online music stores.

I think that you, and the RIAA for that matter, would be significantly overlooking the facts if you believe P2P is the root of a 7.6% demand reduction, so rather than trolling slashdot about how I might be making magic bullet theories, you should take a hard look at your own magic bullet theories, and the theories of a largely corrupt and morally inept organization such as the RIAA, who sue children and have stormtroopers on their payroll (thugs, really).

Online music stores, such as Apple's store, have contributed to about 150% of that 7.6%, so if anything these downloaders have driven a global increase in music sales in the last five years, and not the other way around.

I'm buying CDs

[eddy]

<"I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy"

The last few weeks I've ordered two copies of Machinae Supremacy - Deus Ex Machinae, and one each of Dark Tranquillity - Live Damage (DVD), Dia Psalma - Efter Allt, In Flames - Soundtrack to your escape (digi) -- and just now I'm thinking that maybe I should complete my collection with a few more old albums on CD, like In Flames' Colony and Lunar Strain.

Let's see..
Number of albums from hugh evil record labels: 0
Number of albums with copy-prevention mechanisms: 0.
Yes, all good.

anecdote

[enigmatichmachine]

my friends and i found an old Len cd( quite possibly the worst band ever) "can't stop the bum rush" from 1999, we dug it outa someones garage put it into the cd player, and were amazed how bad they were, It was like those propaganda films from the 40's about the Japs~ blatantly obvious now that the label was telling these kids how to sound, but at the time, a cd with metal, hip hop, techno, and pop was just a testament to how good this band was? i hear it now and i realise how fake it sounds... now i download a single song at a time and don't get to be led by the riaa. to bad 14 year olds still look for someone, anyone to tell them who to be...

History Repeats Itself

[jedi-monkey]

The music industry is failing to see that this was the same problem, in general, that the United States and Europe faced right before the Great Depression: Big firms would sell things and expect that to be the reason for people to buy their wares. Not until they realized that they actually had to meet the demands of their customers! Determine the needs, the wants of the market Develop products that cater Continue at step 1 Has the RIAA forgot the basics of business?

Don't speak for the masses, but....

[Elpacoloco]

I am never buying a CD again. Ever.

The RIAA regularly insults my intelligence, and if I want music, then from now on I'll just make it myself.

Re:Don't speak for the masses, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

I am never buying a CD again. Ever. The RIAA regularly insults my intelligence, and if I want music, then from now on I'll just make it myself.

Same goes for me and porn.

Well come on...

[Fussen]

Well come on folks! I'm not surprised at all.
Honestly, if it's Justin Timberlake , Beyonce and 50 cent holding up the fort then piracy isn't the only problem they have.

Good job to EMI for cutting the niche artists and leaving us with good ol' J.Woodwater.

I personally wish that the music industry would understand what type of wakeup call this actually is.

And there is a nice format called DVD-Audio or even better SACD which they could try using. Give us something technically amazing for our money since the music itself is absolute garbage.

Hey - Don't be Dissin' Abba!

[Petersko]

I'm serious. I've got everything in my collection... from Bach to Tool, every genre. And Abba is some pretty terrific stuff. They wrote music people love to sing - even today. Their music, decades later, is still in the public consciousness.

In fact, I was listening to a live cut of "Does Your Mother Know" yesterday.

Somewhat OT, sorry

[LesPaul75]

I have this idea I've been toying with for a while... I think that it can be scientifically proven that copyright (especially regarding music) is

1) Nonsensical
2) Not enforceable

I'm certain that lots of attempts have been made along these lines, but has anyone ever sat down and put together a well-written, somewhat technical proof along these lines? It might go something like this...

1) It's nonsense because anything (e.g. a song) that is represented digitally is absolutely nothing more than a single, very large number. A long string of ones and zeros. How can a number be eligible for copyright? Can I apply for a copyright on every number from zero to infinity? What about just some finite set of numbers that are roughly the right size to represent a three minute song? Also, if an artist owns a copyright on a song, how can you prove that a large number stored on a computer is an actual representation of that song? What if I change the filename from "John Doe - Some Song.mp3" to "ABCDEF.XYZ"? Then, when I double click the file, nothing happens -- no music is heard, because my operating system doesn't recognize the "XYZ" extension, so it doesn't run Winamp. Is the very large number stored on my hard disk no longer a song, just because the name changed? What if I remove all of the bits (such as ID3 tags) that might identify the very large number as music? Is it still music? What if I randomly flip a few bits from zero to one or vice-versa within the very large number? It's not the same number any more, but does it still represent the same song? How many bits within this very large number do I have to flip before it no longer represents a song? What if I take a picture with my digital camera and save it to my hard disk, and that file happens to be the exact same very large number that represents a piece of music? Am I violating that musician's copyright by saving that JPEG on my hard disk?

2) It's not enforceable because the brain stores information, and there is no (reasonable) way to erase that information. Once I've heard a song, I may remember it, without even meaning to. It is stored in my brain. This process is absolutely no different than my storing a numeric representation of a song (e.g. an MP3) on my hard disk. How can one of these acts be legal, while the other is not? What if, in the near future, technology is developed that can improve human memory? What if I could install a hard disk in my brain that automatically remembered every song that I hear, with 100% quality? Would I then be violating a copyright just by listening to a song and remembering it? That may be pure science fiction, but I doubt that anyone would be surprised if this technology became available within this century. We already rely on computers to remember mountains of information for us. What's the difference between remembering someone's phone number, using your brain, and writing it down on a piece of paper? The information is exactly the same, either way. A piece of music is simply a very large phone number.

QED. :) Well, I suppose I would want to elaborate a little more. But you get the idea.

Re:Somewhat OT, sorry

[LesPaul75]

And, this gives me another idea. What if I wrote a peer-to-peer application that let users share only numbers? You can copy any portion of the ones and zeros that happen to be stored on my hard disk to your hard disk. It's not music, it's not a JPEG, it's just a number. Do with it what you will. If you happen to take that number and save it in a file called "John Doe - Some Song.mp3" then that's your prerogative. All I gave you was a number. Would there be anything illegal about that transfer of information?

What would we call this app? Maybe "Numbster?" Genius.

Re:Somewhat OT, sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new at all. A vinyl is just a piece of plastic with a groove scratched in it. Same things apply with your changing bits or making your own bit of plastic with a groove in it that happens to be a song.

The thing that matters is intent: if you think up a large number and save it to a file that's one thing. If you copy a number from the file system on a CD then that's clearly copying the song.

Why do I hate the record industry? Let me count

[rbird76]

the ways...

1) Collusion (for which their customers got what - a whole $14 apiece?) in the sale of music - companies helped set the pricing of music despite what their customers would have told them had they listened.

2) the incestous relationship between radio stations and record (or at least many stations) - stations get goods and prizes for promoting bands (given by the labels) and so play the songs the labels want played, over and over and over... This wouldn't be so bad but the contraction in the ownership of radio means that many of the choices that would have existed for promoting bands outside of the RIAA don't exist. Thus people hear lots of homogenized crap on the radio and have the means to choose only which homogenized crap they listen to. (The RIAA has done their best to inhibit Internet radio, which would have undermined this as well).

3) Trying to take its users' fair use rights by copy protection. Since "copy protection" doesn't stop large-scale pirates or even moderately savvy copyright infringers, the only person who is stopped by copyright protection is the one who buys the music and follows the law. Essentially, the labels want to sell people's fair use rights to them, even though those rights aren't theirs to sell.

4) The music industry wants to sell albums with lots of filler - people want to buy good songs, not filler. So, instead of changing the quality or price of what they sold, labels ignored their customers and figured that their customers would always buy what they sold. Only because of illegal downloading of songs did things like iTunes, etc. come into play, filling a niche the music companies willfully ignored. When Napster and its spawn came, people could get what they wanted for free, but the system became popular not only because people could get something for nothing, but because it also gave them something they wanted (and couldn't get otherwise).

The record companies' business model was always doomed - as long as your plan is to sell crap (or good stuff mixed with crap) at your price, it will eventually fail, because either people will stop buying or some other company will steal your market. Their model isn't flawed because of the pursuit of copyright infringement (although their methods are heavy-handed and counterproductive, and the penalties assessed disproportionate); the need to pursue copyright infringement so zealously wouldn't exist had the industry treated its customers as if it wanted to earn their money rather than as if its customers' money were theirs by right. The RIAA figured it had 300M sheep for shearing - only now have they realized that some of the sheep have teeth, and 60M angry sheep can do nasty things to their shearers.

LP

[gcore]

Well, its been a couple of years since last time i bought a CD.
LP is the way to go, sounds better, looks better.

Sad though that Britney doesnt release her records on vinyl :/

Rampant?

[jav1231]

How big is 7.6% relative to similar markets? How does it compare to other drops in sales in the past for the recording industry?

interesting words

[iLEZ]

... interesting words ...

Dire Straits said it well...

[Anonymous Coward]

You get a shiver in the dark
It's been raining in the park but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowing Dixie double four time
You feel all right when you hear that music ring

You step inside but you don't see too many faces
Coming in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Too much competition too many other places
But not too many horns can make that sound
Way on downsouth way on downsouth London town

You check out Guitar George he knows all the chords
Mind he's strictly rhythm he doesn't want to make it cry or sing
And an old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing

And Harry doesn't mind if he doesn't make the scene
He's got a daytime job he's doing alright
He can play honky tonk just like anything
Saving it up for Friday night
With the Sultans with the

Amd a crowd of young boys they're fooling around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don't give a damn about any trumpet playing band
It ain't what they call rock and roll
And the Sultans played Creole

And then the man he steps right up to the microphone
And says at last just as the time bell rings
'Thank you goodnight now it's time to go home'
and he makes it fast with one more thing

Re:Dire Straits said it well...

[iminplaya]

They also said it pretty well in "Money for Nothing"

Yet anothering meaningless statistic.

[tassii]

RIAA claims 7.6% decrease in CD sales, but what were the stats for:

• Internet Sales
• Cassette Sales
• Total Sales
• Number of new CDs produced
• The Economy

I think that once you add all those up, you'll find that there was an actual INCREASE in profits.

CDs is a medium that is slowly being replaced by mp3s & other digital music players. I would fully expect the sales to drop. Soon, it will be the same as vinyl records.

Get over it. Move on. The world keeps turning even if you refuse to come along.

Buying music/CDs...

[_Griphin_]

What was the last few CDs you bought?!? Myself, I tend to buy more independant music then major label work, only because I like to meet the band and swing them a few dollars to show my appreciation (I bought 2 CDs this weekend from bands I saw, total cost = $8!!!). Perhaps this is where the major artists go wrong, if they were more fan friendly and sold there CDs at the gigs, then more fans would buy there CD. But alas, I babble. Peace...

Plagiarism, originally appeared on trollaxor.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod the parent down.

