iTunes Sales Ban Does Increase CD Sales

Guinnessy writes "According to the New York Times, some music labels have deliberately stopped selling some new singles on online stories such as iTunes or Rhapsody while promoting songs on the radio, so that listeners will rush out to buy the CD album instead. The album appears in itunes at a later date. Not everyone seems to think this is a good idea. From the article: 'The labels are shooting themselves in the foot,' says Rhapsody's Tim Quirk. However, Ne-Yo's CD In My Own Words sold 301,000 copies using this method. Chris Brown's Run It, that was in the itunes store, sold 154,000 copies in its first week. Ne-Yo's So Sick was downloaded approximately 3.4 million times on the peer to peer networks during the week of his album release while the album Run It!"was downloaded approximately 5.3 million times in the same release period."

Comments

Overheard at the RIAA

[zubinjdalal]

I want the names and addresses of those millions NOW!

Re:Overheard at the RIAA

[Golias]

Why in the hell is this a "YRO" story???

Do I have a "right" to pass up on the newest lump of turd to come out of Britany Spears's ass at the CD store and buy it from iTunes instead?

Is it my "right" to not have to wait a few weeks to download it from an on-line music store?

I don't get it.

Re:Overheard at the RIAA

[KarmaMB84]

Discriminating against online stores to force people who want the single NOW to buy an entire album at inflated cost should be illegal. Even though most of us don't give a shit, there are people (or someone's parents) who are being victimized ;p

Re:Overheard at the RIAA

[Firehed]

Do I have a "right" to pass up on the newest lump of turd to come out of Britany Spears's ass at the CD store and buy it from iTunes instead?

Do you have an intention to purchase feces? Surely those aren't the best two places to look.

Re:Overheard at the RIAA

[j-pimp]

Discriminating against online stores to force people who want the single NOW to buy an entire album at inflated cost should be illegal.
Theres no price fixing scheme here. Should it be illegeal for Lucas to release his movies on video in such a way that you end up buying Star Wars "Jeff Portkins shot first edition." Its a free market, and there is no agreement to do this, just studies that show it works. Maybe we should outlaw studies?!

Re:Overheard at the RIAA

[Devil]

Intern: Sir, the iTunes Music Store is selling singles left, right and center!
Label Head: Bring this "iTunes"... TO ME.

Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[fishdan]

From the article..."Island Def Jam offered a discount to retailers who stocked the album, allowing it to sell at stores like Target for $7.98 last week" This is a great example of someone making up stupid numbers. The fact that more CD's were sold because there no downloads sold makes complete sense. If these people, who were going to legitimately buy a CD could not buy it online, then they would buy it in the store. If they were allowed to buy it online, would they buy it TWICE? The important figure (which are not revealed in this meticulously researched article) is which way did they make more money or which way did they move more units. The fact that they sell less CD's when there is another format to buy the media should not be a surprise to anyone (except for record execs, who can't count).

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[Dutchmaan]

From the article..."Island Def Jam offered a discount to retailers who stocked the album, allowing it to sell at stores like Target for $7.98 last week"

So one can reasonably conclude that iTunes, at least in an indirect way, is forcing labels to sell their music cheaper in order to secure more sales!

I don't think iTunes is going anywhere, but if it's presence causes labels to actually price aggresively the way it should be, then I think it's a good thing.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[vp_development]

You hit the nail right on the head with the price reduction being the key. They did that deliberately to get numbers like that that they hoped would be misinterpreted.

What the RIAA is all about is controling what choices you have in music. If you can only get the CD's that they distribute, they can force anything down your throat. If you can download any artist's music, the artist has much more power, and the labels much less. The RIAA would love to end all downloading of music -- because right now Apple is making money off of ITunes, and they are offering all sorts of music -- music the labels would just as soon you not be allowed to hear.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[afaik_ianal]

The important figure (which are not revealed in this meticulously researched article) is which way did they make more money or which way did they move more units.

But you can't just compare revenue or profit anyway. Song X frequently makes more money than song Y. That doesn't mean that X's marketing strategy is better - it may have just been a better song, or appealed more to the masses.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[Karzz1]

They did that deliberately to get numbers like that that they hoped would be misinterpreted.

"They did that deliberately to get numbers like that so that they can use these misinterpreted numbers in their propaganda machine."

