Slashdot Mirror
After Brief Respite Music Industry Slump Deepens
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Sales picked up for the record labels late last year, but 2005 has been bleak. The Wall Street Journal ticks off evidence: 'During the crucial Thanksgiving week, for instance, the top 10 albums sold 40% fewer copies than the top 10 albums the same week in 2004. ... Sales of individual digital tracks on services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store have increased -- but not nearly enough to offset the slide in CD sales. According to an estimate from SoundScan, overall sales of recorded music are down about 4.5%, if one considers 10 individual tracks the equivalent of an album.' The WSJ also lists familiar reasons for the decline -- 'online piracy, CD burning, high prices and competition for consumer dollars from videogames and DVDs' -- while adding, 'Lately, people in the music industry have said the same basic issues have been intensified by the growing popularity of pricey gadgets like Apple's iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, as well as the rising prices for games that go with the new platform.'"
I wonder if they ever thought about the Quality of the music they sell??
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Could it be that the music industry is just putting 40% less desirable music? When it comes to new CDs and artists, there hasn't been all that much growth over the past year.
Wow, there's other reasons than "online piracy" that leads to declined sales of music. Heh, it won't be long until RIAA either demands a halt in the sale of high priced gadgets such as the Ipod and the Xbox360, or demands a portion of the income from the sales. ;)
While sales may be down to last year. itunes still provides a way for lazy people to legally download music, where if they had to go to a retail outlet would probably just resort to a P2P. So in fact itunes has increased profits regardless of amount. Don't mistake greed with reality
this timeline also explains the thanksgiving slump. funny how tfa does not mention that.
I am advocating the violin overthrow of the RIAA through the Revolution of CDs made by non-label groups!
Maybe they should look at the top 10 grossing tours (US) from this year. According to Billboard they are:
1. U2 ($260M)
2. The Eagles ($117M)
3. Neil Diamond ($71M)
4. Kenny Chesney ($63M)
5. Sir Paul Mccartney ($60M)
6. Rod Stewart ($49M)
7. Elton John ($45.5M)
8. Dave Matthews Band ($45M)
9. Jimmy Buffett ($41M)
10. Green Day ($36.5M)
Hmm...I'm not sure about Kenny Chesney, but all of the other acts are at least 10 years old. I hate the Eagles as much as the next guy, but the mass marketed music today is Busch League, laughable.
He hates these cans!!!
10 individual tracks sold in itunes cannot be equated to just a single CD album.
An average CD album will not contain more than two or three good tracks while the rest will be useless. When people buy individual tracks from itunes, they will only go for the better ones and the rest will just not sell. So instead of considering 10 tracks as being equivalent to a single album sale, WSJ should consider 2 or 3 tracks sold on itunes as being equivalent to a single album sale.
We got terribly excited by the idea of selecting only a few tracks to put on our iPod. When the excitement died down, we noticed that the music was still shit.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Perhaps they just lost a file with part of the sales listed in it..
I think it was named $sys$Sales.txt or something like that..
Yet no mention of people boycotting them? Surely this has dropped at least 1% or more. If you look at how it's spread, it seems like a slow rot. It started out 1-2% fall "from pirates", then got to nearish 5 and they started to sue people. Then in a year it seems to have doubled..
I suspect the boycotting may have a coule of percent in this, but they won't admit that. It's "obviously" evil pirates.
I like muppets.
This is the market correcting itself. As the stranglehold the labels have over the music market wanes, the proper balance between listeners, artists and labels will be struck. As it is now, the labels wield far too much power. They definitely play a valuable role, and deserve the chance to make a profit, but their current model depends on certain inefficiencies (where they can most significatly exert control) which no longer exist.
This process of seeking a more equitable equilibrium is too slow, but it's definitely going in the right direction.
The WSJ also lists familiar reasons for the decline -- 'online piracy, CD burning, high prices and competition for consumer dollars from videogames and DVDs'
And of course they (deliberately?) omit the #1 reason:
shit product
They'll still blame the #1 reason on piracy though.
Disposible income is extremely low, music just isn't that high on the priority list this year.
From the article:
This year, though, there's little Christmas cheer to go around. During the crucial Thanksgiving week, for instance, the top 10 albums sold 40% fewer copies than the top 10 albums the same week in 2004
All this means is the top 10 albums sold less this year than they did last year, that is not the same as a decline in CD sales or an industry slump.
If this year only 10 albums were available to buy, from anywhere, this years top 10 whould have had huge sales compared to last years top 10, but I'd be willing to bet there would definatly be less profits than last year.
Each year more and more CDs are put out and made available to the public. Surely the way to indicate a slump would be to release the total number of CDs sold in that week, or the total profits made by the music industry that week, and compare them.
For all we know, those same top 10 albums could have had record sales for every other week in the year, and now everyone in the world has a copy, the only people buying them are those that want 2 copies :o
It seems the music industry/RIAA has just employed some statistics experts to check the numbers and find anything that could be used to indicate a down turn, whether true or not.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
I don't know about everybody else, but I like the fact that the huge record companies are making less. Music isn't about making money to anybody who gets into it for the right reason. If these trends continue, we can expect less-corporate-MTV like atmosphere. Look back at the 90's with its anti-corporate grunge phase; I think we could use more of that! If anything, I would love it if these trends produced a culture with more independent music. Maybe the next Ashlee Simpson or Christina Augilara will be able to actually sing???
Slash-for-Thought
The labels are throwing crap at us. How much X-factor / Pop Idol rubbish are we actually expected to purchase?
