Slashdot Mirror
Music Downloading not Entirely to Blame
Outlyer writes "A recent article in The Economist discusses the proximate causes for the decline in music sales. Of some note is this quote in the article:
"According to an internal study done by one of the majors, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the drop in sales in America had nothing to do with internet piracy. [...] Other explanations: rising physical CD piracy, shrinking retail space, competition from other media, and the quality of the music itself. But creativity doubtless plays an important part." The article discusses in some depth the short-term viewpoint of the majors and why that is likely to be the dominant problem, not the internet bogeyman."
Where I live, everybody downloads, the internet service advertize showow much faster you'll get your music, and the teens don't even think of buying music.
Retailers are in bad shape in S. Korea.
Put identity in the browser.
I don't buy music because it all sounds packaged and the same to me. I'll buy a CD when something good ocmes out. I'm sick of the labels blaming the internet for their crappy products not doing well.
nobody points to the real reason music sales are dropping? Today's music isn't based on music, but on image and one hit wonders... Just look at Hoobaskank, one formulated bubble gum song, and they are headling big shows... what have they done since??? And don't forget about the eye candy... Jessica Simpson, Brittany Spears, couldn't sing their way out of wet paper bag, but with the volume down...
I don't listen to music anymore (I can say for about 1.5 years now.) On radio I only listen to talk-shows (good ones in Toronto area.)
BTW. when I buy blank CDs I am forced to pay a tax on it to 'help the artists'. Shit, I don't even care about any artists anymore, why am I forced to help them?
You can't handle the truth.
Its the economy stupid! obviously those at the top didnt see that millions of jobs were lost because of the economic downturn that was accelerated thanks to 9/11...
hmmm, food or the new Britny Spears CD... tough call
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I have an iPod and I no longer buy CD's. I mostly listen to live shows that are freely available all over the net. However, when there is an album that I would like to buy, I just get it from iTunes (or other online music store). For me the benefits are:
1) Don't have to go to the mall.
2) Same price as a CD or cheaper.
3) I can back it up on a CD.
4) I have a copy on my HD.
5) I can convert it to different formats.
6) Don't have to go to the mall.
7) I can listen before I buy.
8) If I like only one song, I don't have to buy the entire CD.
9) Don't have to go to the mall.
God I hate the mall...
I think the main reason why music sales have declined is indeed an innovation problem - but it may not be the record company's fault (for once).
In every decade you had technical innovation - whether it was 4 track recording in the 60's, the emergence of prog rock and sophisticated recording techniques in the 70's, synthesizers in the 80's, or rap/rock fusion in the 90's.
Question: What has the 2000's offered that previous decades have not? Answer: Not too much. For the first time, there's no real innovation in the sound itself - there's simply nothing that hasn't already been done, no tech that a generation can call their own.
If the music seems lame, it's because it is - it's all been done before.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Simple, supply and demand. In may cases, the only place you are going to find a particular album is in a used record store. (At least retail.) What was a second hand market is starting to evolve into a collector's market.
It's like the surge in "upscale" thrift stores. It turns out there is a market for retro clothing that is apart from the market for inexpensive clothing.
Heck, lobster used to be a low-cost offering for sea food. (There was once a prison riot in Maine over being served lobster.) Over time it grew into a luxury item.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
oh yeah, I have also purchased a dozen or so random songs on iTMS. IIRC, legal digital downloads aren't counted are album sales, so they can bitch about how cd's don't sell, but millions of albums a week are selling on iTMS.
Its time for the record companies to stop fighting the future and adopt a new business model.
sorry 'bout the mess...
The article mentioned that large retailers, such as Walmart, are dedicating less and less space to CDs due to the increase in other entertainment media, I would suggest that an easy way to get around with would be to develop terminals that allow you to browse a library of CD's, sample a portion of each song, and then if you choose to buy the album, burns and labels the CD for you on the spot. This would eliminate the need for shelving for CD's, as well as allow retailers to have a much wider selection of music available.
