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Legal Music Downloads Increase in 2005

Posted by samzenpus on from the still-missing-napster dept.

GraWil writes "The CBC is reporting there is marked increase in legal music downloads in 2005. American internet users downloaded 158 million individual songs from January to June 2005, compared with 55 million during the same period in 2004; during the same period, U.S. CD sales decreased by 7%. According to Peter Jamieson, head of the British Phonographic Industry, "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards". In the UK, sales of seven-inch vinyl singles were also up 87% on last year."

34 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. RIAA's response.. by InsideTheAsylum · · Score: 3, Funny

    OMG!! teh downloads are bringing down our profits!

    1. Re:RIAA's response.. by pahles · · Score: 5, Informative

      Joke aside, but are they? These are legal downloads, so about 65 cent per 99-cent-song is going right into the pocket of the music industry. Apple alone has sold almost 500 million songs, that's 325 million dollars, for doing nothing!

      --
      Sig?
    2. Re:RIAA's response.. by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      "And what's worse is i'm pretty sure the quality isnt equal to the ones you get in the store."

      Nope...it is not. All that is currently offered, is lossy recorded material. I'd love to buy stuff online, but, until they offer a lossless version of the music, that gives me the same abilities as I have when I buy a CD :to play on any player, and to rip to lossy formats on my own choice for poor listening environments (car, portable for gym)...then, I'm not interested.

      Actually, the main reason I've not bought many CD's in recent history...I've pretty much got them all now!! I also find very little new music coming out that I find worth buying.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. Trustworthy tracking by jfonseca · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder how they conclude these things anyway when they have no clue how many songs were downloaded in the black market to begin with....

    I bet you the illegal music traffic tripled as well.

    If I had the time I could probably prove that broadband connections increased in number, prices fell, newer technologies connected more people, etc...

    This is a piece of not-so-well crafted corporate propaganda.

    --
    Broken Hearts are for Assholes. - Frank Zappa
    1. Re:Trustworthy tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nothing was said about illegal downloads, the article was about how many legal downloads there were, which they do know.

    2. Re:Trustworthy tracking by Solr_Flare · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Agreed, but I do think the number of legal music downloaders *is* on the rise. It is on the rise from the non-computer savy people who are just now in the process of switching to broadband(yes broadband growth is undergoing the last "big boom" right now). These new average Joe's(my roomate is one of them) pick napster or itunes because:

      A) It's convenient.

      B) They know its legal so they don't have to worry about it

      C) The catalogs and prices are getting friendly enough.

      There will *always* be piracy. The idea is to make the legitimate methods more attractive and less hassle and the record companies are slowly succeeding. Now just imagine if they had listened to all of us and done this years ago when they should have instead of suing everyone. They'd probably be in far better shape.

      --
      You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
    3. Re:Trustworthy tracking by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the article was about how many legal downloads there were, which they do know.

      Do they? There's plenty of music that's not under the purview of the RIAA. If they're measuring by sales, then their methods are about as reliable as those who measure software popularity by sales in a world where open source is growing by leaps and bounds. Anyone who has installed a dozen or more legal copies of Fedora or Debian from a single CD knows how silly that notion is. And the amount of legally redistributable music out there is many orders of magnitude larger than the amount of free/open source software. The fully legal Etree torrent site is reportedly moving Petabytes on a regular basis.

      (But your point that the article was not about illegal downloads remains valid.)

    4. Re:Trustworthy tracking by Grail · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think the recording industry has to learn to use piracy as free marketing, rather than viewing it purely in terms of, "lost sales" (which is a fabricated argument anyway).

      Make the music available with complete information on where to find it - ID3 tags in MP3 files are ideal for this. Then as the file is circulated through the grey market, people will see the URL to your legal music download site and go, "gee, I wonder if they have anything else I like?"

      I contend that people truly desire to help the artists who produce the music that they like. In the meantime, we don't want to be gouged by paying for music we don't want - ever bought an album for the one song you do like? doesn't $AU30 for one track sound a bit excessive?

      So I agree, there will always be piracy - the trick it to turn it to the advantage of the artists rather than just whining about it.

      Next time some recording executive talks about "lost sales" due to piracy, ask them how much free marketing they got from that same piracy - based on how much they spend on marketing to sell as many albums they do, calculate how much it would have cost in marketing to ship the extra albums that they claim were "stolen".