Bring back Genesis! I'd buy 'the lamb lies down on broadway' on any media format they publish it on
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Recent studies have shown >. Consumers are selecting only the tracks they want in complete disregard of the impact this might have on the income of poor struggling creative musicians. To rectify this injustice, Congress needs to legislate that sales of music online will only be permitted under the same conditions as those of music albums: with unpopular tracks bundled along with their more popular cousins. Only in this way can musical creativity be maintained and further encouraged in this great country of ours.
It's been well over two years since I bought an album the RIAA had a hand in, glad it's adding up to something. I also thing the role of satelite radio in eroding music sales is udnerestimated - you can get so specifically what you want, I think many people would rather just pay their 10$ a month because they get everything they want to hear out of it, no commercials, and no format portablity issues - you just plug the unit into your home or car and the satelite brings all the music to you.
Funny, if I want to blow 20 bucks, I can go to a wide choice of bars and clubs with local acts, pay the cover and get a pair of beers and a couple of hours of entertainment with good company. I might even find a really good band that I never heard of before, and hell, I'd buy an album from them for a few bucks after their set was over.
.mp3, and maybe I'll buy something from them because I like to hear them.
If music is great, we don't need a leech-like promoter to tell us so. I'll hear them, or a friend will tell me, or a friend of a friend, they can send me an
I just hope in the music companies' death throes they don't drag down our laws with I.P. and DMCA any more than they already have.
Lately, people in the music industry have said the same basic issues have been intensified by the growing popularity of pricey gadgets like Apple's iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, as well as the rising prices for games that go with the new platform.
Well, I guess we know who they're going to sue next!
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
The CD is not dead. It's still a convenient and relatively durable medium, much like a book. E-books have been around for years and you don't see them supplanting the real thing. In my inexpert opinion, this sharp decline in CD sales is attributable to a general stagnation in popular music styles, the aforementioned competition from other kinds of entertainment, and perhaps also widespread disgust with the music cartel.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Back in the late 1980's an import record shop in my area had the idea of putting together compilations on the fly for customers and burning them onto CD. The technology was available if expensive at the time, and the intention was to pay royalties to the copyright holders for the tracks which required just a really simple database. I suspect local agents for the record companies involved quite liked the idea, because it got as far as a press release - but then apparently threats of legal action followed. Only now, more than fifteen years later, a PC manufacturer is making a lot of money doing effectively the same thing with iTunes. In the meantime people have been burning their own music compilations for many years - one thing which long record company inspired delays in the release of consumer CD burners did not stop.
They are not going to move with the times - it may just look like they will because they may be bought out by groups that do. The studios are as bad/worse/often the same people - the long delay of consumer DVD burners is evidence of that and hopefully they won't hold up newer formats for as long.
"Sales of horse drawn carriages have slumped. Horse drawn carriage manufacturers are worried about the increased use of horseless carriages and are hoping to pass legislation making it a requirement for everyone to have a horse infront of their carriage."
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
One observation I have made is that the number of people who buy albums is a lot smaller. A lot of people have told me that they don't buy CDs any more because they can just download the music. Young people just don't have a huge collection of CDs the way they used to in the 1990s (replacing the collection of records eveyone had in the 1970s through the 1980s).
I think there are a number of reasons for that. One of them is plain simple greed on the kid's part (Downloading instead of paying for a CD is a form of greed, just like ripping of the musicians is another form of greed). Another is that the record industry has always tried to keep the technology to copy music away from consumers. They won in the 1990s by effectively killing DAT, an early 1990s technology for putting CD-quality sound on a special audio tape that looked like a mini videotape. I still haven't forgiven the record comapnies for these actions causing me to pay $1200 instead of $300 for a DAT recorder for my home studio.
They lost in the 2000s because the technology could not be as eaily controlled as it was in the 1990s. First of all, your average person didn't know about nor cared about the repression of DAT technology, but everyone now has an opinion on Napster and file sharing. Second of all, software didn't require the capitol investment to make the way DAT recorders did; anyone could and many people did write file sharing programs before the record companies could react.
So, what now? Well, I don't think the wholesale downloading of music is the best thing for musicians. Thomas Dolby, on his web page, pointed out that he lost money touring--he made his money selling albums. Bottom lone: When more people download music, musicians have less motivation to make music; this will result in talented musicians working in other fields, and less quality music being made.
So, what is the answer? I think making every song available via iTunes will stabilize things; a lot of people feel uneasy downloading music without permission. I think there will be losses due to piracy, but I don't think these losses will kill the music industry--the video game industry is thriving, and they have had to deal with piracy since day one.
It's a complicated issue, with no easy answer. I don't think asking musicans to make music for free is the answer. I don't think saying that concerts should be musician's sole soure of income is the answer. I think paying a fair price for a song ($1) is the answer.
I guess this means the RIAA suits will have to settle for 40% smaller mansions and 40% smaller pools.
This will eventually trickle down to the artists themselves, many of whom will have to settle for 40% less jewerly and 40% fewer Maybachs.
The second greatest trick the Devil ever played was to convice people that music was an industry.
What about the fact that consumers are becomming sick of being treated as criminals
or the fact that sony execs authrised computer tresspass agaisnt thousands of computer users?
In europe in some countries they already levy a "tax" on mp3 player. In Germany I think this is levied on all storage devices, including hard drives. In Finland they currently only levy a tax on CD's and tapes.
Now is it me, or does this mean that the state has given up its monopoly right to taxation? I remember something about a war taking place due to taxation without representation...
