Digital Music Enjoys Golden Week

An anonymous reader writes to tell us Yahoo News is reporting that the last week of December turned out to be a golden week for music downloads. From the article: 'In the seven-day stretch between Christmas and the new year, millions of consumers armed with new MP3 players (primarily iPods) and stacks of gift cards gobbled up almost 20 million tracks from iTunes and other download retailers, Nielsen SoundScan reports. In the process, consumers shattered the tracking firm's one-week record for download sales.'"

Comments

Whoa

[the-amazing-blob]

With all this, how can the RIAA still say they're losing money? I don't see how their argument works anymore.

well

[Anonymous Coward]

But how many downloads were there on Kazaa?

RIAA will spin it differently

[lar3ry]

Let's see... We forecast forty million dollars of sales, so we've lost twenty million because of illegal pirating!

The RIAA's "evidence" has always been that sales haven't hit expectations, even if the actual sales are larger than they ever were.

Re:RIAA will spin it differently

[nmb3000]

With movies, we don't even want to see most of them, so their blaming things on piracy will just get worse when no one goes to see movies again in 2006.

It's a good point.

All the BS about piracy impacting sales at the box office for the 2005 year were a complete joke. Take a look at a list of box office revenues by year.

The movie industry was all up in arms just because the trend showing up to yearly 10% increase in sales wasn't continued. While the increase streak came close to ending in 2003, it is interesting to note that 2005 will be the first year since 1991 that movie sales haven't increased.

Damnable pirates! It's just not possible that rising ticket prices and poor movies have anything to do with it! The public is stupid. We tell them to go see movies and they do. It must be pirates, and draconian DRM is the only thing that can save us!

MP3 market penetration

[dannytaggart]

I found this even more interesting:

And for the first time, sales of MP3 players are surpassing sales of personal CD players and CD shelf systems

Something for the music industry to think about.

Imagine how much more they could sell

[Saint37]

If the RIAA had not angered so many customers, they would have sold alot more songs. Unfortunately, I know alot of people who won't buy any music at all until the middleman is removed.

http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/

They are stealing from the mouth

[www.sorehands.com]

Those damm P2P users. They are stealing from the mouth of children musicians. The only reason for having MP3 players, computers, P2P software is to steal from the poor musician that ends up on the street begging for change in the train station.

Why else would anyone want to record music except to make illegal copies. Why would anyone sing except to
perform copyrighted music instead of buying the CD, except to take illegal advantage of it. I think the RIAA should sue anyone who sings music.

Wait a second.

[slashbob22]

At this point in time RIAA would complain about how much more music was being pirated. And I for one would be getting out my little violin to play them a sad song -- though I am unable to because reading the sheet music and playing would be converting between two formats (like analogue to digital).

So I am stuck here asking how many of those 20 Million downloads are from the poor suckers who's DRM'd music turned against them? I would really like to know, I have had enough bad experiences with DRM'd music to stop me from ever buying it again.

It's all about visions

[argoff]

It really is all about visions. To many of us, the intnernet envisions a future with the uninhibited unrestricted free flow of information - where all knowledge and creative works will be birthed into the world thru creative collaberation, or thru services, or thru just plain giving for free as a side effect of private interests. To the music industry, and the RIAA in particular, the internet envisions a future where every piece of content is tagged and charged for with the promise of unlimited profit and royality and the prospect of endlessly being able to nickel and dime the consumer to the highest order - but to inpose this vision requires that they coerce upon people and technology companies, an infrastructure of controll - where no piece of information can leak out and risk becomming free.

Moral: This is like an ALL or NOTHING game

People who want to play half hearted, and allow some room for copyrights in this age are only going to continue to feed the beast that is trying to enslave them. Copyrights are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off peoples freedom until we cut it off at the root. One of these days people are going to realise that copyrights are not about artists, writers, developers, incentive, or "property", or even profit, they are only about control. Controll, even if that means the loss of privacy, free speech, and controll over our PC's.

Re:It's all about visions

[TubeSteak]

I thought the main problem with Copyrights was the Micky Mouse style extensions that pushed the term into something like lifetime + 90 years.

. One of these days people are going to realise that copyrights are not about artists, writers, developers, incentive, or "property", or even profit, they are only about control.

Of course it's about control. And of course it's about artists, writers, developers, etc.

Just because something is being abused, that doesn't make it inherently bad. copyrights & patents are like guns. They don't hurt anyone until somebody with bad intentions come along.

Re:It's all about visions

[mejesster]

I agree on your view of the two conflicting visions, but I disagree on the possible outcomes. Copyrights MUST continue to exist and artists MUST be compensated. Hollywood and the RIAA are right when they say that if sales stop, so will the product. That does NOT mean we have to be saddled with DRM laden crap. Buy the CD and rip it yourself. Buy a DVD or DVR and timeshift/placeshift to your heart's content. Fair use is not piracy and please don't confuse the two. I envision a future where the corporations provide a product I want at a fair price in a manner that is convenient for me... but my kind of vision is nothing but a dream.

Heard of Compact Discs?

[LFS.Morpheus]

Most people still buy, as well as own large collection of, these things called "compact discs." These discs hold music, typically a single album by a particular artist, and can be placed into a computer and "ripped" - the process of reading the digital data on the disc and storing it as a file on the computer.

Kidding aside, I don't buy music online, because I consider a rip-off. CDs have better quality, do not have DRM*, comes with liner notes, and is itself a physical backup. I know many people who feel the same way. IMO, online music needs to be much cheaper to make up for these shortcomings; the only benefit it has is immediate delivery.

*I have yet to run across any CD with DRM, and I would definitely return any CD I got that had DRM on it (or not buy it in the first place).

New paradigm

[Announcer]

It's high time for the music industry to wake up. Digital music delivery systems are the new media of choice. They need to stop fighting it and embrace it... before it passes them by. The music industry needs to stop thinking "We're in the CD business."

They are a lot like the Railroad Industry of old, whose narrow vision is what led to their rapid demise... They were thinking "We are in the RAILROAD business". If they had thought "We're in the TRANSPORTATION business", instead, things would have been different for them.

New dance, same old song.

Re:Illogical arguments are still arguments...

[Firehed]

Yep. Only the RIAA could be so ignorant as to think nobody with an MP3 player actually (legally!) owned CDs prior to recieving their new shiny iPod. Honestly, with how much money they've gotten questionably, you think they could afford to come up with an argument about piracy hurting sales that actually made sense. They know damn well that them pissing people off and suing them is what's bringing down sales; if they can't make that connection, they certainly shouldn't be in such a monopolized position.

Of course, with how much Podcasting is taking off, your entertainment doesn't necessarily have to be music, and certainly doesn't have to cost anything.