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

[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?

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.

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?

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...

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.

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: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.

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

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...