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
What the music industry wont tell you is that people are getting sick of the same old manufactured artists, boy bands, girl bands and pop groups that really have no tallent and a good PR and marketing campaign. Today the kids are exposed to so many bands / groups and artists that really dont care about the music they just wanted to be famous. Where is the tallent. I know that there are some really great artists emerging but how much air time do they get? And if they do get air time how can the 14 year old girls and boys afford the CDs when the latest Xbox or game has come out. People get sick of having no tallent crap bands and artists. Most of the music when I turn on the radio is just all sooo similar it almost all turns into one big blab blab blab of noise. Its got to the point where I dont listen to the radio any more. I can listen to the music I want online and download the music that I want so that I dont have to listen to the Dj talking garbage about stuff they often know nothing about. The record industry is its own worst enemy. They want the money, they want the PR, but they dont want to premote the artists with the tallent... its all about the beautiful face on the CD cover, and the music clips that have lots of half naked girls dancing sh*t moves. Wake up Record companies are killing themselves. Anyway thats my bitch for the day.. time to move on..
Since those pirates come to our shores and started to download music instead of attacking ships at sea, our god given profit has since diminished. It has been leeched by these onerous high seas scoundrils! Since they will not stop downloading, and since we have been having a little difficulty in shutting down the internet or purchasing it from its misterious owners we must do the next best thing! Pass laws that enable us to put to sleep, or perhaps just put them to prison, for daring to encrouch upon our livelihood!
After all, it is unnatural for the profits to go down, despite better ways of transporting content (don't you just love that word). To maintain our profit margin we must further lower the average contractual wages of musicians from around 8% to around five-ish or so. Perhaps lower. After all, those people just keep making music no matter what, so it is a good thing that we take that money which otherwise would be spent on useless things, like morgages, dental insurance or something. Best to keep them on their toes, begging at our doors to sign the contracts that we make up as we go along (after all, there is no such thing as a standard contract in the music industry, but the musicians don't need to know that).
In closing, I would like to thank our esteemed supporters in the government circles who will be recieving their little purses of joy when their next election comes up.
Best regards,
Nates Reficule,
general manager, Angelic Records inc.
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
They're, again, blaming "piracy" (on the high seas, Arrrr) for destroying record sales. But how many stockings are filled with "illegally" (not in Canada) downloaded MP3s? Would you consider giving a CD-R full of major record label "artist"'s music to some one as a Christmas gift? Nope, you wouldn't. Because that would be being a cheap ass, and besides, the real article is just a little bit nicer, what with a booklet and all of that marketing crap. So, blaming "piracy" on lower holiday-season sales DOES NOT COMPUTE. Really, they must get tired themselves of always blaming "piracy" (Ra-men).
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Not to mention that Albums are now a way to take over your computer.
My non-expert eyes are seeing an interesting trend correlation between not just copy protection, but public awareness of copy-protection on cds and the decline of sales.
If you start taking away options from the customer without any added bonus you will start losing customers.
Well, my teenage son and his friends are copying my CD collection dating back to Buddy Holly (before my birth!) and are simply ignoring the current music offering. As a teen, I would not have been caught dead listening to my dad's ragtime music and I still can't stand 1920-1940s music. So it should be obvious - the current music suck baaaaadly.
It's the bands stupid...
Oh well, what the hell...
The CD is not dead. It's still a convenient and relatively durable medium
.... Compared to what?!? Your mothers favorite Vase on top of the mantle that your 7 year old nefew isnt even supposed to be able to reach?
Relatively durable? The last time i checked, accidentally slipping on a cd on even a nice carpet with a resonable ammount of dirt (aka sand) is enough to scratch a CD into enough oblivion that at the VERY LEAST impares at LEAST one track from playing successfully without skipping. You act as if most cd's are diamond coated or something. I have YET to find a "scratch resistant" coating on a normal store-bought CD. Not to mention the sh**y quality of plastic found in some (most) cheapo blank cd's. It's almost as if the recording industry figured out that a device which relys upon a defect-free plane of clear plastic was so much LESS durable than a standard audio cassette that it would be worth the money to invest in such a fragile media distribution.. Heck, i STILL have cassettes that are at least 8+ years old that, unless subject to an excessive ammount of magnetic force (i.e. swirling it around on a speaker magnet), will STILL play within the respective sound quality of a cassette tape in any new or old tape player i own.
Now i must admit, CD's do have their redeeming qualities, such as their superior sound quality and the fact that yes, if you treat your cd like your newborn baby's eyes, they will remain clear and true. But i remind you: the first time you drop your cd in the floor of your car, or even a more worse-case scenario, out of your car door onto the pavement in your local toy's-r-us parking lot just after you have tried to buy an Ipod just to find out that even they are sold out (i really dont know if toys-r-us carries ipods, nor do i care) even the act of attempting to pick up said CD, will be scratched to a point where it may just become unreadable by your standard car cd player. (that assumption requires the idea that at least a little sliding occurs before said CD is removed from the contact of the gravel/concrete) whereas if i dropped a cassette tape i could literally jump on it a couple of times and kick it against a brick wall without hampering sound quality, much less inducing any skipping...
So i shall redunditize (new word?) myself: The CD is not dead. It's still a convenient and relatively durable medium
Relatively durable?
- You're not paranoid, they really are after you.
Perhaps the problem is that you keep buying average albums instead of above-average albums. I am constantly amazed when people on Slashdot point out how little they appreciate their music. I look at my own collection and I don't have a single album with a hit-rate that low. If I disliked the artist that much I wouldn't have bought the album or the single in the first place. I'll reserve my money for artists that I actually like.
Keep your cds in the cases and not lying on the floor. I have many cds that are 20+ years old with no issues. Apparently you have no experience with vinyl:) We can talk about that if you want to talk about scratches.