It makes me always laugh to see all this people pretending that the music sales decrease comes from the downloads from the Internet.
Young people simply don't have a extended budget. Ten years ago a normal teenager didn't have to pay 50 dollars a month for his mobile phone. This is the price of 4 CDs ! Some of us didn't even had a computer too ! These are all things that makes that we CAN'T buy more CDs, because we have less money for that. Sure, this is only a part of the explanation, but I don't see much people who invoke that argument.
Personally, I find that CD's are just too expensive for me. I don't care that much about music, and can better spend that $15 elsewhere. Also, I just haven't found anything I really like in a while, though unlike most /. I blame this on my own narrow mindedness, and not the new music sucking. If the new music sucked so much, why does it sell so many copies? Most people tend to get stuck in a certain era of music, don't like the new stuff? Don't act suprised about it, you're getting old. Every generation tends to think that the next generation's music sucks, that's not going to change for you, you're not special, get over it.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
The economist reaches a very broad audience of VERY intelligent people, and also people who tend to have a lot of money, or be in positions of power. Hopefully they can recongize the situation for what it is, and I think the economist will give the position some credibility.
We have to start somewhere with educating the people in charge, and I'd say the Economist is a hell of a source to have touting this position.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I haven't bought or downloaded a Song or Cd since I got my satellite radio "Sirius" I think this is a good alternative and also a possible cure to pirated music. If you think about it you can get uncensored. Commercial free music of all of the new and old hits out there in addition to live talk shows and TV shows all for the price of 1 cd a month. When you go home take you portable docking station in your house.boat.friends car, etc... If not that you have online radio shout cast etc. This was my cure I don't know about anyone else.
It's the exact same thing with the pharma companies withholding the results of studies that are damaging to them. Ditto for the tobacco companies. I wish there was something that forced big companies to tell the truth when they have it.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
It's my contention that people buy less entertainment of all kinds as they grow older. Hence, as a country's population ages, music sales will decrease.
Are there studies that bear on this?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I'll probably get a Flamebait rating for this. But in my opinion (and the opinion of many of my fellow co-workers...) Music just sucks. There are no singers, there are no artists anymore, everyone is sampling the old music and just redoing everything. Talking about the bling, talking about the cash, and talking about "I got 99 problems but uh bitch ain't one". (Nice grammar there Jay-Z!) It's just stupid. The only artists left are Prince, (sits for three or four minutes) can't think of any more right now..
...the good RIAA sanctioned music stopped at about 94.
Actually I have heard a lot of better music coming from the Indy space (ie. podcasts)
From Garageband.com or Magnatune.
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
While the levy paid on music players may or may not make downloading legal, that does not change the fact that downloading music from P2P is 100% legal in Canada. If you are confused about your rights, please see the CBC's music download FAQ.
Internet piracy must have its share of blame, of course, but it's not the only cause, and problably there isn't a only cause.
Other factors may include economic recession, poor quality, repetitive artist offers, rehash of old "hits" in spite of new, refreshing sounds, much broader offer in entertaiment, etc, and the record labels are moving too slow to face these multiple factors.
Of course, the multiplicity of "causes" and the speed at wich the entertaiment industry moves nowadays may harm the diagnostics of the situation, but I guess that the solution must involve some profound changes in the sector.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
Is it time for the traditional Heinlein "Life Line" quote?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
No, music is pretty much for shit these days. My kids are entering their teen years and have found that they really like music. But the irony is the type of music that they really like.
1960-1980 Rock. Any current bands (eg: Blink 182) they only like a couple of songs and those preferences quickly fad away.
But they both keep coming back and listening to the older music that's on the Classic Rock music stations.
Current music sucks. It's an excellent example of monitization of art. That is to say, they practice of Art has been so heavily influenced by the monitary potential of art that all art is viewed not on it's artistic content, but on it's monitary potential. This started with the manufactured Boy Bands like Back Street Boys and N'SYNC. Even SouthPark figured this one out years ago.