  3. This article fails to mention... by Sawopox · · Score: 4, Funny

    that only 14 seven-inch vinyl albums were sold in all of England last year.

    --
    [http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
    1. Re:This article fails to mention... by Seumas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I haven't bought a CD since 1998. I have no intention to ever buy a CD. But I'm not going to buy music either. I'll pay for a subscription service to a massive library. Rhapsody is great at just under $9/mo for unlimited music. But unfortunately, those of us who primarily live on our Macs have no such service. You can either pay a buck a song on iTunes or get nothing at all.

      If someone wants to put together an affordable subscription service with a client for Mac that has the same selection as Rhapsody or iTunes, I'm all over it. Until then, I'm a SoulSeek man.

  4. Of course by mfloy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This was inevitable. The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading digital music. Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice. Now that the labels are catching on they will be rewarded with huge profits. Now if only the TV and movie industry would catch on. There is big money to be made off legal movies and shows, just wait.

    --
    Voice your opinion!
    1. Re:Of course by superpulpsicle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have signed up to Rhapsody due to the advice of so many slashdotters. Well, not to mention my Napster trial sucked due to so many "buy-only" tracks.

      I thought it would be crazy for me to keep the subscription service for more than 2 weeks. To my surprise, I am listening to new stuff every day for the 6 months. Subscription still going unbelievably strong. That's like $120 spent on music... I know I wouldn't buy 12 CDs in 1 year. My only worry is that I run out of stuff to listen to eventually.

    2. Re:Of course by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Take 1:

      The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading digital music.

      I suppose they didn't like the idea of downloading analog music very much.

      Take 2:

      The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading free music.

      Take 3:

      Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice.

      Of course, "downloading" the music directly from a CD was simply too hard.

      Seriously now:

      For me, the pricing needs to reflect the savings from not having to press, print and distribute the physical objects. I'd prefer to get the physical CD at a negligible amount more, most CDs I buy are priced around $10-$12 anyway, or used for half that, and I get an uncompressed copy, I don't worry about DRM, or what device to use.

      For a $10 album download, the music industry is saving a lot on the middlemen but not passing the savings to the final purchaser.

    3. Re:Of course by Mr2001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course, "downloading" the music directly from a CD was simply too hard.

      I know you were joking, but "downloading digital music" is about more than just being able to listen on your PC or your iPod - ripping tracks from a CD is no substitute. It means being able to hear any song instantly. If your friend sends you an IM saying "check out this song by band X", a minute later you can be hearing it, looking up related bands, and listening to their tracks too.

      To do that with CDs, you'd have to (1) live at the record store, and (2) run back and forth between the shelves and listening stations, trying everyone's patience, if the store even has stations where you can listen to all the CDs they sell.

      --
      Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
    4. Re:Of course by sankyuu · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Of course, "downloading" the music directly from a CD was simply too hard.

      I was gonna mod, but I'll post instead.

      When the GP said Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice, the first thing I thought of is that it can be pretty hard to find music that I like where I live.

      Searching for music and buying it online is much more convenient, and buying only the tracks I like makes so much more sense.

  5. and the UK reports by tzuriel · · Score: 3, Funny
    sales of seven-inch vinyl singles were also up 87% on last year.

    I guess the natural connection between downloadable music and 45 RPMs has finally been realized in the United Kingdom.
    Huh??

  6. It's called ease of use. by VectorSC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When it's easy to do it legally (aka the iPod), people will do it legally. Why?

    Not because people have a great amount of respect for the law, but because we have a great amount of respect for the easy.

  7. Analogizing the debate... by Sheetrock · · Score: 5, Insightful
    When one thinks of the ongoing struggles of the free music proponents vs. the commercial music proponents one might picture an argument between King Arthur and Robin Hood (fictional example obviously, as King Arthur was not a real person, but it has to be fiction to be an analogy.)

    The thing to realize is that both sides not only believe they are working towards the greater good but are objectively doing so even with radically different and diametrically opposed 'solutions' to the problem.

    It really puts things in perspective to realize not only that each side is right but that there is more to be gained for each to sit down and figure out what to do with the deer in the forest rather than constantly fighting over territory and methodology.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




  8. Re:what? by VectorSC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Heheeh. You think THAT's bad? Look at what the BPI did to cheap CD's on the internet. They make the RIAA look like a drugged out PTA meeting. http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread/t-6362. html

  9. Re:Hm.. by sthebig · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's okay, I read it that way too. ... Now, back to masturbating.....