... new music just sucks. What are people supposed to buy? Jessica Simpson? Ashley Simpson? Madonna's latest reinvention of herself?
The music industry just cannot find new and interesting and exciting music like they used to. Any musician they produce is so obviously controlled by marketers that they are just lame.
Even traditionally non-conformist ganres like punk and heavy metal have become lame creations of marketing executives. Example -- Pink.
So there is another thing the music industry could blame for their troubles -- the fact that their product sucks.
In fact modern music is so bad i am developing a growing appreciation for classical music.
They forgot to mention the other reason for low sales, being that popular music, for the most part, sucks. If they improved the quality of the crap they play on the radio's maybe they'd make some more sales.
Broaden your horizons. I gave up on most pop music years ago. I started listening to Swing, classic Jazz, Opera, Folk, Qawwali, Klezmer, and anything else that was interesting. Much of it recorded before I was born. There is a lot of great music out there if you are willing to try something new.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Ir CDBaby, where we order, sometimes.
They give such good custoemr treatment. Accodring to their confirmation letter, their entire staff sings as they march MY cd to shipping, on a gold pillow. What service!
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I wonder when these guys are going to wake up and realize that all this meticulously homogenized top 40 crap is death to the industry.
That being said... the indie rock scene was GREAT this year. A lot of small local labels in my area did relatively well.
Perhaps if the record industry would have the balls to highlight stuff like this, they might actually make money.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I have noticed a phenomena not mentioned. Once I ripped my collection, then weeded the collection of the songs I really didn't like, then I had a condensed collection of all my favorite music. Put it on random play and it is like my own private radio station.
On random I have enough music that I never get sick of my own collection.
The implication for me: I don't listen to music radio anymore, ever! Think about it, I don't actually hear new music anymore. I have all the music I need. This is what they really need to fear. I notice my friends doing the same as well.
I do think other factors are crap music, while others discount boycott, I have been on a 3+ year boycott of RIAA now and it will never end. I don't need any more music, so their near monopoly is now dead to me. If I encounter a new band in a small venue that I like, I could by their album straight from them, but the RIAA will never get another penny of my money.
RIAA has more to fear from the IPOD than from downloads. Big random play collections replace the need for new music once it reaches a critical mass.
You know something? That's not a bad idea! We should show them our appreciation. We could chip in and buy them some really nice vehicles. But... (MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)
First, we need to build in some special safeguards, yes we do. We need to weld the passenger doors shut, for starters. No, these cars are just for these music industry executives, no free rides for their friends. They probably already have their own cars anyway. We add in a fingerprint lock on the ignition so only one person can start it up, and that should have the angle of no unauthorized riders covered.
Next, let's look at authorized use. We wire a GPS system directly to the engine and the lock on the gas tank. That way we can make sure the car isn't used to drive on any of the wrong roads, or fill up at any of the wrong gas stations. How it's maintained and driven will have an effect on its lifespan, so we have to make sure they take appropriate cautions.
Because we're buying the cars for them, we get to pick the color. I heartily recommend turquoise, teal, periwinkle, lime green, or peach with mauve racing stripes. Music industry executives like distinctive colors, don't they?
It'll take some effort, but I'm sure we can produce (or at least buy and modify) a car for these music industry executives as satisfying to drive as their companies' music is satisfying to listen to.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
So now that the easy pickings are instead spending their money elsewhere, they have trapped themselves and are left with no market at all. All they have is a broken machine that depends on facts that are no longer true. So now they ought to reinvent the business, aiming toward a variety of quality acts that produce reasonable revenue at reasonable prices, but they can't get themselves to do it. What they had was so juicy that it's difficult to abandon. So like an addict they try to force it to continue to be, and won't stop until they hit rock bottom. At that point a new and functional model will emerge.
1865 - Locomotive Act (amended 1878) - restricted the speed of horse-less vehicles to 4mph in open country and 2 mph in towns. Act required three drivers for each vehicle - 2 to travel in the vehicle and one to walk ahead carrying a red flag... - the Red Flag Act.
1896 - Repeal of 1865 'Red Flag Act' after nearly two decades of strong support from horse interests. Horse-less vehicles now free to travel faster than walking pace! Royal Automobile Club founded. First RAC London to Brighton run held to celebrate the new era of speed. Race was won by Americans who didn't stop for lunch like the rest of the contestants...figures...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Face it ... you can't manufacture art. The music coming out of the pop-formula organ grinders hasn't been worth buying lately. Both my teenage daughters are telling me they prefer music from one or several decades ago, so it's not just my aging tastes.
If the music isn't any good, people won't buy it, and there will be a downturn in the music industry. Duh.
The most important component in any sound system is the human ear -- everything else is fluff. Get the content compatible with that element first, and there will be an upturn in the music industry. Whether they deserve it or not.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Well I guess they now know what the old saying "Don't bite that hand that feeds you" means.
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
I don't know about others, but one reason I'm buying less music than I used to, is because I absolutely refuse to buy a "CD" with copy protection on it.
Given that more and more CDs are being crippled by this, I find myself putting more and more of them back on the shop shelf.
As far as I'm concerned, the music industry is cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Between 2004 and 2005, 40% more people realized that Top 40 music was shit and stopped buying it.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
Yeah. What do you have to say about black musicians like Ray Charles who often made top-selling albums of songs that happened to be written by white songwriters?
For instance, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music contains a top-ten selling cover of "You Don't Know Me", originally recorded by Eddy Arnold. Eddy Arnold was managed by Col. Tom Parker, who would go on to become Elvis Presley's manager.