Take some star like Britney Spears. Her first three songs showed some style and some actual singing talent. Now about the only thing that helps her revenue stream are her boobs. Her singing is much lower quality and poorer content than it ever was, second only to her ever decreasing investment on clothing.
I've been hearing about the RIAA bitching for decades and everyone has consistently replies, "But your music sucks so bad, why should be pay money for it?"
Now the interesting thing will be if this will be applied to the MPAA and the problems that they have with movies. After all, re-releasing Apocolypse Now and The Godfather are a sure sign that they can't do anything right anymore. Not all movies suck, but the percentage of good movies has dropped well below what it used to be.
Sounds like garbage, but isn't (so it seems). Google search shows it as part of local legend.
i ve /item/0,3721,3487,00.html
http://hamptonroads.atevo.com/guides/focus/arch
"Maine lobster, which is also caught off the coasts of Massachusetts and Canada's Atlantic provinces, is perhaps the most famous and sought-after seafood dish in the world. But if the Pilgrims were to visit New England today, they would be perplexed with the esteem in which the lobster is held. The colonists regarded the meat of the lobster as fit only for pig food and fertilizer, and, in fact, prison riots were started when prisoners couldn't take yet another lobster dinner!"
The *only* entity you're helping when you purchase used music is the store you're buying from. Might as well just download the music for what it's worth.
I would disagree. This was how it was for me a few years ago anyways.. I wasnt out to "collect" as many CD's as I can... my music tastes would change, and over the time I'd trade in less listened to CD's for something new.
Yes, the artist would "sell more" if everyone only bought new, but then I would have offset my used-cd purchases by buying fewer. Fewer people buying used CD's helps deflate the price you would get trading in music, making the whole thing less attractive.
Gray markets do have a positive impact on sales - it's just not as obvious an impact.
There is no logical difference between buying a used CD and downloading the tunes from Kazaa. In both cases:
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
I think alot of it is the perception of value. If someone is considering buying a new CD or a DVD, and both cost about the same, the usual sale goes to the DVD as it's perceived to be a better value. After all, a movie costs close to $100M for a blockbuster these days. A CD doens't cost nearly as much to make, hence the ever increasing sales of DVDs. The only was to increase the sales of CDs in this sort of competition is to lower the price. Like the article eluded to, some of the lost CD sales are directly attributed to the competition between CDs and DVDs. Like the saying goes, "Perception becomes reality unless challenged by the truth".
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Back in my hometown (Rock Hill, SC), a local music shop (Woody's) has a used record bin up front. The records in the bin are $1 each. Granted, you won't find any new stuff out there, but if you have a record player and like the poppinp and crackling of vinyl, you can really make out. Even better, I've discovered jazz and rock artists this way--a whole album for the cost of a soda!
Live free or die
...before you all start to go nuts hear me out. Sure we know music is starting to suck but there is only so much money to go round and as consumers were are starting to spend our money on other items. For instance I believe video games and DVD sales are booming if recent figures are to be believed . Now that money has to come from somewhere, it is just a sign of changing times and market trends shifting. I personally dont think we will ever see CD sales return to what they were.
"Why I am forced to pay taxes into healthcare even though I don't get sick very often?"
"Why do people have to pay taxes into the public school system, even if they send their children to private school?"
Because that is the way things are spun in this country. Social responsibility and social subsidising are facts of the way the country has chosen to run itself. It's a facet of the way Canada works and it has its advantages and disadvantages. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better with what many other nations put up with.
I don't know what sort of music you listen to, but I like a lot of albums as a whole, as they've been produced by the artists and the producers. The promoted singles sometimes get my attention, but I usually prefer to play the album completely.
After all, would you be satisfied watching a 10 minute slot out of a movie or half an act in a play? Those scenes aren't pointless or worthless just because they're not complete. More often than not, if it's well directed, they're developing context for the surrounding material that makes the whole even better.
I'm sure there are exceptions. I don't imagine that most teeny-bop music is much more sophisticated than throwing a collection of songs onto a CD when it comes to album arrangement. (I don't listen to it, so I couldn't say for sure.)