    --
    Please, stop reading my signature. If not for me, then for the children.
  10. Now if they would only do this for TV shows... by AgentJose1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know I would pay for a service where if I paid a certain amount of money I could get access to a BT tracker that was distributing DRM-'ed video files. I wouldn't mind signing up for a "pay-by-the-show" format, in case I miss an episode. Especially now that my favorite shows(Stargate SG-1, Lost, etc.) are trending towards more arc-ish storylines, so I won't get lost with the story. Granted, most TV programming doesn't have enough story to make these kinds of things worthwhile. I mean, why do I care if Jerry gets eliminated on Survivor 2000:The Last Place on Earth We Haven't Filmed In Yet?

  11. Re:what? by Magus2501 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    eBay, my friend. eBay. I can get numerous CDs that the RIAA is soiling themselves over for a bid that's less than the shipping cost. When the RIAA kicks down my door, I'll kindly smile and show them the album that I ripped my music from.

  12. Easy? by jcnnghm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just tried Napster again yesterday for the first time in over a year, but it still suffers from all of the problems that I had with it last time.

    The catalog is incomplete, to really replace Limewire, it has to offer ALL of the songs I want. That includes some pretty obscure songs. Basically, my personal library is 1,500 songs or so off of Limewire. Napster's whole library seems to show about 750,000 songs. The legal library is 500 times the size of my own, but I don't like one in every 500 songs, probably only 1 in 1,000, if that, so there are huge gaps.

    DRM sucks. It basically turns digital music into something that can only be effectively used while sitting right in front of the computer. I want a standard format (MP3) that I can burn to standard audio CDS, use on my Rio MP3 player, and burn to data discs that will work in an mp3 cd player, or my set top dvd player. DRM makes much of this impractical. Of course there is the argument that everybody would just steal the MP3's provided by the service. But why bother. If they cost $1 each, and I could do whatever I wanted with them, and they were good quality, not to mention legal. I wouldn't hesitate to skip the Limewire hassle and just by directly from them.

    And where in the hell is the quality that was supposed to be associated with the pay services. What is stopping Napster from offering up the songs at 512k instead of the paltry 128 that they seem to be using now (yeah, wma makes a difference, but I still want bigger files). I would be happy spending even $2 per song for 512 DRMless MP3's that are legal. Instead, the stuff Napster sells sounds the exact same as the MP3's that came off of Napster 1. Not what I was expecting. I want 14mb downloads at 5mbps+/second, and why not, except for the size I can get everything else off of Limewire.

    Further, I have to boot into Windows to use Napster or itunes (not counting pymusique). I don't like doing that, and I really can't play drm'd wmas under linux.

    Limewire is still the best option. It's fast for a Java Application, it runs on anything with a virtual machine, can easily max out my download bandwidth, and I can use the files however I want. Of course, most of the files aren't legal, but the legal files can't do what I want so what good are they?

    --
    You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
  13. Re:Hm.. by DanThe1Man · · Score: 4, Funny

    That is the funniest "Informative" rateing ever.

  14. great... by grrrl · · Score: 4, Informative

    so where the freak is iTunes AU???

    I'd really love to be into this "legal" download sensation but noone will sell to me (and if it doesn't work on my pod I'm not interested).

  15. Some people don't want to be happy by Nugget · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are people in this community who will continue to lobby against legal downloads no matter what the terms or what technology is used. I swear, sometimes I think that if Linus himself started a company that sold no-DRM OGG Vorbis songs for a penny a piece and you got a free blowjob from Natalie Portman with every 10 purchased tracks that we'd still see posts on slashdot justifying P2P piracy because we didn't get to pick out Natalie's outfit when she showed up at our parent's basement to deliver.

    There are people who read news like this who are encouraged that market is beginning to respond (as markets always do) and there are people who read this news and get grumpy because it just got a little bit more difficult to continue to rationalize their greedy piracy.

    How did you react?

  16. Seconded by aftk2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree. When iTunes first started doing its thing, a lot of people griped that they didn't think there was a large enough difference between the cost of a CD and the cost of a downloaded album. They argued that you're not getting a physical product, and you're getting a lossy copy, so why does it still cost $9.99 (never mind that this is, in some cases, nearly a 50% reduction.)