So was Ray ripping off whitey? Or did he, like Elvis, recognize what was brilliant in someone else's work and reinterpret it to make it his own?
Sometime in the 60's, record album sales began to increase, as people realised that most of the songs on a popular group's albums were being released as singles (on the smaller 45 RPM records). I remember quite a bit of discussion in the industry about this, and the record companies began pushing the sales of whole albums on pop recordings. I believe previously, only a few types of music sold whole albums in any number. Classical music comes to mind.
Groups like the Beatles were particularly consistent in their output, and their albums sold a lot of copies, even without a lot of hits on them (many of the hits were only put on albums later on). The question I and my friends had back then was should we buy just the singles we liked, or the whole album. After a while, we learned that many of those albums were well worth the added cost.
I believe those days are now over. The CD's that are currently available just don't have enough good music on them. The available of singles through services like iTunes and others will erode what little popularity the CD has left.
The current music industry is based on a short-lived phenomenon (people buying whole albums/CD's) that peaked years ago. In a way, the industry realises this, and wants to make more money on each single, knowing the whole album will probably not sell enough copies to maintain profits. The market is going back to normal behavior, and this means the industry will be forced back into a 1950's model, when singles ruled, and radio (including now Internet) broadcasts the key tool to selling those singles. The artist as well as the customer have both changed too much in the last decade or so to maintain the old business model.
It's not about piracy, it's about the product and the customer, just like it's always been.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Maybe we've finally hit that point when everyone gets disgusted at the old stuff and goes on to create new genres? It happened following all major periods of music, and we're about due for it again now.
Stop comparing people who FileShare with thieves. A thief is someone who walks into my house and takes my stuff. FileSharing is like sticking a sign outside my front door saying feel free to clone anything in my living room but please leave the bedrooms private.
If you want to talk specifically about an intellectual property thief then I consider this to be someone who profits from another's works without giving fair pay. Like say a record company who locks artists into unfair contracts.
In my controversial opinion it doesn't matter if you download a track from e-mule of buy a CD from a store, the artist, in my opinion has not been given fair pay for their work.
At least those who download choose not to expose themselves to malware DRM rootkits or support corrupt cartels. Only legal persecution.
And no I do not download music. I also don't care people do download music or buy music from a shop. I hope one day the creators of these works get fair pay for their contributions without middlemen getting fat from someone else's talent.
The CD is dead and Sony fucking killed it with their rootkit stunt.
... and none of my CDs were on the list, and none of my computers were affected. It was an entire year before anybody had a clue that the rootkit was out there - and in the past year and a half the technology of evil has gotten even better.
Quite honestly I don't trust commercially packaged CDs any more, because of a) the rootkit stunt in the first place, and b) the passive agressive bullshit they pulled with their 'fix'
I mean get real - after Japan pulled their shit in 1941-1944 - the world didn't trust them to have a military.
After Germany pulled their shit during WWI - the world didn't let them a military.
After Sony pulled this rootkit business, causing potentially more damage in not adjusted for inflation dollars (not including lives, just trashed hardware - and yea, that's just a guess if anybody wants to do the math) than the Germans caused in WWI - I don't trust them not to do it again.
Perhaps CD sales are down 40% specifically because of the Sony rootkit, and I say they deserved it. That's still 60% more sales than they got from me this season.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
You clearly don't get it. As the elite they're entitled to their taxation of our society. Buy more "fitty sent" albums. Represent!
Is it just me or are the bulk of hip/hop rap style music entirely aimed at people with IQs in the 40s with only base instincts to guide them? Like I like video-hos like the next guy but bling, cash, cigar smoking and video-hos can only be the theme of rap videos for so long before people realize YOU AIN'T SIGNING REAL WORDS!
Oh, and can someone please just invite lohan, spears, simpson [both of them] and timberlake to a nevada test range or something?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I'm shocked and a bit disgusted that there's no mention of the fact that we were paying $3+ a gallon for gas, healthcare costs continue to spiral, and employment is mediocre. The middle class is getting the shit squeezed out of it. This is the 'new good old days'. Who has an extra $30 to blow on a couple Black Eyed Peas CD's? Music is a luxury - you can't eat it or get to work on it. If you get it for free out the radio or by copying a friend's collection, fine. But this attitude of entitlement and head-scratching by record co's is bizarre and ridiculous.
If I were they, I'd be hard at work pricing CD's for the Chinese and Indians, and making pop music for them. They're the future.
I find it amazing that the music industry has to blame piracy first and foremost as a cause of declining sales. It should be clear to anyone that if they are using payola to push records by J-lo and the Dixie Chicks is that these records suck.
The are facing the same problem that the American automobile industry did in the 70's. The are making a crappy product that nobody wants and are in denial. The are slow to adopt new business models that their customers want. Why release a 10-12 song CD when the artist can only write 1 or 2 good songs? They may claim file sharing as the main cause as it is the easiest to try and stop. It is very easy to have the feds and courts do the dirty work for them. It is much harder for them to stop the main cause of piracy, that of people selling knock-off products. Besides the mobs of several countries are involved in that business and it would mean getting their hands dirty in trying to stop it. It is easier to go after the consumers.
Most of the iPod owners I know, including myself, have stopped using file sharing services and now buy our music from the iTunes Music Store. I use iTunes podcasting feature more than anything else these days. It is more cutting edge than the music groups put out these days. The few tunes that I don't buy on iTunes are given away free by unsigned groups who want the airplay and have not signed a deal with the evil record companies.