Instead of the services of the RIAA:

[uqbar]

maybe they should be getting behind a group like the Future of Music Coalition. They're doing brilliant work and have the interests on musician in mind when they look at the problems and promise of new technologies.

well If they

[abolith]

stopped trying to sell me nothing but crap-ass music maybe I would buy more. but for now my music money goes to more video games...and a new HD as mine went up in flames last night :P

Personal sales up 5000+ %

[eLoco]

I have purchased more CDs this year than in all other years of my life combined. I attribute that to three things:

1. Getting an iPod (40GB) - I have this almost inexplicable need to fill it up.
2. Downloading music - I get to "test drive" music before I buy.
3. Amazon - indentifying and rating the albums I own leads to some interesting recommendations.

blah blah blah

[SammysIsland]

blah blah blah.... i know this is going to get some response like "oooooo... you can't break the law, i'm telling", but i can't sit here silent, so i will try to make this simple. it doesn't matter what anyone thinks or what laws we create. as long as we are capable of transferring data at high rates, data will no longer be worth any money. nothing easily attainable with infinite supply is worth money. it doesn't matter if artists need to eat. they are going to have to get a day job. let's be realistic here! the music industry is SOL

Uh, huh

[0x0d0a]

...has raised hopes that the worst is behind the beleaguered industry"...

Since when is a 7.6% drop (especially after a major boom) a sign of a "beleagured industry", especially for a luxury item?

haven't heard anything you want to buy?

[jeff munkyfaces]

I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy... how about you?

Is that because you downloaded the stuff you don't like quite as much instead?

I've certainly found that as well as finding new music i do want to buy, i've also heard a lot of music i thought would be good, which turned out to be awful.

DVD vs CD economics

[MarkCarson]

A movie DVD has maybe 4.7 GB (and often much more with dual layering and 2 discs in the package) of data, a CD has less than 700 MB. The movie soundtrack is on the DVD with the movie for maybe $17. The soundtrack (only) CD runs maybe $2 - $4 less and has a lower value (audio only) which is not in proportion to its price.

Its simple, CDs are not a good value for the money at current prices. If they cost $5 to $7, they would sell at LOT more CDs and make more profit on the greater volumne (heck the media is pennies per disc).

If they moan that the distribution costs of packing and shipping physical media does not support this price range (which is B.S. by the way), then all the more reason to have an Internet based delivery price model which is less than the physical CD from the store.

The RIAA's profits are down because they are greedy (and stupid) and are ignoring changing economics and technology shifts. But we know that...(and yes most of today's music is crap. The only CDs I buy are of 20 - 30 year old songs).

Study Says File-Sharing Has No Impact On Sales

[crashnbur]

Well, almost no impact. According to a new study, "downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero". Monday's NYTimes (free registration) describes the study, in which two economists analyzed file-sharing and sales data over a 17-week period in 2002, using "complex mathematical formulas" to determine that "spikes in downloading had almost no discernible effect on sales", and estimating that "it would take 5000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy". Naturally, some organizations disagree. Also, according to the RIAA's 2003 year end numbers [PDF], sales of CD singles were up 84% from 2002, while overall revenue shrunk from $11.55 to $11.05 billion... which makes perfect sense when you consider economic tendencies since 9/11.

A decent year for me in the new release department

[leviramsey]

Per the RIAA definitions, I've bought nine new CDs in 2003 (the most since 2000 for me):

• Metallica, St. Anger (excellent album; the title track is the only bad song)
• Queensryche, Tribe (better than St. Anger at blending traditional $BAND's music with nu-metal, but of not the same level of uniform quality)
• Rush, In Rio (best live album I've ever heard)
• Rush, Hold Your Fire (filling out my Rush collection; already had in compressed digital format)
• Rush, Signals (ditto)
• Rush, A Farewell to Kings (ditto)
• Rush, Chronicles DVD + Moving Pictures CD (ditto)

[In Rio, being three CDs counts as three sales for RIAA purposes]

I am at the stage where I'll buy any studio or live release from artists that have been of a consistently high level of quality. Other than that, I'm not that interested.

Look at the Source

[BigBadBri]

More grist for the RIAA mill on P2P?

Just look at the source - CNN, owned by Time Warner, which just happens to own 9 member companies of the RIAA: Atlantic (including Atlantic Catalog Group, Atlantic Classics and Atlantic Nashville), Elektra (including Elektra Asylum, Elektra Catalog Group, Elektra Entertainment and Elektra Musician), and Rhino (including Rhino Exclusive, Rhino Handmade, Rhino Music Video, Rhino Records, Rhino/Slash and Rhino/Warner).

Now explain why 'piracy' might appear ahead of the more likely reasons for the decline in sales, rather than left as an afterthought as it should be.

CD sales rise inspite of downloading.....

[OneArmedMan]

According to this artical on The Register..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/29/uk_oz_al bu m_sales_rise/

which also links to Syndey Morning Herald.com.au

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/28/108041 22 34274.html

sales toped 50 Million albums, for the first time ever *increasing* over the last 4 years despite music downloading etc..

dont listen to all the bull shit that the Music Industry is trying to feed you.

(ps sorry for the txt links, my brain is too mushed for html this time of hte morning )

liars

[CAIMLAS]

I say they pulled these 'causes' out of their collective corporate asses so as to further their cause. How do they know that 'piracy, poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs' are the cause of their shortcoming sales?

Piracy
Piracy is the industry's perpetual phantom whipping boy. Studies have shown that, contrary to their claims, piracy seems to increase CD sales. At the very least, it's a controversal issue, and in no way could legitimately be claimed as a cause for decreased sales. Thus: this item is pure propaganda. The fact that it's first on their list only drives the point home what their intentions are.

poor economic conditions
No suprise there. everyone is undergoing tough times. People have to adapt to the changing business landscape, or they will die. The only thing that makes the RIAA companies think they're any different is that they're an established monopoly, and they think they can use this change to their advantage.

competition from video games and DVDs
No, this isn't competition. This is simple economics. People would rather spend their money on a different product. Competition comes into play when the products are similar and directly competing for dollars - such as, say, independent labels (which very well might be the case). It's like saying that motorcycles are competition for automobiles: they aren't, generally speaking. People still purchase cars if they own a motorcycle, and vice versa (if indeed the person has an interest in a motorcycle). The real crux of the matter is that there simply isn't a demand for CDs, as they suck. People don't want to buy a new Ford Taurus, because they're all the same fucking thing, from year to year. Humvees, VWs, and other trendy vehicles have appeal because they change.

I think what the industry is seeing is a decrease in people who simply hear a song on the radio, and then spend nearly $20 for the full CD. People are becoming more 'educated' about music. They'll either grab the MP3 they want online, or more likely, they'll find bands that have more than just a single good song per CD online, and then purchase their albums (as I and most of my friends do). Very rarely does it seem that these bands are anything but independent. There's also much more of a "music culture" surrounding good music - all the more incentive to listen to it and not the radio silt.

Um, mild recession anyone?

[crashnbur]

Whether we actually hit a recession is not at issue here. Instead, we should focus on the fact that the media has for two years been blaming the Bush administration for what many have called a recession (mild though it may have been). And when the American public here's that less money is on the way, they're probably not going to spend as much on non-necessities like music CDs.

Consider also that the US economy is about 1/5 of the global economy, and combine the slow growth or decline of other major economies around the world, and you've got a global consumer base not as interested in purchasing CDs as they were, say, four years ago.

If we've got the money to spend, most of us spend it, and most of us aren't disciplined enough to hold back from buying frivolous items like music CDs. File-sharing does not detract from CD sales by any significant margin, and even if it does, I say that's a good thing. The entertainment industry needs a reality check. Entertainment is a frivolous and superficial financial venture if there ever was one, and I think we could be spending our money a helluva lot more wisely than on music... and we could be sending the entertainment industry a message, that it should not command such insanely high prices for "popular" entertainment that has no direct beneficial impact on our lives.

You're better off spending your money on charities, furthering education, and making house payments.

So Start Selling CDs Again!

[Grail]

What they don't tell you is that the reason CD sales are down by 7% is because CD production is down by 20%. People are buying more music, but so much of it is copyright-protected optical media that the CDs are becoming extinct.

My CD purchasing is down 100% - the last three albums I wanted to buy were not CDs, they were "copyright protected" media. They won't work in my Strawberry iMac, and thanks to the "Free" Trade Agreement that our foolish Government has signed with the USA, it is now illegal for me to import my albums into iTunes anyway. I don't have a stereo system - I have a computer and a pair of desktop speakers. The only CD readers I have in the house are CD-ROM drives.

I contend that if the music industry was to start publishing CDs again, CD sales would increase.

statistically indistinguishable from zero?

[Innominandum]

A study of file-sharing's effects on music sales says online music trading appears to have had little part in the recent slide in CD sales.

For the study, released Monday, researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, matching data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs and albums being downloaded. Even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero," they wrote.

"We find that file sharing has only had a limited effect on record sales," the study's authors wrote. "While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing."

The study, the most detailed economic modeling survey to use data obtained directly from file-sharing networks, is sure to rekindle debates over the effects of widely used software such as Kazaa or Morpheus on an ailing record business.

Big record labels have seen their sales slide precipitously in the past several years, and have blamed the falling revenue in large part on rampant free music downloads online. Others have pointed to additional factors, such as lower household spending during the recession, and increased competition from other entertainment forms such as DVDs and video games, each of which have grown over the same time period.

Executives at file-sharing companies welcomed the survey, saying it should help persuade reluctant record company executives to use peer-to-peer networks as distribution channels for music "We welcome sound research into the developing peer-to-peer industry, and this study appears to have covered some interesting ground," said Nikki Hemming, chief executive officer of Kazaa parent Sharman Networks. "Consider the possibilities if the record industry actually cooperated with companies like us instead of fighting."

The study, performed by Harvard Business School associate professor Felix Oberholzer and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill associate professor Koleman Strumpf, used logs from two OpenNap servers in late 2002 to observe about 1.75 million downloads over their 17 week sample period.

That sample revealed interesting behavioral, as well as economic, data. Researchers found that the average user logged in only twice during that period, downloading about 17 songs. Some people vastly overshot that average, however--one user apparently logged in 71 times, downloading more than 5,000 songs.

The two professors narrowed their sample base by choosing a random sample of 500 albums from the sales charts of various music genres, and then compared the sales of these albums to the number of associated downloads.

Even in the most pessimistic version of their model, they found that it would take about 5,000 downloads to displace sales of just one physical CD, the authors wrote. Despite the huge scale of downloading worldwide, that would be only a tiny contribution to the overall slide in album sales over the past several years, they said.

Moreover, their data seemed to show that downloads could even have a slight positive effect on the sales of the top albums, the researchers said.

The study is unlikely to be the last word on the issue. Previous studies have been released showing that file sharing had both positive and negative effects on music sales.

The Recording Industry Association of America was quick to dismiss the results as inconsistent with earlier findings.

"Countless well-respected groups and analysts, including Edison Research, Forrester, and the University of Texas, among others, have all determined that illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs," RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said in a statement. "Our own surveys show that those who are downloading more are buying less."

http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5181562.html?par t= rss&tag=feed&subj=news

CD Sales Down - so what

[Anonymous Coward]

The economy is down 10 percent, and CD sales are only down 7.6 percent. Not a bad ratio.

What the RIAA needs to do is realize that the problem is not simple piracy, but a matter of new distribution models. The internet allows them to distribute mass markets without the mass overhead.