The Economist is such an excellent magazine because even when they write about something we know about, we can say "duh" instead of "they got it all wrong". Now extend that to world news, business, finance and economics, science and technology, and a smattering of other articles, and you have a magazine that covers a lot of things pretty well, which is not an easy accomplishment. It's nice to see things like this there, because it also means they are probably being read by at least a few people with real power.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
In case you hadn't noticed, this very article (which you say "blew away" the RIAA's world view) confirms that piracy is responsible for 1/4 to 1/3 of the drop in sales. I don't know about you, but to me, that seems pretty significant.
In case you hadn't noticed, and you obviously didn't, the entire article parrots the 1000s of threads that have rehashed this debate over and over again for years...
Basically it is giving information on both sides (as a good article should) and it mentions that it is possible that the industry is fucking shit up for themselves *AND* that it is possible that piracy is as well.
I've got over 500 CDs in my collection, but these days I'm lucky if I buy a new one more than once every 4 or 5 months. There is just rarely anything good out there anymore. Granted, I'm a metal fan, but even metal acts suck these days. I can always relyon groups like Judas Priest, Megadeth or Iron Maiden to put out somethig worthwhile, but that's about it. Kinda sad.
Interesting, but even by your numbers the single biggest contributor to a drop in sales is decreased interest by the consuming public (45%). Shrinking retail space occurs because end-sellers have seen a shrinking demand for Product X and want to give Product Y (with more public demand) more shelf space. Competition from other media, again, points to decreased consumer demand; if the consumers wanted this particular product, it would squash the competition. Quality of music is, then, either the nexus or the largest contributor of the 45% drop.
We can haggle semantics all you want; it just depends on how you slice the numbers to support your theory.
My theory is that the Record Industry should have given Internet distribution MORE attention early on instead of just trying to crush it. The genie was out of the bottle before they were even aware of the bottle's existence and trying to stuff it back in will only continue to do harm to all parties concerned.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
There are technical reasons why the new music is shit. Take out your old AC/DC or Rush album and plop it in the CD player and compare its volume level to a new CD. You will find that the older CDs are at a much lower volume level and the new or re-mastered CDs are all at a much higher volume level however when they do that, it ends up killing the emotion of the music. Examples of this are Thunderstruck from AC/CD or Rise from Herb Albert. Both are quiet by modern standards but have a wide range of energy that simply doesn't exist on modern albums outside of rap. Rap gets around this auditory abuse by the mixers because the peak energy tends to be spoken (which can be clipped) and tends to be in beats so the auto clip stuff can't do its job.
Another example of this audio abuse comes from what I call the Abba sound. (Hey were are discussing teenage music here). The female vocals are remixed in a very interesting way that gives them far more energy. The voice is sampled, then accelerated, boosted then slowed down. This trick gives a bright clear sound to the vocals that seems to increase the energy however thanks to Nyquist theory and digital samplers thinking 44 khz is the max you would ever need, this sort of thing doesn't sound right out of most digital mixers these days since the resulting sound has already had its high frequency chopped and the auto level adjusters just ignore the harmonic peaks and they are just clipped. While it kills off all the energy of the music, it also kills off most of the new bands that would appeal to the largest (only?) demographic of singles buyers which happens to be teenage girls.
I own a record store that carries everything from the beginning of recorded music and I can say without a doubt that the quantity of good music created TODAY is more than it has ever been in the past. The problem is that the overall amount of music is exponentially more now than it has been. We find ourselves deluged by an immense amount of shit and so it seems like there's fewer classic albums. Frankly, the average person doesn't have time to listen to everything and find the really good things. Most of the real music lovers who used to filter some of the crap and promote the real quality as A&Rs are long gone. What we really have is MBA's churning out marketable artists with no interest in the music.
There are some good web sites that take up the slack like Pitchfork but the best way to find something current (or old) is to go down to your local independent store and ask them. They're the only ones left who are actively filtering the bad stuff and sharing what they know.