    I never saw it that way. I always thought that the convenience and the speed with which I could acquire the album more than made up for not getting the CD, and not having a perfect, pristine copy. I had a Paypal balance a number of months back, and debated using it on Ebay, to acquire several albums, or on iTunes to do the same. I chose iTunes - even though I might have been able to get more albums, plus liner notes & the original CDs, through eBay. Why did I choose iTunes? Because I wanted the songs on my iPod that day.

    --
    concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
  17. I'll take CDs thanks by bsytko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wouldnt download music from these services anyday. Why? The quality is just too bad. When I get a CD, I listen to it for the quality of sound not because of price. For me, I would rather buy music and get a better sounding product, than download.

  18. You are kidding! by skingers6894 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"

    More like:

    "the record industry was lead by the balls kicking and screaming into download services...and now we're beginning to rape the rewards"

  19. The true tragedy behind all this by Lord_of_the_nerf · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think we're missing the true tragedy here - the lawyers. They're going to have to go back to...pursuing justice!

  20. Re:My experiences purchasing and downloading mp3s by spagetti_code · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Yes, Allofmp3 has by far the best combination of UI (just brilliant, kudos to the programmers), selection and price.

    But it's legality is quite dubious and the RIAA has had a couple of goes at it. At the moment it lives in a loophole of the russian copyright system that is unlikely to be closed - those russians have bigger problems to deal with first.

    So I guess it depends on how squeeky clean do you want to be???

  21. The hell they have... by Chordonblue · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"

    Only because they were dragged kicking and screaming into it. They have done EVERYTHING in their power to prevent even the LEGAL downloading of material. In addition, they have used their might to stop or at least slow down acceptance of new media devices. I need only point to such debacles as:

    - The Cassette tape
    - The DAT/Cassette DAT
    - The CD-R
    - The digital MP3 player (remember when they tried to stop those?)
    - The Napster ruling
    - Internet Radio

    Etc... In short, they hate any technology they do not have 110% control over. If the music industry thought they could charge by the minute, they would.

    --
    "...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
  22. Re:want quality? then buy vinyl by Frank+Palermo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "I'll be so glad when you vinylphiles finally all die out.

    Hey, I tease. :)

    But seriously... Nyquist and all that."

    Nyquist and all that? All that the Nyquist theorem says on the subject is that a sampling audio system like PCM should, in theory, be able to reproduce signals with frequencies up to 1/2 of the sampling rate faithfully. But in the real world, there are at least two problems with that:

    1) The low-pass filters used on the signal path are physical devices, not theoretical concepts. As such, they can't be absolutely perfect... they introduce phase distortions and begin attenuating at frequencies somewhat lower than 1/2 Fs.

    2) Even if the filters were "perfect" (not attenuating or introducing phase distortion until 1/2 Fs, at which point the attenuation becomes infinite)... well, the jury is still out on whether 22050hz (the theoretical upper bound given the 44.1khz sampling rate of CDs) is really high enough. There's some evidence to suggest that even if we can't "hear" frequencies above 22.050khz, they can have an effect on the way we perceive lower frequencies that we can hear.

    Just to be fair to both sides of the argument though...

    "CDs are still far worse sounding than vinyl." ...only on excellent vinyl playback equipment. It tends to be tougher to produce a mechanical device like a turntable cartridge with the same level of consistency that can be expected when producing ICs and the like. That (along with other factors like simple supply and demand) is why decent vinyl playback stuff tends to be quite a bit more expensive than decent CD players do. I have a reasonably high-end turntable and I enjoy using it tremendously... but I have to admit it wasn't cheap compared to digital gear in its league.

    To return to the digital downloads aspect of the article a bit though... I have to completely agree with the poster who shuns download services for poor quality. The only times I've extensively used iTunes were the Pepsi free song promotions, and if I found any songs I really really liked... well I went on Amazon or to my local record store and sought out the CDs to re-rip as DRM-free Apple Lossless. Better sound quality and the ability to use the format of my choice will make CDs the clear winner in my book for a long time to come.

    -Frank

  23. Ha! by NubKnacker · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"

    That one made me laugh. I'm not sure which is the funnier word, enthusiastically or embraced.

    Nice try making it look as if the industry was the one which ushered in the age of downloadable music. They did everything to stop it and when it steamrolled them over, they 'accepted' it and made it look like it was their creation.

    I wish I could warp to another universe, Trance Gemini style, where there was no napster, no kazaa and no BT and look at how enthusiastically they had embraced it there.