They can still burn and ship CD's, but the overhead makes pricing undesirable for the majority.

A facility to download and burn your own CD's makes more sense, with traditional store bought if you want. If the RIAA stopped bitching about piracy, and started thinking about how to implement a fair distribution policy, they'd make money.

It's about the inability of the MPAA/RIAA to think beyond thier current business models and contemplate the new distribution landscape, which would save them a shitload of money, allow us to get a reasonable price for content, and still pay the artists a decent percentage.

Until then, fuck you RIAA. Your dinosaur tactics will not prevent the development and implementation of better, more cost effective, and market favorable distribution models.

tangibles and intangibles

[zogger]

--to me, a reproduced text in dead tree form is worth X-money,it is a tangible that actually requires a bit of material cost, machinery cost, getting the trees, setting the presses, etc. It is still failry expensive to make, but not near as much as a few hundred years ago. Times changed. I won't pay any sort of exorbitant fee for a dead tree book, but I will purchase more reasonably priced works, and I purchase mostly used now, because I think even there the prices are inflated.

And yes, writers could if they so choose go on tour and read aloud their works, with the appropriate accents, inflections, etc as they wanted their work to represent. They could charge for that if they so chose, or let a theater company reproduce it live, and that is still being done. If it's in digital form sometime, it is worth much less if it's available to download and copy. It's not worth the same as an original work, or the dead trees reproductions are. It's a matter of degree and function. If you physically destroy what I have done last week, then yes, that is destroyed, you have destroyed an actual tangible, and I have no recourse other than to do the same amount of work all over again, which I do anyway. If there was some easy way for me to replicate my skills as applied to my labor, (same as artists can now replicate their skills very cheaply in an intangible form),to make copies of it, no way would I consider those copies to be of much value, I certainly wouldn't expect to be paid some never ending huge fee for those copies-and someday that might be possible, too. For now, intangibles as represented by sounds and visual images are extremely cheap to replicate, wheras in the not so far past, it was very expensive, and impossible in some cases, to reproduce them without resorting to exactly the same amount of skill and labor. The musician had to perform again, the actor had to mount the stage again. The book writer had to hand scribe another copy. It was expensive, labor intensive, and those sorts of tangible copies were valuable, and they got paid, but if they didn't work again, then no pay. Today, nope, copies of that sort of work are cheap, cheap, cheap, easy to do by almost anyone with a minimum of inexpensive equipment. The entertainment industry wants to stave off the inevitable, and frankly, they won't be successful, because it's ridiculous to try and stop humanity and technology moving forward. You can't turn back the clock. I say, let them make what the market will bear for an original-a live performance, actually working, but for the copies? Those copies are worth a nickle or a penny or something miniscule like that, even stamped or burnt on a piece of plastic and distributed, they aren't worth what they are charging, people know it, hence they don't want to pay it, and they aren't.

It's really that simple.

And it's because of technological advances, such that those industries want to monopolise and keep for themselves, but the vast majority of people are saying "uhh, I'm allowed to use this technology also". That's what's happening, and why it is happening.

No, I don't believe in royalties for intangibles, not in this day and age. No Way. Nope. Don't think so. We've had another one of them dad burn "paradigm shifting" moments in time, happens once in awhile, we all got to get with the program.

And I WEOLCOME the time that you may FREELY enjoy copying what I do for labor,what gets produced when I apply my skills and my labor to an end result, you are most welcome to it free of charge just as soon as the technology is there for that to occur, and I wish you well, I will seek no residuals or royalties from it. If you want a custom original, done in real time, I will provide it, that will cost you, but if it's replicable easily and cheaply, more power to you sir, enjoy! I look forward to it myself!

Re:tangibles and intangibles

[abertoll]

Yes, and don't forget the Music industry had to be CONVINCED to adopt the CD format because they thought it might hurt their sales to produce something which has such a long life span. Apparently they were counting on you needing more than one copy of that tape cassette. Now new technology has come up again, and there's no way they can either approve or disapprove of people adopting it. They aren't in control anymore.

Re:tangibles and intangibles

[MidnightBrewer]

The only problem with the "artists should do live performances" and "there should be no royalties" is this: incentive. The industry would collapse, and a whole lot of other industries dependent on that business would be hurt, too. So, great utopian theory, but no. It goes back to the argument, "Why should I pay for someone's software?" Because they gotta eat, that's why.

This idea is not a brilliant leap forward, but rather a backslide to how things were in the Bad Olde Days hundreds of years ago, when artists didn't get paid crap to do what they did. Limiting reimbursement to live performances, etc., is a sure way to accomplish two things: put the artists out of business, thus reducing our cultural heritage. Also, by limiting their exposure, you again reduce our cultural heritage, since without those vaporous media previews, nobody will have ever heard of them.

Why do artists get paid royalties? Usually, they're not that high, and if you don't like the royalty, you don't have to license the work. If the royalties demanded are too high, the artist simply can't get any contracts. On the other hand, it doesn't do for the distributors to make money hand over fist for sales while the artist gets paid only a pittance (which seems to be the actual fact in the music industry.) If you can't get paid everything up front, then get paid back in smaller installments over time. You know, like when you sell copies of software, you get reimbursed for the development costs. Same idea.

The better argument is, "Why should we pay high prices for complete crap?" Easy answer: don't. Nobody's forcing you to. There is a lot of so-called art out there that is truly drivel, but enough of it is good (despite the best efforts of the suits) to justify spreading it around. Bet you paid to go see Lord of the Rings, didn't you?

In the end, art is a luxury item. You can argue all you want that the prices are unfair, but since it's not actually a necessity of life, you don't actually have to buy it. I don't like the RIAA and I don't like the high prices. I think they have a truly retarded attitude towards copying and file sharing, as, despite their bitching about loss of sales, they're still raking in obscene amounts of money.

I've lived in Germany, the US, and Japan, and I have a pretty good idea why the sales are going down. In the US and Japan, the prices are simply too high (Japan is double that of the US, for absolutely no good reason at all.) Germany is actually half the price of the US (in other words, a fair price), but has the highest piracy rate in Europe, be it software, music, or movies.

Japan has one situation that makes piracy even more likely, and is pretty humorous: rental stores not only rent CDs, they actually put the play time and how many tapes or MDs you'd have to buy to record it, so no surprise at the problem there. Not exactly discouraging people, are they? "Let's charge some of the highest prices in the world and then encourage people to pirate the media!" Interestingly, people are still willing to buy the original when it's someone's music they really like.

Re:tangibles and intangibles

[one4nine4two]

Quote from the news blurb (or blurb from the news quote):

"I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy...

I always hear this argument every time some music sales statistics surface and sales are down again, and it always comes from the P2P zealots.

I thought the whole point of P2P was to put the power to the people. It gives us the power to listen to any music we haven't paid for (yet), and not let Clear Channel and MTV dictate what we should hear. We have practically any music available in the world in the world at our fingertips, and there's nothing out there?

The "anything new" part is what really shows the weakness of this response to poor music sales. Why do you have to buy new music? Whatever music you haven't heard is new to you. And it's not like mainstream music now is any worse than before, and there's always good indie/underground stuff coming out.

There's so much more out there. And that seems pretty obvious, but if it was then this "there's nothing new that's good" stance wouldn't keep coming up. If you think there's nothing good out to give you a reason to buy a CD, I pity you.

p.s. This isn't directed to parent. I just thought it was sort of related and didn't want to make a new thread.

Re:tangibles and intangibles

[Anonymous Coward]

"I thought the whole point of P2P was to put the power to the people. It gives us the power to listen to any music we haven't paid for (yet), and not let Clear Channel and MTV dictate what we should hear. We have practically any music available in the world in the world at our fingertips, and there's nothing out there?"

Take a look not a banner year to be sure. Also Napster was P2P for the masses and it is gone as it once was. Think about it many people are scared to download music and are not doing so. They are boycotting the product by not listening to any of it. And heck this is the experience in Canada where it is legal to use P2P software for music. Heck I had trouble convincing my father of 56 years to pay a bit more and get a Sony with ATRAC3 (complete cd/mp3 encoding to their format) when his old cd player died because of all the halibaloo. He bought between 20 and 36 cds a year when he used Napster. This year and last he bought maybe five cd's combined.

The problem is twofold, they hurt their own pipeline to his eardrums and they have not put out much of anything that he had heard and wanted to buy.

Sure he may not be their target demographic, but if there is enough collateral damage like him, I can easily believe more than 6.7% reduction in sales will be the norm.

Re:tangibles and intangibles

[Anonymous Coward]

It goes back to the argument, "Why should I pay for someone's software?" Because they gotta eat, that's why.

This argument is beginning to piss me off. You can't eat money so why don't we buy records with fruit, beans or some meat product? Because the "artists" want all the little luxeries in life too, that's why, not to mention the cut for the record executive. It has nothing to do with whether or not they can eat.

If all we were paying for was there food then we'd be paying 50bits a throw. Or perhaps you're suggesting that we should pay for their food for the rest of their life, despite the fact that we'll have forgotten about them in two years.

There is nothing worth buying

[unoengborg]

Groups that all sound alike, and shaped in a form that people are supposed to like is all there is.
No thanks I'm not interested.

And even if there was something I liked I would think twice before buying. There are so much non standard, copy protected CDs around that may or may not be playable on my equippment, and I'm not taking the risk that they won't play.

Besides the fact that the CDs are copy protected, sort of implicitly accuses me of being a thief. I don't like that, or at least not trustworthy. So they can keep their music.

How about...

[Bun]

...the fact that they're not really putting out music, but rather soundtracks for the product placement ads known as 'music videos'. It used to be that artists tried to write great songs. Now they're trying to come up with rhymes for 'Benz' or 'Courvoisier'. That entire industry is a friggin' joke, the music a parody of itself. The CBC (Canada) did a special on it last night called "Rhyme Pays" in their show, Market place. Check it out . It's quite an eye-opener. It's focused on the hip-hop industry, but I don't have a doubt that 'Blink Park' and whoever else is on the rock charts these days are doing the same thing.

Happy I'm Not In America

[Anonymous Coward]

wow.
shit like this makes me happy i'm not living in america. Of course, the us government will try to export these laws on the backs of 'trade agreements' and such and the larger DRM-favouring companies will lobby for these laws wherever they think they can make money.

I don't want to explain the concept of 'freedom of speech' or just plain 'freedom' to my future children but it's starting to look like i'll have to buy a license to say that sometime soon.

artists don't get anything

[p51d007]

The problem is that computer savy people know the cost of a blank CD, and the artists say they only get pennies per cd, then who gets all the money? The middle man! If the artists want more money, distribute it DIRECTLY to the end users. Look at shareware, no overhead. Plus, I've been to the music stores, there isn't anything but CRAP out there. Who wants to pay 12-18 dollars (US) for one or two good songs, and the rest is junk?

Modern Suicides^WMusic

[unfies]

Alternative/'rockrap' is filled with screechy little kids whining about what happened to them last night... or some other depressing drivel.

R&B is... a mix of 80's pop and 80's rap... and ... really.. isn't my style at all.

