RIAA Loss Report Contradicts Nielsen Sales Record

DerekAtLC writes "In a not-so-surprising twist of the tables, RIAA reporting of 'losses' is a little bit off. An interesting blurb at Ars Technica referencing a Kensei News article points out that Nielsen's Soundscan (Which tracks retail point-of-sale numbers for the music industry) shows a 10% increase in sales from Q1 2003 to Q1 2004. The RIAA has recently reported drops in revenue from last year, citing online piracy as the main problem. The crux of the issue? The RIAA hasn't been talking about sales or revenue in terms of sales to consumers or money generated via those sales. The RIAA talks about losses in terms of number of units shipped to retail outlets. The article points out plenty of problems with this (and reasons why we are seeing the trend), but it is fairly obvious that the RIAA is not reporting the most 'useful' numbers to the public."

Comments

using that to condemn phony accounting is fine

[jbellis]

just don't use it to justify theft... if the RIAA charges more than you want to pay, that doesn't mean you get to take it anyway. Check out emusic or other sources of indie music instead.

seinfeld comeback

[jonastullus]

Jerry: "The ocean called, they're running out of shrimp"?? [He said that to you??]

George: Yeah, yeah, but then I said to him: "The jerk store called and they are running out of YOU!"

Jerry: You SAID that to him?

George: Well, *hmm* actually I thought it up on the way over here.

Jerry: *Ohh*, THAT's not quite the same

Re:seinfeld comeback

[Frizzle Fry]

The jerk store called and they are running out of YOU

You're they're all-time best seller.

Re:Court of public opinion

[cancerward]

I'm not a religious person, and I normally don't resort to Biblical citations, but I think this one applies:

"The love of money is the root of all evil." (also one of the most misquoted passages in the Bible just for the record).

The replies so far have missed the point: this is the King James Version translation, which mistranslates the Greek. It's best to put the KJV alongside a modern translation like this:

• KJV For the love of money is the root of all evil...
• NASB For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil...

For a more detailed study of the Greek, see White's ``King James Only Controversy''.

Re:Another shocking fact

[0x0d0a]

Windows, yes; I'm dubious that Internet Explorer is still in favor among Slashdot readers. I know of few people that have tried recent builds of Firefox and still prefer MSIE. Mozilla used to be well behind when it came to user experience, but things have seriously changed.

I'm using a Windows machine at the moment because I'm not near my own computer, and I can't exactly put Linux on someone else's computer.