Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
Trolling is a art,
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).
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes (1637)
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?
...the Clearchannel effect - the drivel gets all the radio airtime
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
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.
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?
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.
RIAA will site this as proof that P2P damages record sales. But could it be that most new music SUCKS?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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...)
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?
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!
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
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.
An industry that has started a warpath suing children, the elderly, and many more of its potential customers is suffering from poor sales. Shocking!
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
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.
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
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.
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
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
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 !!
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?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
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.
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 guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
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.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
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!!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
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*
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
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...
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.
I belong to the ______ generation.
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!
"Look! There! Evil, pure and simple from the Eighth Dimension!" --Buckaroo Banzai
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.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Eventually, on-line music distribution will increase quality, as artists will focus on making a couple excellent songs instead of many lame ones.
The Raven
great, you don't pay the RIAA, or the ARTIST either.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
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.
The idea of making huge amounts of money by selling patterns of air pressure change is kind of flimsy to start with. No?
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
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.
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.
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...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
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*?
"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.
"Derp de derp."
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.
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.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
For starters 250m/32B = .78%.
.4% of 32 billion.
Second, 2.5 million songs per week times 52 weeks = 130 million songs at $.99 each, or about
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.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
"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.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
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.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.
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
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?
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.
/. folks are, I don't see the need to buy your own music.
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
> 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.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
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?
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.
- 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.
"I drank what?" - Socrates
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...
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.
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
"Timberlake helped boost the business in the second half of 2003."
Is that a fucking joke? That's the problem right there!
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.
Be careful! Bears shouldn't consume large furry dogs.
- 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.
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.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
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?
RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America. Neither "A" stands for artists. I think that sums it all up.
How ya like dat?
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.
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.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!