Modern metal is all... reflections of metallica's 'load' and 'reloaded'... inner reflections of ... boring attitudes.

I'm sorry, but there's not much in modern music that fits me. I'll stick with 80's hair bands, 60's to 80's metal, and classic rock (LedZep!) thank you.

At least there's happy feel good music in those selections unlike the cut-yourself-suicidal rantings of today.

Shouldn't /. let us vote why we buy less CD's ?!

[VitaminB52]

Come on, there are plenty of reasons why CD sales are down. Just to mention a few:

• People use illegal downloads (RIAA claim).
• People buy via Apple's iTunes.
• The economy: people have less money to spend, so they cut on non-essential purchases.
• The replacement effect: when the CD was introduced, people bought CDs when a) they wanted a new album or b) when they wanted a replament for their old LP's. Now all LP's have been replaced by CD's, that part of the CD sales disappears.
• The high CD prices, CD's are more expensive than LP's, but cost less to manufacture. Some people don't buy CD's anymore because they think CD's are too expensive.
• Demographic reason: the average age of the citizens is increasing, and it are the teenagers who buy most music. Fewer teenager, and more retired adults --> lower music sales.

It's hard to tell which reason has the biggest effect. It would be stupid (and a waste of time and money) when the RIAA fights P2P, while the real reason for the decline is the economy (or something else).

Maybe a Slashdot vote would tell us why Slashdot readers buy less CD's.

Let's compare music industry with porno industry

[xswl0931]

Anyone who's been on the interet knows that porno is probably traded as much as music. I'd like to see sales figures from porno producers to see if P2P had a negative, positive, or no effect. One thing the porno industry has done well is adapt to new technologies. From VHS to DVD to Internet.

Blame the companies!

[taxevader]

Things like the records companies shoving $100 million into Mariah Carey's comeback.. followed by her going nuts and trying to slit her wrists. Heads rolled at the record companies... but we're to blame for them losing money, somehow.

CNN: "Timberlake helped boost the business..."

[mankey wanker]

"Timberlake helped boost the business in the second half of 2003."

Is that a fucking joke? That's the problem right there!

give me something worthy of buying

[Anonymous Coward]

the mp3 revolution has only reinforced the fact that music was better way back when. The new industry crap, carefully aimed towards the Lowest Common Denominator (virginal sex ala Britney Spears; slut sex ala Christina A.; metro sexual crap like Justin Timberlake; then we have the macho music, like dipshit M&M who is so bad ass that he targets uber geek Moby! Come on!)

Forget the White Stripes give me Motorhead! Good Charlotte, good God, give me MDC. Dave Matthews, uh, well he is pretty good. I would buy that if I was dating a drum circle attending hippy chick.

MP3 file sharing has actually forced me into buying records and CDs I have never known. It has also saved me from buying the save fucking LP, tape, 8 Track, or CD over and over again because of "media failure." If those dicks at the RIAA were really concerned about justice, they would have replaced all of my abused records, tapes and CDs.

Sorry for the rant. I am drunk off of Bud Light and watching Paths of Glory.

Compare CD sales to DVD sales.

[Graphyx]

I find it interesting that the sales of CD's are supposedly declining, but DVD's that have a lower cost at times aren't decreasing at all. And as we all know, you can download movies on p2p applications. *GASP*

Re:Compare CD sales to DVD sales.

[Hitmouse]

Is it possible that people are now watching DVDs instaead of listening to CDs? Why hasn't the music industry stepped up to the opportunity of creating more hours in the week ... or for that matter, of creating more music that I'd want to buy?

CD sales or MUSIC sales?

[b0z0dcl0wn]

CD sales are down 7.6 percent. What about MUSIC sales? To my knowledge most European countries have MiniDisc as their standard music format these days; so globally yes CD sales should be down... right?

I think you have forgotten the non-geek market ...

[cdrguru]

The problem isn't that the RIAA and record companies don't understand they can distribute stuff on the Internet. Oh, they get that just fine. The problem is that a large percentage of their customer base wants something different.

• They don't have a broadband Internet connection.
• They don't have a CD writer.
• They don't want to hassle with it and just want a CD.

All of this represents well over 50% of the market, probably something more like 80%. So, there is still a need for shipping physical products to record stores.

I haven't seen anyone come up with anything except a lot of whining about how the RIAA and rest of the record industry just doesn't get it and how physical distribution is a dead end. Maybe someday when we all have fiber-to-home connections. Not today and not likely for years at least.

"Rampant piracy"

[ScrewMaster]

Too bad the RIAA's lawyers don't know how to properly apply the word piracy. Fortunately, the Federal Government still does (for the moment), although if the likes of Orrin Hatch get their way, the black eyepatch may make a comeback because we'll ALL be pirates.

One thing that interests me is the nature of extreme penalties and their effect on the population. One thing that we have learned is that mere threats hold little sway with the Amerian public (if we want something, we will have it, the ineffectiveness of Prohibition and gun control laws should have taught them that.) If that weren't so, the RIAA's current campaign would have effectively terminated sharing of copyrighted music the day it was implemented, as we would all be sitting in front of our computers quaking in our boots. Predictably, suing people at random has pretty much proven an ineffective strategy, one might even say it has failed miserably. It was bound to, but the RIAA has a mission to complete and they won't be diverted even if it leads to ruin.

However, if the RIAA succeeds in rewriting copyright to the point where a single download constitutes a felony and can mean jail time, the line between true piracy and simple copyright infringement will blur. At that point, I predict that there will be a substantial rise in the amount of true piracy going on. Right now, simple copyright infringement (as performed by twelve-year-old girls and grandmothers) is such a minor "crime" that the RIAA is having a hard time actually prosecuting anyone for it. The dichotomy is clear to most people: if you SELL someone else's music you're committing a crime. If you just listen to it, why, what's the harm in that?

If the penalties for casual copying begin to approach those applied to real media pirates, well, hell. One might as well try to make a few bucks off of that MP3 collection before getting sent up the river.

Some reasons

[Angst Badger]

Here are the reasons I'm not buying as much:

1. Um, the economy is in a slump, stupid. I'm not spending as much on anything I don't need because I don't want to be caught flat-footed in a layoff the way I was after the crash.

2. There hasn't been much new music in the last year that I've liked. What I have liked, I actually have bought.

3. I'm so disgusted by the RIAA that I've made a conscious effort to spend my spare change elsewhere. Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Borders have been the primary beneficiaries of this shift. They have these neat-o products called books that provide days and days of quality entertainment for less than the cost of a 74-minute CD. (Lately, for example, I've been rocking out to Ursula K. LeGuin in the cross-platform paperback format.)

4. CDs are still too expensive. For $15-$20, I expect to see the band live. In fact, I've been patronizing a lot more of the relatively unknown bands that roll through town because they're not regurgitating the same focus-group schlock as the big-name "artists".

Since four items is a bit much for the RIAA to absorb, let me summarize: "I don't have much money these days, your products suck, and I don't like you."

Please note that I did not say, "I am downloading MP3s happily," though that's what they will surely hear.

Re:Some reasons

[Backov]

So, the reason you're not buying:

"I am downloading MP3s happily,"

Pirate.

we are winning

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm glad to see my hard-headed music piracy over the course of these past years has finally done something good in the world. i admit, i'm only one person, but i'm confident that my work has truly made a difference. music is just one more type of information will eventually be constructed for the sake of construction, rather than the end result.

art centered around art, not art centered around a celebrity persona or specific label.

no doubt the music industry will die slowly, their huge excess of profits wasted on propping up the industry for the sake of the industry. the mega-rich people running the show will be sure to spend their money on yachts, mansions and other things that have no use beyond building around themselves the life-style of a "wealthy person". the vast majority of the massive fortunes accumulated will serve utterly no purpose in regards to contribution to society in a charitable fashion; the excuse of providing employment(serfdom) is sufficient reasoning to satiate the customer/slave oriented populace.

unfortunately, we are under the influence of an aristocracy with no class. our employers are there because they've got $$ in the eyes, not nobility or a quest for knowledge. the $$'s are a potent drug, as anyone who has received a cheque can attest. the system runs itself.. looks like it'll be directly into the ground, just like any natural system. a healthy transition will rely on plain good-will. the huge amount of people on earth
will :

a) die of starvation or
b) organize in the intersting of cultivating global civilization

it should be fairly obvious that the Earth is not capable of supporting 6-9,000,000,000 people indefinitely. the equation of money and self-image will quite simply have to be dead and gone before we can expect b) to occur. technology will undoubtedly play a role in the NewWorldOrder.. chemistry as well.. eventually we will have a device that can be implanted into the brain to either release a perfect drug that will eliminate competition or provide electrical stimulation to specific areas that will provide the same effect. both will involve sustained happiness/self-gratification previously unimagined within the context of daily life.

morality will suffer the biggest blow as global civilization developes. in fact, people will simply cease to care about primal emotions of anger, hate, prejudice, jealousy, etc, etc, etc.. we will be left with pure satiation of all desires and all of our actions will be - simply - ecstatic. it will take alterations in the normal functioning of the human brain to replace the up and down stimulation we get from things like money , video games, buying new useless junk we don't use and all the other stuff that is supposed to make life "worthwhile". those will be there in addition to inner-joy that will never have to be doubted or maintined; it will be existence itself. .. or more likely, a large portion of the population will be decimated in a war that lasts for many years, possibly involving nuclear bombs and other weapons with long-term environmental consequences. who knows.

rule #1 for global civilization(start at home) : don't buy things you can easily get for free. which means all information with a price tag attached to it.

i save all the money i would spend on binary information on marijuana. rule #2 for global civilization :
spend your money on weed. your purchase of marijuana does more for your local community than anything you can find at the store, the perfect drug is likely to be of a herbal formulation.

Really?

[Trailwalker]

I have to question the accuracy of these numbers. The record industry will selectively supply statistics to support any of their delusions.

If no other point be offered, they haven't incuded the numbers from non member suppliers of music CDs.

I suspect that inde music CD sales have greatly increased.

My reasons

[Platinum Dragon]

Aside from a lack of disposable income due to things like rent and food, my primary reason for a lack of CD purchases is the fear that I will have to jump through hoops to make a legal copy of the music on my hard drive. I don't have a standalone CD player, and while many CDs don't have copy prevention measures, I don't want to be surprised by one that does. I'm sorry, but I just don't feel like jumping through hoops to make legal use of a CD I purchase.

If anything, the fear of having to waste time on locating protection-defeating software is moving me to engage in more copyright-violating measures. I can think of about ten or fifteen CDs I would have purchased over the past year if I could be sure the discs would not be broken/"protected".

Probably OT here but...

[Chordonblue]

I suppose when you see an article concerning the RIAA it's safe to assume that this is a American concern. Nonetheless, please keep in mind that Canadian law insures that Canadian bands WILL get airplay - no matter how good they are.

I believe it's known as the 40/60 law and it covers TV and radio (which is why satellite versions of these are prohibited there.) Fully 40% of your programming has to come from Canada.

That's good, because there's a lot of great musicianship up there. One of my personal favorite bands of all time is Moxy Fruvous. Almost unknown here, but hugely popular in Toronto and Montreal. I've never seen a better, funnier live show.