As far as these artist claiming they did not know that their companies were doing the payola thing.....please, if you are that ignorant of where your money goes you should not be in the business. They knew payola was going on as spending money to get spins puts more money in their pockets in the long run.
"Once you have a large enough music collection, an album has to be either substantially better, or substantially different to be worth buying, and both qualities seem to be lacking these days."
Yes and no.
Music, unlike movies, can be listened to repeatedly, but there is a limit to how much you'll listen to a group regardless of how much you like them.
Lets say you like Led Zeppelin; no, not just like, I mean love them. You even buy a t-shirt with their emblem. And so you listen to their albums...all 10-ish of them. After a while, you'll be sick of them. I don't care if you get royalties from them, you won't hate them, you just won't be interesed enough to listen after a while (sort of like dating, I suppose).
You really need two things to keep this from happening:
1) A big music collection
2) Artist must be given enough time to develop
3) Artist must be "encouraged" to make more music
1 - The music industry can help itself out here by lowering the price of CD's. You can't build a music collection at $20 a pop.
2 - The music industry can help itself by investing more in bands that help them in the creative process. I don't mean meddling, I mean hiring a lot more producers and artist to mentor bands.
3 - If the Rolling Stones started today, they would have ended their career with about 10 albums tops. That wouldn't be enough for the long term for either the artist or the music label. Get more music out there for the fans. A lot of "marginal" bands put out an album every 18-24 months. You can't build a following for a catalog that way.
Maybe the blockbuster mentality of Hollywood is now rampant in the music industry, but it seems to me that there is no patience with most bands these days.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The Billboard 200 Album Chart shows us the current top 10 consists of:
1. Eminem: Curtain Call--The Hits
2. Lil' Wayne: Carter II
3. Korn: See You on the Other Side
4. Various Artists: Now 20
5. Carrie Underwood: Some Hearts
6. Kenny Chesney: The Road and the Radio
7. Nickelback: All the Right Reasons
8. Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi
9. Black Eyed Peas: Monkey Business
10. Enya: Amarantine
Who did what now?
I will no longer buy their "TOP TEN" I do not listen to AM or FM radio. I am more likely to listen to PRI, CBC or BBC. I own all my albums not one is pirated!
I like to listen to Bruce Cockburn which is only available as a hard CD used. Although last year he released a brilliant CD it certainly was not even in the shops. However go look on iTunes on Folk 101 there he is first entry.
Hastings and many more outlets are going mostly Used CD's.
So what use do we all have for the music industry any more? They have not adjusted to the new Paradymn so they will be replaced.
Vista, the single biggest argument for Desktop Linux! It doesn't "Just Work"(TM).
E-book readers are hard, run out of power, are either to bright in the dark or to dark in the sun. In short they are a hassle.
None of this applies to cd's. To a certain extent I do not even use cd's, they are the paperbag around my book. It is a container, and I empty the container into my pc from wich I then play the content.
Book more closely resemebles a portable media player. And just like a book is great because I can easily take it with me a pmp is great because I can take it with me.
I agree with the rest you say. But comparing book sales with music sales just doesn't fly.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'm willing to bet money that after the news of the Sony fiasco hit the airwaves, CD buying decreased overall. Think about it, the average consumer probably doesn't pay attention to which musician is on which label and following Sony's Rootkit Extravaganza probably stopped buying all CDs.
And, of course, the Wall Street Journal blames piracy. Right....
Actually, TFA did mention it:
They don't necessarily reach the same conclusion, but they do at least bring up the idea music isn't selling as well because current music simply isn't as good or appealling as consumers would like.
Guidryp, you're right about random shuffle and large collections. I don't think it's I-pods specifically, however, it's just the "big random play collections" that are the real threat to the music industry.
While my wife owns an IPod, I do not. But I do maintain our music collection, which has become -- by my standards when I was a teenager -- immense. I've spent 2-3 years digitizing every piece of vinyl and cassette tape I can lay my hands on, including my old not inconsiderable record and CD collections and hundreds of used records, cassettes, and found/garage-sale CDs. It's all in a database of about 2300 hours of MP3 files on our home stereo server, and it's all legally acquired since (to my knowledge) we own the original copies and use the collection only for ourselves. I might occasionally order a CD from a particular artist I like -- but most of the time we just listen to our own customized "radio" station. We went walking through Best Buy the other night and I realized that we have more albums in our online collection than their entire store music section - about 2,000 albums.
Why should we pay full price for hit-and-miss on new albums when we have so much stuff we like already? It would take a full year, 40 hours a week, to listen to the whole collection. Unlike the source material, it will never wear out with additional play or abuse (and we keep an offsite backup).
The same thing is happening with children's records. Although we have a child on the way, we are not part of the market for children's recordings and music, because we have over 100 albums of children's instructional songs, stories, and folk tales left over from our own childhood. We digitize 'em, pull out the pops, and remove the background hum -- and the 30-year-old records sounds better than when they were new. Why fork out $15 for a copy of Peter, Paul, and Mommy when I've got one right here? Why buy some crappy abridged version of Grimm's Fairy Tales when we have records of unabridged readings - with music -- that were cut in the 1960s? Why buy the soundtrack of our Disney DVD when we can get the music directly off the disk at the same quality as the CD in the store?
Big, accessible collections are displacing event DJs too. For our wedding we didn't hire a DJ, we hooked up a subset of our music collection and (after the first few songs) let the guests themselves choose the songs from a small web client right there on the dance floor. It was a big hit. I've been to several events since then that used the same idea. It's a natural thing to do once big hard drives became available.
"the top 10 albums sold 40% fewer copies than the top 10 albums the same week in 2004."
This statistic taken alone is meaningless. Depending what's happening along the rest of the curve it can mean that sales have slowed, or it can mean that people are buying a more diverse set of music.
Most of the problems listeners cite IRT the music industry center around labels hyperpromoting a few bands at the expense of thousands of others who get no airplay or in-store marketing. When the top 10 account for a smaller proportion of sales it means that the power curve is flattening a little and people are thinking a bit more for themselves instead of buying what big media tells them to.
And this is bad how?
Kevin Fox
...and say: Is it entirely possible that the there is a slump in the top song purchases from last year because this year's music just sucks?! I mean seariously, I think that piracy is too convenient an excuse to blame for declining sales. But even if it were true, why would people pay for trash if they could just as easily get it for free? I suggest an experiment, lower the price of tracks by half, (ie an iTunes $0.99 track to $0.49) and see what happens (oh and none of the crap about 'allowing the market to decide the price of each song'--charge a uniform price for all of them). I know that I myself would buy tracks more often.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
to buy a root kit.
But they were sold out.......
Rick B.
Everyone seems to be going on and on about why music sucks, etc... or RIAA or whatever... but here's the real reason:
Gift Certificates. People buy music as gifts during this period of time right? With the availability of Amazon GCs and iTunes GCs don't you think that maybe just maybe people are getting those instead of trying to guess what music their gift recipients really want???
Let's take a look at music sales just after Christmas... say the week after, and see how much it is up compared with 2004.
I'm betting it will be higher... probably high enough to overcome any 'slump' seen during november and december.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I think that the decline in music sales is down to a number of small effects that on their own seem harmless but combined have led to this massive fall in sales.
This is going to be a long ramble so bear with me.
A number of factors have combined to make us listen to music in a different way and thus reduce the attractivness of buying cd's in your average limited selection store.
People used to play records (for the kids REALLY big black cd's like objects) and because of hardware limitations the music was usually played from the beginning of the album to the end. You needed an advanced record player if you wanted to play albums back to back (playing A and then B side without getting up was extremely difficult).
If you just wanted to listen to a wide selection of music you either had to record your favorite music to tape and then play the tape (wich until quit recently still forced you to listen in the same order over and over) so the radio was the only way to get a wide selection of music without you after a while being able to predict wich song comes next.
Now with CD-changers or worse mp3 players people can listen to a large selection of their own choosing with still enough randomness in it that it doesn't get to repetetive. My own collection of mp3's is big enough to last a week without repeating. You can now play your entire collection at random or any order you desire without being limited by hardware.
MTV doesn't play music anymore. Neither does the radio. Oh they get the occasional "promotional sound clip of the week we repeat every hour" in and when the D.J. needs to take bathroom break but mostly it is commercials. Dutch tv has no music program anymore like Countdown or Top of the Pops. Simply put, the programs that used to introduce us to a selection of new music have disappeared. There are alternatives available but they are often to alternative to be accepted on the workfloor. You need something middle of the road, not to extreem not to mundane to play during the 9 hours you are at work.
With the decline in radio a lot of people seem to have decided that an mp3 player is a better way to get a bit of background music. Hookup an mp3 player to the company soundsystem is lot easier then everyone bringing tapes to work. We listen to less and less radio. But if you listen to your own music you will not hear a new artist you might want to buy.
The walkman still suffered from giving you a very limited music selection in a pre-arranged format. A decent Mp3 player can easily hold a day worth of music. I am sometimes shocked to find that I haven't added a new album in months. This is different from my minidisc player where I would buy new minidiscs now and then or at least regurly record a new collection. I got 20gb of mp3's on my player and frankly I so far don't get bored with it.
Finanlly regonized by the music bizz the simple fact that the money that used to buy L.P.'s (other word for the big black cd like things kids) now goes to games and dvd's and my mobile phone etc etc.
Of course some people will like the "new" music and some young people have a violent reaction to oldy music BUT the simple fact remains that the newer bands do not have the selling power of the oldies. Just google for top album sales and you will find that the top hasn't changed in years. Worse the newbies that do make an appearance lower down are all of the oldie sort (Shania Twain is hardly pushing the envelope). Or simply put Gan
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think it has more to do with folks realizing that you don't have to pay 14.99 for a CD that maybe has 2-3 good songs (for a good CD) on it, when you can get those say 3 songs for 2.98 from iTunes.
It doesn't take a rocket scientists to realize that CDs have too much filler music, for most releases. Why pay for crap, when you can get what you like.
Even if said album has 10 songs on it, and you love all 10, that's 9.90 for 10 songs, as oppossed to 14.99.
Do the math.
I think overall, top 10 format radio is down from prior years. as people decide to listen to the music on their iPods, or satellite radio, which offers a lot more variety than can be found in the Top 10. Also witness the populatiry of stations like "Jack FM" which play a varied playlist instead of the same 20-30 songs over and over again. People are listening to more music, and for the most part, better music than what can be found on the charts.
I've also noticed that the back catalog has become cheaper, you can get some decent albums from the last 10 years for the price of $9.99 (Canadian) or thorough 2 for $20 deals at most CD shops, which works out to about 8 and a half bucks U.S, cheaper even than used CD's sometimes. This has cannibalized from marginal releases - I'd rather wait until it goes in the bargain bin in a few months, and get the chance to become more familiar with other songs on the CD before buying.
It typically costs more for the soundtrack to a movie than the DVD of the movie itself. Particularly after both have been on shelves for six months or so. The music industry continues to overcharge for their product and then sue it's own customers when they bypass those costs.
You're joking right? Most people have never heard of the rootkit, let alone care about it.