It's a total shame Jian's on his own now, but I can understand their frustration. They tried to break into the American market in every which way and it just didn't take. Conclusion: They were too good for radio here.

Internet radio is maybe one of the reasons

[dimmerLight]

...free, varied and widely available. I personally listen to stations form all over the world, and only occasionally pop-in a cd tune, mostly when not working, playing games, running around or hanging out online, which I am doing most of the time.

I think the other reason might be that the volume of cd's have increased, but the quality of the art has declined overall, with the share of derivative music increasing. The music industry is trying to market made-up "idols", not original music and people simply aren't "buying it".

Reasons why I won't buy RIAA CDs

[themusicgod1]

1) The above-mentioned relationship between the main RIAA members, news(cnn), radio(clear channel), government(DMCA much?), and concert venues(clear channel). Now I can't trust anything I read, see or hear from the news, because It's obviously slanted if not outright bias(cnn). I Can't listen to the radio, becuase it's the same 15 songs, with 4:1 commercials in between. If the anti-terror laws hadn't killed most of the freedoms in north america, the media-machine would have, and more concert venues being owned means less and less orginal artists are even going to be able to start out...where would raves be held if it's illegal to rave anywhere but a preordained clearchannel concert venue, who don't think the revenue potential for holding a rave is worth holding one for? (ie, 12 year old raver chicks may not have enough cash, or whatever)

2) They harm artists. No one has collectively done more harm to artists than the RIAA, except mabye their umbrella group. And worse still, it's not as if they are sorry for it, or trying not to...they are pushing full forward with iconification (turn yourself into a publicly traded stock, like david bowie, or a brand name, like nsync or celine dion) , dehumanization ( i'm a goth! i'm a punk! sure you've seen them ).

3) They treat you like a consumer YOU are nothing but a source of income to them.

4) mostly due to #1, co-opting of forces of real change for profit. how many che shirts have you seen floating around? rage against the machine? how many otherwise bright young revolutionaries have taken the RIAA path to rebellion? There is a need right now for real radical change, not more sexist, racist, angsty, outdated pop metal counter-reactionary thought saying as loud as possible 'enslave us! we can't think for ourselves! we are worthless, do what you want to us and throw us away!'

5) the RIAA is trying to destroy the free distrobution of information(p2p), and all unregulated thought(piracy), the internet as a whole(as it infringes their divine right of profit). Metallica, under the guise of the RIAA broke one of the applications on my computer, and there has been plans underway to completely destroy anyone's computer who shares files, and there have been laws in the states at least created to put loopholes in existing crime laws for them to do this with.

6) exploitation of women. sex sells, and the RIAA knows this.

7) they sue moderately poor people for millions of dollars, which would effectively kill said people.

8) High CD prices. when i make only 2$ an hour i can't afford a 40$ cd, ok? And honestly, even if they lower the prices, i've lived too much of my life

9) Regulation on content. the RIAA regulates things against moderately insane christian standards of violence, sexuality, religion, poletics, etc.

A) They try to put YOU to mental sleep. thinking? why think? why try to think? No one ever accomplished anything by thinking! communism is evil! don't help out your fellow man! just shut up, shop, and watch television, and work your crummy 2$/hour job, and be happy about it. because hey, you have plenty to be happy about, considerring you can only afford mabye two cds a year if you don't eat for a week..and hell mabye one of those two discs might have something you like on it.

B) Their attempts to plug the analog hole, and regulate media this may be the most frightening aspect of the riaa, and the one we should all be boycotting them for. They see a future where all media is regulated, all music is paid for per-listening, and the only people who can create and listen to culturally significant artifacts are those liscenced to do so. When listener's liscences start to pop up, and start to be mandatory as a means of getting a job(people allready filter what movies they are going to see or video games they are going to watch based on arbitrary ratings given to said gam

If videogames can be pirated...

[Harmotech]

why are they to blame for poor CD music sales?
I can hit any number of P2P servers and find any number of games. And that's just PC games.
At $50 a pop and high sales, game distributors MUST know somethingthe recording industry doesn't.

My reason

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't bought a CD in several years, mainly because I'm not willing to shell out $18 for one.

The guilty will be punished!

[marcilr]

I will not buy music from any artist that belongs to an RIAA backed company. Tough to get signed? Tough! Artists should be punished for caving in to a rotten organizations like the RIAA. If they need an organization to protect their interests start a new one. IMHO

fuck the ifpi, *AND* the riaa

[themusicgod1]

umbrella group misspelling

RIAA the cause of falling profits

[Spl0it]

I think I've seen nothing in all my news paper reading and web browsing to support claims that Piracy is hurting the industry. Their inability to provide quality music in the last few years, couple'd with sueing the people who feed them has caused this decline in sales.

My $0.02

This is obvious and redundant, but...

[Queuetue]

...why can't they see that lousy music and unacceptable prices also play a role here?

Re:Shouldn't /. let us vote why we buy less CD's ?

[themusicgod1]

* people are actively pissed off at the riaa and are on to their bullshit? I hate the riaa, and you should to.

* the riaa's repetoire is starting to suck ?(personally, there are some bands *cough cold play* that i don't mind, but...I still refuse to listen to them from the above bullet. however some people seem to think that the riaa's *music* sucks. )

* that when you buy a cd you don't own the cd you gain a liscence to it, or *whatever*....perhaps listening to music is about to get too legally complicated and some people simply would want to opt-out of music alltogether? wait for it, if this isn't happening yet.

* while related to the ecconomy, there are indicators (the average) wages may be going down(due to free trade with third world nations, and other anti-labour factors), and when I work for 2$/hour I simply cannot afford to work for 20 hours to afford a 40$ CD. It just makes no sense. Still making more than minnimum wage? Count your blessings.

* the boomers have allready got all the music they need. my parents have like 500 CDs/records. they don't really need more, and my mom is happy with her full collection of elton john material. if elton releases another album, i'm sure she'll buy it, but he's only going to release so many. Sure while building this collection my parents probably bought 2 per week or so...but you only have to build the collection once. then what? where's your revenue, RIAA? i'd take my grandparents music, if it didn't suck, and if they had any...what happens in 100 years (slave state forbidding) when there's enough good music in the family collection of middle class north americans that you don't *have* to buy any more music, and the only music that is sold is really new and interesting stuff by the rogue cards like DJ Danger Mouse (as mainstream as that was), porn on beta, or negativland? it's going to happen sooner or later, if they keep selling music at that rate. then what? oh wait musicians like me will be what's needed because we aren't trying to exploit you for profit, we aren't creating crap and selling it....if we do create crap it doesn't make an impact, and if we don't we have made the world's music collection better. aww.

mod strange parent up

[themusicgod1]

actually it's true. the average age in north america at least is going up, and it is the youth that these people rely on for their livelyhoods. keep this in mind, people...

mod parent up

[themusicgod1]

Best comment under this thread so far. So good in fact, there's nothing really more to say beyond it.

faulty numbers again

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are these numbers reported year after year without taking into account the shift amongst comsumer dollars between DVD, CD, video games, etc?

So if CD sales are down 7% and DVD sales are up 10% is it a crisis due to file sharing or is it just consumers spending their money where the find more value for the dollar?

Its the economy stupid

[nurb432]

But i guess its easier to blame someone else ( ie P2P )

In my case, P2P music increased my purchases, at least until they started acting like jerks. N

ow i refuse to buy another album that is under the RIAA's control.

And i have over 500 cds.. so they lost a good customer.

Morons.

[Sj0]

I guess boycotts resulting from their lawsuits directed at grandmothers and small children have nothing to do with that too?

Yeah. They can eat my shit. I'm not buying anything from them, and I'm not going to listen to their shitty new releases. I'll just sit here with my old collection, doing what they hate most -- enjoying my favourite bands, who have already recieved payment for their services.

price gouging

[TheLittleJetson]

funny, i don't see high prices as a reason for dwindling sales. i was at a tower records a few weeks ago -- the import CD's were half the price of the domestic equivalents. i remember when it used to be the other way around... perhaps they cant sell the same product, for the same price, forever? industries change, and instead of changing with it -- the RIAA sue their customers.

thats a relief

[nappingcracker]

i thought sales were down 7.6 percent, not just records. huh. movin on up (movin on up)...

... If McDonalds did this...

[RobK]

...they'd be out of business in 6 months.

I do understand that it's not exactly the same situation. But I do know that ABUSING YOUR CUSTOMERS NEVER WORKS. They're going to rebel.

See history for many examples.

i agree,

[jeeryg_flashaccess]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=103246&thresho ld=1&commentsort=3&tid=126&tid=141&tid=188&tid=95& mode=thread&cid=8797039

Discuss

I agree with you...

[zogger]

... on your major points. Right now we are barely even entering this paradigm altering time frame, so of course we need to sort all this out. I fully acknowledge that an artist in a lot of cases has years behind say a performance or a painting, years of skill developing for that few hours performing, etc or that one painting, or one..whatever.. Guess what though, so does the plumber, the carpenter, the mechanic, etc, and they don't charge royalties or get residuals for their work. Lots of training, lots of skills, applied effort, one check, done. Skills +native ability+ applied effort= something built, you get paid. You can't realistically keep insisting on getting paid over and over again for the same thing, or a weal copy of the original..

Yes, that's how things happen. The difference is, the artist makes it all at once for that effort, then he wants to keep getting it, and keep getting it, ad infinitum, the other sorts of employments build to it gradually, but there is never a residual.(patents are exceptios to this rule, and another discussion, although somewhat related),

The other point is, the artist knows in advance that even giving it his best shot, he might not be well received, and his efforts,past the origignal, will become intangible products, except for copies, and now, those copies can be reproduced very cheaply. My postulation is- we need to accept that, and get on with adjusting. We can't hang on to past levels of what those copies represent in terms of skill+ native ability+ effort, but it's orders of magnitudes easier now to make those copies. That is the central point.

ART is now a cheap mass produced product in it's copied form. In it's original form, it is little changed since way back in history, this is a given, and why today still originals fetch so much more, as they should. The business models around the COPIES though are skewed way out of prtoportion to their actual value, at least to untold millions they are now. You are being told, shown, and you can see it happening, wishing it wasn't so will not alter it. The two distinct data points need to be dramatically altered to reflect the changes in technology. Being drug kicking and screaming to the reality table does not bode well for the acceptance of the artist (and his retinuie of expensive copy peddlers), going willingly and accepting the changes as they exist and as they are rapidly changing is the correct business plan.

Again, IMO of course.

And like I said, just as soon as the tech is there, I mean the minute it's there, as soon as the combo of my skills + native ability + effort is cheaply replicable, for the use, benefit, advancement and pleasure of anyone else who desires it, anyone can have a copy,can trade it, share it, expand and expound on it, whatever they choose to do, gratis, my treat, have at it. I'd like to make a few clams off the original, then next week I'll do another original. but the copies, cheap, have at it. That's the best I can do now, and if I think I might like your work, I will purchase an original, or attend a "live" original, but don't expect me to pay much of anything for what I know for a fact are very inexpensive copies. I might pay a small sum, but nothing more than perhaps double the construction cost of the replication media + distribution, or perhaps double the bulk rate download bandwith. I think anyone should be happy with doubling their money with little effort, seems most reasonable to me. But 10 or 20 times? Magnfied by other millions? Nope, not for me. That is gouging, plain and simple.