People buy CDs based on what musicians made it, they probably don't even look at what record label made it.
Causing more damage than the Germans in WWI? Jesus what planet are you from?
"Methinks doth protest too much." Rationalize much do we? I'm stealing from the record companies who steal from the artist. Stealing from a thief is okay in your book. Well got news for you if you steal a stereo from a thief some one still lost a stereo and you still own a stolen one. In your senerio the artist doesn't get paid a small amount they get nothing. The artist looses yet again only bigger this time since it's a total loss. Repeat after me, I am not a thief, I am not a thief. Keep it up. You might actually believe it one day.
Record companies are basically organized crime:
* they price fixed for years in the past and occasionally they get their hands slapped with a small fine (never criminal action). This price fixing business model is illegal.
* They install root kits on customers computers which open the customers computers up to installation of additional software and viruses without their consent. This software also destabilizes the customers PC, and it consumes memory and CPU time forever, even if they are no longer using the product.
* They buy legislators and pay them to pass bills trying to legalize their illegal business plans.
* They sue their own customers, without even knowing or caring if the person they sue has broken a law. Who is going to continue patronizing companies that sue their customers???
* Their overpriced products are not governed by the laws of supply and demand. Hence, sales go down but the product does not go down in price to increase sales. What other private, non-utility industry can have a legislatively supported business plan that does not respond to the laws of supply and demand? Still, they make huge profits even when sales go down. They think that by buying more legislators, eventually they will win. They fail to learn from Microsoft's mistakes. Just because you are a monopoly it doesn't mean you can shove an inferior, overpriced product down peoples throats and not lose market share to the inevitable backlash. When the record companies get a backlash they buy new legislation to pay them for their losses, i.e. tariffs on blank CD's, IPODs and computers.
I feel morally ashamed when I buy a CD now and support organized crime. I buy only a few CD's a year now and avoid DVD's entirely. I used to buy a couple dozen CD's a year. I'd rather listen to old music than support criminal monopolies.
I also hold major music bands partly to blame, you don't have to go though dishonest labels (the majority - all RIAA members) or distribute by traditional channels (use direct downloads instead).
I hope my fellow Slashdot'rs will consider boycotting any paid music or video DVD's whenever possible. Even though I don't illegally download music (I've bought enough stuff already), I think illegal downloading is morally justifiable when you are up against a corrupt government (I'm refering only to the US here, I don't know about overseas), and your media companies are also totally corrupt. Only a boycott can resolve this issue. Even then, we will face taxes on PC's, blank media and possibly the air we breath, to replace the lost profits of record companies.
Are you up to the challenge?
Has anyone thought that declining sales of CDs might be tied to a general trend in wealth distribution? Specifically that as wealth becomes more concentrated in the US (not sure what the trends are in EU, Japan and other traditional CD consumers), there is less disposable income for most of the populace to throw away on CDs?
Just a thought, not even a theory.
The labels just don't get it, do they.
/rant over
* Better music might be a good place to start.
* CDs that adhere to the red book standard would be a good follow-up.
* Treating your customers with respect would complete the trifecta.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
The one point that is not often said, but I think is important is the fact that nearly everyone *HATES* the record labels. Most people love music, and artists, but the business that is around it is obviously flawed.
The lack of sales probably has a lot to do with the fact that the labels are still trying to sell the stuff THEY want us to buy, rather than embracing the internet and allowing consumers the real opportunity to buy the music they want to hear for fair prices.
On a more consious level I think consumers are like me and don't want to support the selfish, greedy labels who we all know only care about $$$. They shit on arists, they shit on fans, they'll shit on everyone they possibly can to get every last possible penny. The industry truely distgusts me.
One other factor I postulate has something to do with the decline in sales is the old payola scheme. I am sure payola is alive and well, the evidence is the shitty state of over-the-air radio. It sucks so bad. The labels are trying so bad to *CREATE* the next big hit that they are cutting off their own noses just to spite their face. In an effort to force shitty music on us, they influence radio stations to play their shit. It is much easier now to influence playlists since the radio network has been revived, the large multi-market broadcast companies, like clear channel, make it much easier for payolaish side deals to happen. Instead of making deals with a hundred small stations the labels can work out arrangements at the top.
So the record industy is plummeting more because of their selfish, greedy actions, and their ineptitude to recognize a paradime shift in the way people listen to and respons to music. The inertia will only carry them so far.
What they need to do is:
> Give people a good product, and let them decide what that product is -- in a word give them a CHOICE.
> Stop wasting time and $$ on tracking down file swappers and sueing them. Create competative legal services, and track the illegal services to know the direction the market is going. In the mordern world patterns change quickly, and now that they cannot control the pattern, they have to learn to recognize and adapt quickly. They must shift from being proactive to reactive.
> Look at other business models to sell cds. Subscriptions, downloads, memory cards, differnet formats, different quality. Sell some low quality CDs at a cheaper price. Make music more readily available. If people like the lowend stuff they will "upgrade"
> Partner with a cellphones. Offer some type of low bandwidth *FREE* streaming radio to all cellphones.
> Do something to make people like them again. I'm not creative enough to think of anything along this lines, since I think most of the people running these companies are canidates for the next anti-christ.
Wow.
First of all, if you were to conduct a random survey of 100 people, I'd say at least 80 people would say they don't know what a rootkit is. At least 90 would know nothing of the Sony Rootkit. Saying the damage they have caused is on par financially or otherwise of Japan or Germany's military is simply absurd.
Also, I'm sure that sales in a multi-billion dollar industry are down almost half based on sony's rootkit.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***