Re:I agree with you...

[servognome]

I think the key issue is how do we as a society and as individuals value an idea. Performances are something tangible, $40 you enjoy a concert, but where things break down is how do we value the songwriter who isn't a performer? Do we say there is no value in the song itself, just the performance? Is the genius of Shakespere's plays that we enjoy due to the actors who perform, or because of the ideas in the play itself
The key is copyright reform, not abandonment of intellectual property rights. We should protect those who create ideas and prevent others from profiting at their expense, but we also need to balance that with the value of freeing those ideas and letting everybody reinterpret, reproduce, and reinvent them. Copyright is out of hand right now. There should be a limit (not a set limit that keeps getting extended). 20 years should be enough for an artist to profit sufficiently from their work, then allow things to go public and let people expand upon it. Just think geeks everywhere could be creating a new, "better" version of Star Wars :)

it's disk copying - not p2p

[opencity]

preaching to the choir:
p2p is good for corporate music
it's the ability to burn one for your friends that is taking monopoly money off the table in our big financial casino.

please read...

[zogger]

...my other thoughts elsewhere in this thread. I think you have developed an erroneous impression of me, at least as much as I can decipher. I fully understand the efforts that go into creating art. I think they should be rewarded commensurate with how many people appreciate it. I differ in what copies of the creativity are worth, and how they are currently marketed. I also appreciate what tools of the trade cost. I went to some lengths elsewhere to try and make the point, and yes, at best analogies are poor, mea culpa.

Right Said Fred

[r00t]

Need I say more? I'm too sexy for this song.
The rest of the album was completely unrelated
to the one sole hit song. It sucked too.

Nearly the same could be said for Mariah Carey's
hit Emotions, though in time I grew to like the
rest of the CD. There sure was a style mis-match.

Tell me, how much is it I'm supposed to buy again?

[almound]

So I've got a CD quota, you tell me? Hmmmm. News to me. Did I miss something here?

Perhaps if the corporations were just up front about the whole quota thing, you know.

Was $94.00 bucks this past quarter enough? Did I do my fair share? I don't know. I can't tell.

original work, then reproduced copies of work past

[zogger]

There's a clear distinction. I think original work, audio or visual, can take what the market can bear, as to be expected and understood. We have no conflict there, as I explained elsewhere's. I disagree on what copies of original work are valued at, and I don't agree on the concept of residuals and royalties, at least not how they are structured now. The numbers don't compute any more, from technological advances, and it is my conviction that at this point in time they need to be radically altered. I also feel just as strongly that it will benefit artists in the short, medium and long term if they fully embrace the reality of the tech revolution, and not just pick and choose those which only favor them. We all benefit from sharing what we can, when it's done cooperatively. We all benefit from making our "work" being affordable and accessible to more people. It just seems to be working out that way, I think we should keep doing that and not hang on to past century's notions of how things worked business wise.

I don't buy copy protected CDs

[mashiyach]

When DVDs were released some years ago I wasn't interrested in buying them at all. It was first when I could buy reliable regional free players I started buying DVDs. After DeCSS was released I became even more tempted to purchase (now I have about 300 DVDs in my library), just because I can trust them, and I will be able to play them for the rest of my life. I used to buy CDs earlier, but nowadays, when they often use these obscure copy protection schemes I have stopped buying CDs completely. Only exception is when an artist is selling their own CDs, which are guaranteed not to be copy protected. I simply don't accept that someone else is in control of what I'm buying. /Mashiyach

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, studies now show that in general, music sucks 7.6% more than it did last year...

How often do you watch the movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I buy a DVD I watch it, and lend it out for about 5 viewings total. However I listen to every CD I buy more than 10 times each.

awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

ooh sexy vinyl baby, drop that bass and lets see how low it can go :)

What I really want to know is.....

[Vermifax]

How many CD releases there were this year compared to last.

If there were 10% less CD releases than last year, this is a 2.4% improvement.

Without knowing the percentage difference in released albums, this article is meaningless.

dropping sales

[doktorjayd]

i dont suppose the drivel they churn out has anything to do with it?

ARRR

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

holy shit! legal trends lead to excellent style choices, to be enjoyed by all! NEXT COMES THE WHORING! ARRRRR.

It is simple..

[madchris]

I usually "preview" a song or movie. If I like it, I *always* buy it asap. If I don't like it it gets trashed. I do this because I can. I think it's only fair **TO ME**.

Good New Metal

[Bob9113]

I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy... how about you?

If you like old school Black Sabbath sounding heavy metal, you should go buy this album by Fireball Ministry. It's dirty, angry, and mean - just like metal should be. Modern death metal is all good, but Fireball Ministry does an outstanding job of going back to the basics. There are some MP3s on their site, give them a listen.

Re:Good New Metal

[Backov]

NB: I own every Black Sabbath album (with Ozzy)

Sorry mate, but they suck. They aren't even good by contemporary metal standards.

I have a relative whos CD I could push in these threads, but I don't.

Apologies if I've offended, but really dude.

Real things sell better actually

[tentimestwenty]

Whoa buddy, hold on there with the thinking that the whole world can and will make copies for a PITTANCE. The simple fact is that outside of the Slashdot bubble, most people like to buy REAL things. While CDs were a step back from LPs in terms of purchase-as-object, they still have shape, form and liner art. They also last at least twice as long as a CD-R and you have a master when your HD goes up in smoke. That's tangible value. One of the reasons we need real things around is that not all artists are still alive! How are you going to buy a CD from John Coltrane or Johnny Cash at their show if they're dead. Real things serve as tactile links when artists aren't around. Having a song on your iPod or your HD of some 30s blues singer is so far removed from what they actually are about. The idea that $15 or even $20 is too much for a piece of art made by a genius makes me laugh. Honestly, people think that great new artists will develop out out thin air if there's no support of their work. The RIAA may have made lots of condemnable moves but buying music is a form of democracy - only buy the CDs you like and the RIAA will make less you don't. If anything, it's the mass stupidity of people who want the Britney Spears album for $10 that has encouraged the production of so much crap and the piracy of such crap. Wake up, quality costs money. Money supports quality. It's a simple cycle, vote with your wallet.

Re:Real things sell better actually

[Saeger]

The idea that $15 or even $20 is too much for a piece of art made by a genius makes me laugh.

And it's probably a nervous laugh too, seeing as the link in your sig sells pieces of plastic containing old work! Conflict of interest? nahhh, 'course not.

At least zogger's not hypocritical when he says he'll be happy giving away copies of the fruits of his labor once the marginal cost of its reproduction drops to nothing (and I'm with him on that). Copies aren't scarce, but originality & freshness is, and the REALITY is that that is what we're going to have to end up funding, since artifical-scarcity-enforcement cannot work - not legally (DMCA), not technically (DRM), and not socially (unless there's a patron & artist relationship).

How are you going to buy a CD from John Coltrane or Johnny Cash at their show if they're dead.

If you have to ask that then you didn't actually comprehend his post. you're presupposing that it makes sense to pay for a copy of a dead man's work.

--

Re:Real things sell better actually

[tentimestwenty]

I think you're missing the point here. Just because it's cheap to copy something doesn't mean the original had no value. In fact, the original usually costs a ton of money to make. In the case of artists from the past their work still had value, in some cases value well beyond the time they physically put into recording it. If there was only one pressing of Miles Davis Kind of Blue, or Led Zeppelin's first album, where would you be now? The industry largely exists to PRESERVE musical art for coming generations. If you take away the real product you're taking away the ORIGINALS (you had to copy an original CD at some point). In this transition period, not only will you NOT HAVE ANY OLD MUSIC, but because you've taken away the incentive to make something real, YOU WON'T HAVE ANY NEW ARTISTS. Your views might be fine in a utopia, or in 20 years when society has transitioned to all-digital but today it means THE DEATH OF THE INDUSTRY. It's laughable to think artists can support themselves by touring and selling CDs at shows alone. Even the cost of downloading off a personal web site is prohibitive for all but the smallest artist.

Music is a continuum. You can't just chop the body off and expect the head to keep living.

Imnsho

[ealar dlanvuli]

I think the largest impact has been ClearChannel.

I used to buy cd's that I found out about on the radio all the time. Now [pretty increasingly since the purchase of all of them by clear channel] I can't stand listening to any of the local stations so I listen to my collection or do without.

Perhaps the music industry should turn the eye internally, for they might be surprised to find out that without the radio they do not exist.

One good reason.

[mcdade]

Music produced by RIAA companies just suck.

This is like saying that people aren't watching 'Reality' tv shows any more.. there is a threshold of the amount of crap a society can take. And we are just about filled up. Imagine that people don't want to buy Brittany/Christina/Backstreet boys/jessica simpson/98 degrees/100's of other mindless crappy music..

It's not about pirating, it's about people spending their money elsewhere, seeing a movie, going to a local bar, seeing a play, going to a sporting event.... just not wasting it on crappy music that gets too much airplay on the radio for free.

-b

"beleaguered?!?!?!"

[Thumpnugget]

The RIAA is now "beleaguered"? Wait, does this mean its dying, like Apple?

My Recent Purchases

[slasher999]

As a 30-something whose musical mainstay consists of "classic punk" like DK, Circle Jerks, Operation Ivy, Clash, Pistols, and so forth I haven't found too much recently that I care for enough to buy. Picked up a used Roger Waters CD (KAOS) on ebay recently.

However, I did stumble across (tongue in cheek here) a band called The White Stripes. Hard to not notice them actually. I first heard them when they played an entire week on Conan O'Brien's show here in the US. I was pretty impressed. Picked up their two most recent releases, Elephant (voted best album of 2003 by someone or another) and White Blood Cells (features the catchy "Fell In Love With A Girl". I think I'm now a fan. Both CD's are really great stuff - highly recommended.

Supporting the RIAA? Well, maybe, I don't really know, but what am I going to do? Never buy another CD? I think not.

Current music is crap!

[Oshkoshjohn]

I haven't bought a new CD since the Led Zeppelin DVD and CD sets, "How The West Was Won" came out last year. The current entertainment isn't about the music or lyrics anymore...it's all about the video, and that's why it sucks. Music is supposed to happen between your ears, not in front of them!

pop

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe cd sales are down because pop music is so bad...

The Usual Moronic Posts

[Master of Transhuman]

Austrian economic theory has answered all this crap for decades.

Intellectual property is an oxymoron and a corporate statist land grab.

Morons.

Get a clue.

Pass all the laws you want. Kill the entertainment industries by doing so. Go ahead. Feel free. Make my day - punks.

I'll still get the music and movies I want either by downloading or buying it when necessary and feasible.

In the end, what the Situationists said in the 1960's is still valid: Art has been superceded. The only art worth creating is one's own life.

Why only "annual"?

[goldfndr]

Surely they have statistics for quarterly, or monthly (or perhaps even weekly).

But making those statistics available would allow reporters et al to compare against news items (e.g. the Napster decision, which reportedly resulted in a SALES DROP when Napster was defeated). So I wouldn't expect it to happen. RIAA/IFPI has too much to lose if they disclose.

Come to think of it, how much of those sales losses are attributable to advertising (e.g. ads, parties)? I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to hide millions in absurd costs via some creative bookkeeping.

CD

[coyotedata]

What is a CD?

movies, music, whatever

[zogger]

I never said they shouldn't push copies, whatever floats their boat, I merely said they were gonzo out to lunch on what they think those things are worth, and they are delibarately trying to monopolise technology. that's just observable data, skewing the laws to make tech only work for them, to protect clearly moribund industries on the way out, ie, "reedickalus expensive copies of stuff". So far out to lunch it's into "ludicrous speed". I shoulda just said that and shuddup about it...hahahaha!

no, I am an oddball, even for slashdot. I don't do movies or listen to much music. I used to when I was a kid into my 30's then one day I noticed it ..didn't do anyting for me anymore. Nothing. No interest, doesn't seem important to me, not worth much. My girlfriend gets used vcr tapes, sometimes I am in the same room when they are played, can't really say I fully watch them. I might listen to one song a week averaged over the year on the radio, sometimes outside working when I can turn the machinery off I'll put a radio on. Paintings, don't own any. There are some originals here, again, girlfrienmnd does them, and she has some prints, but I don't recall ever buying any ever in my life, although I've been to a few museums. It just don't float my boat. I'm on my third great book collection in my life, the previous two I gave away, both numbered in the thousands. I have maybe around 2,000 now (that's a SWAG but closer than not), vast majority purchased used.

Yep, luxuries. I guess I don't have many. I live very frugally compared to most people, well under what passes for official poverty level in the US. And even back when I was scrambling and "making money" I purchased few reproductions of any sort of "art" (some, not much though), but I did go to live concerts, both at largevenues and at regular bars and small clubs. I even worked a few, some large bands, stones being the most well known..

Sorry, not impressed. Have yet to see any of those guys who I think deserves to be multi multi millionaires. Well off, sure, zillionaires? Nope. Plain old vanilla nope. But it ain't my call, one way or the other.

And I'm not a hypocrite, I don't download tunes or vids, etc, no interest. If they were a nickle, free of any legal crap, I might, but even then, not too much. When I was younger I watched a heckuva lot of TV, now I wished I hadn't wasted all that time, and thank God I never got addicted to "gaming", another abusine compuslive behavior I think, at least the addicts I know personally seem that way.. All of that I know makes me well outside the norm,especially here, so what, I could care less really. I'm just commenting on the social and economic ramifications of what is completely obvious, new technology is altering hell out of the concepts of "art" as business as it was known just even a decade ago, let alone a few decades ago, and those who ignore that reality will continue to wonder why what they believe -what they WANT to believe- just ain't so.

Naw, never seen any of the bored with the rings stuff. I read the hobbit back in junior high though. Never read the trilogy, too tedious, his characterzations and ponderous prose made me..just itchy, nervous,didn't like it. I'm sure the movie was all super dooper whizz bang. Oh well, 5 years from now I might watch it on tape. Maybe. Although I liked some other long tedious tomes in the sci fi and fantasy genre, back then anyway, I didn't read the rings. Hmm,., I am thinking, last time I paid normal price and went to a movie had to be the titanic, for the third time, girlfriend pressure. I should be nicer I guess... take her more, but frankly, very few of them hold any interest for me, that changed from years ago, just got...dissatisfied with fictionionalized reality. I can't put it any better than that.

I don't dig bread and circuses any more is the closest I can come to it.

More bad analogies. I know it's not close but what the heck. Prohibition was a complete farce and failure, it just created crime, but it

Re:As a record store owner

[Weaselmancer]

Holy crap that's one of the funniest posts I've seen in a long while! But seriously friend, I believe I can help you.

Every day I ask myself why this is happening.

Because you are a business owner, but no good at math. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago means "less than half, or 50%. That is much more than 7.6%.

It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them.

An excellent business plan. Your last name wouldn't be McBride, would it?

I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market.

Another excellent plan. Many's the night I've sat around the house listening to albums with my mom. This is a sure way to appeal to your target demographic, especially the teenage market.

I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.

I'll get back to this one later, but it's worth mentioning right now for a little foreshadowing.

Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.

So, you don't know what the problem is, but you're sure it's piracy?

It has the potential to destroy the music industry, from artists, to record companies to stores like my own.

Well, a car has the potential to run people over, so let's outlaw those too. Of course, cars also bring people to music stores, so it's a bit of a sticky problem...

Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business.

Maybe they're selling a better product? Nah! Something else must be to blame! After all, who in their right mind would buy classic literature when there's Christian Rock to be had!

Unlike CDs, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.

Aaaaahahahaahahahaaaaaaa!!! Boy you're right, it sure is! There is no such thing as a scanner or a pdf file.

"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away"

...and the foreshadowing completes. So, waitaminute, aren't you catering to the family values crowd? Lotsa Christian rock and stuff like that? Why are these family values Jesus types breaking the law?? Could it be that your preconceived notion of "these kinds of people would never screw me over" is wrong? I do so love it when the family values folks squabble.

I grabbed the little shit by his shirt.

That'd be assault.

So that's my idea - a national blacklist of pirates.

Brilliant. Let's also make a list for shopkeepers who eavesdrop on their customers and rough them up.

If the pirates can't buy the CDS to begin with, then they won't be able to copy them over The Internet, will they?

Your intellect is staggering. That'll sure keep the kids who talk about piracy in record stores from ripping music. Of course, you'll have to figure out some other way of getting the pesky kids who just buy the CD without telling you up-front about their intent to rip the thing.

They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?

Another gem. Boy, it's so hard to buy dope ever since Nancy Reagan was on Different Strokes, right? Nah, you never hear about anyone having drugs anymore - they totally licked that problem.

This evening, my daughters asked me. "Why do the other kids laugh at us?"

"Because your daddy is too stupid to do basic math and keeps trying to imitate Dirty Harry."

Some people are offended by my blacklist system. I may have made my store less popula

Law reflects the values of the majority of society

[dsanfte]

Law reflects the values of the majority of society, it doesn't dictate them. When the two conflict, society takes preference, not the law. Remember, the first step towards tyranny is placing the law above the will of the people.

Whether you think it's "wrong" or not, there are 50 million people in the US trading songs on the Internet. That might even be more than the number of people who smoke pot regularly.

How can that be?

[cplater]

I've bought more CDs in the past year than I did in the previous 5 years combined!

Simple: money

[Anonymous Coward]

My reasons for definitely buying less CDs last year than the year before are:

1. My shit paycheck, thanks to this failing economy.
2. The lack of good music. I'm not into buying the tenth remix of a band whose lead singer died years ago. I want useful stuff.

British/American billion

[Greego]

Most likely the parent poster was thinking of a british billion, which is one million million. Hence being wrong by a factor of one thousand. (Maybe) :-)

Re:British/American billion

[Anonymous Coward]

they don't use that anymore, in the media/press/everywhere they use the 1000 million == 1 billion

Why the RIAA doesn't like P2P

[0x0d0a]

For a long time, I couldn't figure out why the RIAA was so upset about P2P. It really, honestly didn't seem to be hurting their sales numbers significantly. Maybe they kept worrying about future losses, but as time wound on, that seemed less and less likely.

Based on your actions, P2P does have a good reason for worrying the RIAA:

(a) makes it easier for indie artists to get exposure

(b) thus makes marketing (the primary incentive the RIAA has to offer artists) less valuable

(c) because pop artists are the most common, they are the easiest to pirate, and thus probably suffer the greatest sales reduction -- some of this money may be spent on hard-to-find albums for lesser-known artists.

So, while an equivalent amount of money might be spent on music, it drastically decreases the effect and influence of music publishers, and damages the marketing-driven idea of the "pop star".

That doesn't mean that I think that P2P is necessarily *good* for artists as a whole, just that it finally manages to explain something that's been nagging at me for a while.

I'm serious!

[Elpacoloco]

I really can make my own music. If you email me, I'll send you either a midi conversion or the original IT module. (please specify)

Definitely maybe

[denisvolgin]

What the hell is going on today? Everyone misspells "definitely" and puts it as "definately". It became some sort of trend on slashdot already...

Seems like bying CDs used to serve educational purpose as well - at least one could read what's written on the cover. But now kids just download, and have nothing to read. You can't even call them "read-only users".

^^ somebody mod this guy up ^^

[the_REAL_sam]

He should have a 5-insightful by now.

It makes little sense delving into the obscure details of the impact of filetrading on the music economy when the economy as a whole is so down.

boycott?

[noldrin]

So the industry that has a boycott on it went down in sales? Durring a recession? Must be P2P.

Kind of on topic.... (movies)

[AbRASiON]

I've only seen one movie since Return of the King simply because NOTHING IS WORTH WATCHING.

(21 grams)

I find the shit hollywood shovel to us is getting worse and worse (watched a dvd-r of Matrix revoloutions last night, I think they owe me about 50$ in time back)

Perhaps this is the same for music consumers?

Low CD Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there's just not a lot of good new music?

You're feeble nerdiness...

[rsilvergun]

is no match for the power of the dark side!

backup copies

[lemody]

i haven't bought a cd for months, because it's easier to use backup-copies of them from the web ;)

Monopolies Sue

[Anonymous Coward]

It's you who don't understand and think they're doing all this because they're stupid. Contrarily, they're just middlemen, or cartels, of which internet distributions will make obsolete.

The fact they don't want to give you what you want is because they're afraid they cannot control the music distribution any longer. Control is what makes them money long term. Losing control means they can't sell by bundling, their studios lose recouping power, they can't artificially create top lists, no more cookie-cutting bands (same product with different packaging,) and many more reasons including, most importantly, compete with everyone else.

They're doing the same thing the bsa is trying to do with EULAs. Ever since Open Source is an alternative, we don't hear much about the bsa.

However, their tactics are producing good results, except for the buying politicians and laws. With their suing customers and artificially creating less music for distribution, they're like burning both ends of a candle. To help them disappear faster, we need to boycott them entirely.

And please everyone, stop trying to give them ideas on how they should change business models. Unless your idea can establish a monopoly for them, don't bother.

DVDs are different cost wise

[Aexia]

DVDs are extremely cheap to *reproduce* but they have a high cost upfront to *produce*.

Creating high-quality transfers, assembling extras and putting it together into one shiny package costs a heckuva lot more money than shoving a movie onto a VHS tape.

After that though, you're right. They can churn out many many more DVDs compared to VHS tapes once the master has been created.

I'm surprised we see as many... experimental DVDs out there as we do given the upfront costs involved.

Last time we saw a number like this...

[alizard]

it turned out that the RIAA labels were simply pressing fewer records per album on the average, particularly for new artists. Until someone runs the numbers, we won't know what the 7.6 number actually means.

Don't take for granted that PIRACY!!! or EVIL P2P!!! has anything to do with this, unless you enjoy being hoaxed the same way our politicians have been.

Of course, they have an excuse, a politician will believe all sorts of amazing things from someone who just wrote them a nice, big campaign contribution check.

"lousy music and unacceptable prices"

[TiggsPanther]

I get the feeling that they genuinely don't realise that a lot of their music is lousy. After all, it sells well and it gets top radio-play...

...which is to say that kids (on the money they get from their parents) buy it, and the radio staions they heavily fund play the records.
The fact that the people who have to spend their own earned/saved/limited money habe more discerning tastes might not even factor into their calculations.

Similarly I don't think that they realise that their prices are unacceptable. To them the prices make perfect sense. Cover your costs (including mass marketing & hype), and also try to make a bigger profit than last year. And like many industries, I don't think they realise that sometimes you reach a profit-ceiling where growth becomes a lot harder.
Rightly or wrongly the perceived value of physical albums has dropped. And there's no way around that. And even if the costs involved are justifiable (I'm not in the music industry, so I honestly couldn't say one way or the other), people just aren't going to spend more than they think something is worth.

Heck, the music and mobile-phone industries here in the UK are proof enough of that. For the former, the queues when you have sailes that push priced below a tenner are intimidating. And for the latter, if phones weren't highly subsidised by call-costs, then there's no way they'd be as popular.
Rightly or wrongly you've got to pitch your prices closer to what the customers think is a suitable price than what you think they're worth.

Tiggs

It's not hard to figure out why

[petrus4]

If the RIAA want to know why CD sales/overall revenue are down, I can tell them.

In a nutshell, contemporary music just plain sucks...and that's putting it very mildly, when I consider what my true feelings towards the state of current mainstream music actually are.
I stopped listening to contemporary radio in 1998, and I'm not going to even think about paying attention to it again until the likes of Britney Spears, Eminem, and Missy Eliott are long gone, although unfortunately that doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon.

It doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with file trading though...the reason being that if you look through the collections of most of the people I've come across online, 80%-95% of it will be from before 1995 at the latest, which also includes more classical than you'd think. I'm guessing that the biggest risk from mp3s in terms of revenue loss though are undoubtedly faced by those artists from the 80s and earlier who are still alive, who haven't released new material since then, and who still rely on royalty sales of that material. Michael Jackson is the most visible example that comes to mind...although he hasn't released any material for a while now, I suspect his past music would still be quite popular among casual downloaders (people who aren't fanatical about him especially, but who like listening to him as much as any other artist) on P2P. His group of offline true believers would also be fairly small now, especially given the child molestation scandals, and the lack of offline retail sales coupled with his casual popularity on P2P wouldn't be helping him financially.

Other examples of who I'm talking about here would be Pat Benetar, whose music I've seen huge collections of online, and possibly the Rolling Stones, who while being big back in the day would most definitely be an acquired taste now, I'm guessing.
They are who I think mp3s could possibly cause a problem for, though...people with whom mp3 is now their music's primary mode of circulation. For people like Britney, Missy, and Eminem, whose CDs are everywhere, it'd be business as usual.

Re:The Luddites

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you reread British History - in no way did the British Government support the Luddites - they hung them, the combination acts were developed to prevent trades unions and the leaders were shipped off the Australia

Where does the money go?

[__aamkky7574]

From today's PopBitch (scurrilous UK gossip email bulletin):

Telstar's A&R department spent a reputed 22 million in the last three years. Who did they sign? Er... B*witched, Vinnie Jones, Claire Sweeney and Victoria Beckham.

Says it all really.

P

Wonder where the money goes?

[__aamkky7574]

From the latest PopBitch (UK gossip bulletin):

>> Music industry crisis no. 724 <<
It's all about the Benjamins

Telstar Records brought us such classics as Chris
Tarrant's mix album, Pan Pipe Moods and a single
by Hunter from Gladiators, so we're sad to see them
go into liquidation this week. Co-chairman Neil
Palmre claimed it "Reflects the very serious
problems the industry as a whole is experiencing."

But maybe it more accurately reflects a few
other factors:

1. Telstar's A&R department spent a reputed &#163;22
million in the last three years. Who did they
sign? Er... B*witched, Vinnie Jones, Claire
Sweeney and Victoria Beckham.
2. The company car park was jammed full of Aston
Martins, Porsches and Bentleys.
3. Telstar spent &#163;65,000 on a party just to mark
co-chairman Sean O'Brien's 50th birthday last year.
Sean wasn't even around for this debacle - he's
in Barbados for a couple of months.
4. Damon Dash is still chasing them for $1 million
studio costs for Posh's ultra-expensive album.

I think the insane spending habits of the record industry during what is pretty much a recession may have a wee bit to do with it.

P.

CD Audio discs maybe. CD-ROMs on the rise

[Vandil X]

Of course the sale of "Compact Disc Audio" discs are down. They're rarely manufactured anymore.

Since 2002, the big music labels have switched from "Compact Disc Audio" discs to CD-ROMs (i.e. "enhanced CDs", or discs with copy protection).

Quite coincidentially, it's only expected that people who can't play/rip the album disc they purchased (because the CD-ROM is unrippable, doesn't play, or crashes the user's computer) would seek the music in a digital format elsewhere.

Incomplete figures

[Karl Cocknozzle]

If you read this article carefully, it says "Sales were down in total unit terms."

But could that have something to do with the fact that the industry has been releasing fewer and fewer CDs the last few years? A better measure would be average units sold per release, rather than total units sold for all releases. To date, the record industry hasn't convinced me that their "downturn" is anything other than the intersection of a bad economy and poor business decisions on their own part.

the product sucks but they blame us

[corrosiv]

Sales are down because the effort the industry puts into marketing (and molding bands to an image) taints the final result. We're just not that stupid anymore. A _kid_ can tell when you are condescending. The magic formula that extrapolates marketing effort into profit potential neglects to address the fact that THE MARKETING EFFORT CORRUPTS THE ART. It is amazing that they can't see that after having a shitty song rammed down my throat for a month, I NEVER WANT TO HEAR IT AGAIN. It is time to fork this industry. One one side we can let the RIAA and ClearChannel have their fun pumping shit onto the airwaves for morons who buy CDs because of one single, and on the other we need to build a decent distribution network for actual ARTISTS, the real victims in all this. Check out record labels Alternative Tentacles or Dischord to find businesses that have gained considerable success outside the mainstream for DECADES. "Independent" is too often dismissed as "punk". There is nothing stopping musicians of any genre from gathering to collectively promote themselves without any interference from the mainstream recording industry. The only thing keeping this from succeeding is apathy. Mobilize. Go see local music. Buy records direct from the band or their label instead of on Amazon.

The horrible result of the last stock market boom is that supply-demand capitalism has been practically abandoned. Instead of accepting that supply & demand has a cyclic nature, corporations are aggressively defending past profit numbers in the face of decreased demand. It has become the consumers responsibility to maintain the multi-billion dollar business.

demand is down
profits shrink
stockholders whine because it is Acme's responsibility to make them rich
Acme asserts that profits are down because of some outside influence instead of admitting that the demand for the product just isn't there
Acme throws money at the problem and product quality DECLINES
Acme attacks with litigation, lays off North American employees, but refuses to innovate
Acme falls and a new innovation takes its place
rinse, repeat
how boring...

Of course it wouldn't..

[Hohlraum]

have anything to do with a decrease in quality; increase in pricing over the last 3 years; and a general bad taste left in everyones mouth about the recording industry in general. Nope its the music traders. Gimme a f**cking break.

Bad Data: Gross Revenue, not Sales Volume

[spleck]

The article says sales were down to $32 billion, it doesn't ever say that 7.6% less CDs were sold. If you charge 7.6% less for the same number of CDs, then YES, your revenue will fall.

What about the price fixing settlement? What about the fact that CDs only have 10 tracks, of which only 1 or 2 are any good? I've noticed a trend towards $9.99 CDs with 10 tracks and away from CDs with 20 tracks selling for $17.99.

This is another distortion of the FACTs brought on by the Press and Corporate America. I am so tired of information being used incorrectly.

Until they can tell me that 135 million fewer CDs were sold, then its all crap. I still buy CDs... WHEN THEY'RE $10... NOT WHEN THEY'RE $20. I just think more and more people are realizing this--with, or without online music.

Its like the Mafia complaining that "protection money" income is down. No kidding!

naw, just forgot to move the decimal point

[Anonymous Coward]

He forgot to move the decimal point when he appended the % sign. 250m/32b = .0078 or .78%

CD sales are not the lifebread of the industry

[Sylven_1969]

From what I know of how the Music Industry works the 80/20 rule applies. That is to say that 80percent of the revenue for any given "album" come from live shows and merchandising, with the remaining 20 percent coming from CD sales and other sources. The music industry is trying to say that not being able to sell CD's is going to collapse the industry and I simply do not see that happening. I'm new to /. so please don't lynch me for stating my views... not yeat at least ;)

pretty much

[zogger]

I admit to becoming a curmudgeon as I have gotten older. I really don't listen to much music or watch movies or professional sports or play video games. I have really oputgrown all that stuff, not that what I think is right or wrong for anyone else, just that's "me" that's all. I find bread and circuses to be the biggest distraction that the globalist crooks use to rip people off and keep them oppressed, they go WAY out their way to have young children get addicted to those "pursuits", but I concentrate on other issues, and for entertainments I do stuff like gardening (fun plus practical), work on my antique computers, chase the old lady around (hell ya heh), play with the dogs, build stuff,carpenty, cob job mod my various old lawn tractors and small engine stuff, etc. I like researching and posting on politics & economics and energy issues on the net and on survival/preparedness topics as well, I do it a lot,a fun, somewhat useful hobby.I like some music when I hear it, mostly old rock, but I don't go out of my way to purchase/listen much anymore. The music and movie industry made untold thousands off of me when I was younger, I have supported artists and their retinue quite extensively in the past, but that's enough. I've worked a few large name brand bands as a rigger/steel climber, seen that aspect of the industry, and frankly, those people -the "artistes"- aren't worth the megabucks they get paid, IMO. I might occassionaly go see a local band at some club, I get antsy and want to go dancing once in awhile, so that's about it. I certainly don't download mp3s or movies, etc. I really ain't got a dog in this dispute, just I think all the parties should get together and agree that the tech advances in the past ten years have made the old business of "art" completely changed,it's NOT EVAH gonna change back, so they need to deal with it ratioanly, but rational thought appears to not be an aspect of music/movie freeloaders, nor the "industry". They are both a little ..disingenous to be polite about it..

I see good arguments on both sides, but neither side is willing to give an inch, my bet is on technology winning, which means copies need to be legally cheap cheap cheap free or cheap or it's gonna be like alky prohibition, vioating the double nickle, etc, ie, no one pays any mind to it. Simple as that.

WORK for payment

[Anonymous Coward]

It is said that modern sanitation (plumbing, sewers,etc.) has made a contribution to extending the healthy human lifespan at least as great as that of modern medicine. Yet a plumber does not expect "per-flush" royalties on work once performed. Nor does the physician receive annual payments after a life-saving surgery...
Why does an "artist" expect to be paid again and again and again...?