There, fixed that for ya :)

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[bicho]

I think it is not much different than printing a hardcover first and paperback later.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[Jon_E]

The important figure (which are not revealed in this meticulously researched article) is which way did they make more money or which way did they move more units.

which "they" do you mean? the record labels or apple/rhapsody? ultimately it comes down to margin for the content producing agency which is probably higher on a CD sale than on a ESD sale .. with IP such as this it doesn't have to do with moving units or distribution models - it has everything to do with margin and market penetration.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[Stephen Samuel]

So one can reasonably conclude that iTunes, at least in an indirect way, is forcing labels to sell their music cheaper in order to secure more sales! I'd interpret it as: Cutting prices can increase sales.

Also not mentioned here is that the Brown album was available for download ONLY for over three months before they released the physical album. '

so what I see being 'proved' is that:

• Disallowing CD sales for 3 months cuts into CD sales.
• Cutting the prices for CDs increases CD sales.
• exhausting your Radio play before releasing an album can cut into album sales.
• Forcing fans to download music increases downloads.
• Being available online for 3 months can increase downloads.

and for number one......

Bare statistics can be misleading.

((mumbles something about hanging by the toenails and being beaten by an organic carrot))

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[Sparks23]

To be fair, I think the point they're trying to make is 'if the songs weren't available online, the in-store sales would be higher.' Specifically, I think this argument is meant to counter the people who say 'if it wasn't available online, no one would buy it.'

Now, I don't think either statement is correct. If the songs weren't available online, yah, in-store sales would be higher, for people who'll buy in whatever format is most convenient. I also think there ARE people who wouldn't bother to go to the stores and buy the CD if they couldn't get it online. But this particular 'study' (which I use in a very loose sense of the word) is an example of something both sides are prone to do, i.e., taking things out of context and trying to use it to back up sweeping generalizations and flawed arguments.

So, yeah, I agree with you that these are stupid numbers being twisted out of context. :)

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[GWBasic]

The important figure (which are not revealed in this meticulously researched article) is which way did they make more money or which way did they move more units.

Easy. Most customers would have only purchased one track for $.99 on iTunes.

I honestly can't say that I'm surprised to see a model like this. It directly mirrors the movie industry's practice of releasing movies to theater before DVD. CDs, for the next 20-40 years or so, will be seen as "souveniers" for people who want a physical object to associate with a recording, and will continue to appeal to collectors. This model will give die-hard fans an incentive to buy the physical media.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[DissidentHere]

I think it is not much different than printing a hardcover first and paperback later.

I think you're on to something, but I'm not convinced the logic works.

Print publishing has been around for a long time, and they have had a chance to perfect the pricing model. There are two questions, why are hardcover books more expensive than paperback, and why do hardcover come out first? The answer to the first is that hardcover books are a bit more expensive to produce. The answer to the second is a little more interesting. Basically, publishers are working to maximize their profit (a good example based on the hotel industry can be found in The Art of Pricing ). Some people are willing to pay more to get a book first, and they are willing to pay more than the difference between a hardcover and paperback copy - for example, a hardcover costs 10% more, but some people are willing to pay 40% more to get it early. If the publisher only released paperback, they would lose out on all the profits from the 'early adopters' while if they only released hardcover they would lose out on those who would be willing to pay a little less. So, release the hardover, which costs 10% more to produce, but has a 40% higher price tag compared to the paperback == more profit.

So, iTunes vs. CDs. CDs cost more to produce (like hardcover books) the question is, is the margin between "hardcopy" and "softcopy" enough that it is profitable to shift early adopters to the hardcopy version early and let the rest wait for the softcopy. I would say no, the margin per song from iTunes (or other digital distribution) is far, far better than a physical CD. Not to mention the impluse, instant gratification factor and the (likely) quicker format turnover/re-purchase.

It seems a better profit maximizing strategy for music distribution would be either an auction or loyalty based model. The first, auction, would be to have X * T number of songs available at a D * T price (loosly). So the price would go down over time and more songs would be sold. The hardcore fans line up to buy the song, but once they are sold, they're sold until tomorrow (sort of like the midnight CD release). The second, is to offer the songs only to those registered (possibly at a cost) to the fan club. They get the songs early and at a premium - but only those 'in the club' can get it first.

So, I think it is a lot like the print publishing model in as much as record companies need to find a way to charge those who want the music first more, but I don't think it is profit maximizing to do that through CD sales. CDs are a very expensive way to distribute music in 2006 - far more than the difference between hardcover/paperback books.

The labels are going to have to deal with digital distribution. And the first ones to do it will gain. Music is becoming more an more an impulse purchase, and technology is making that happen. With iTunes (and her ilk) one can hear a song on a TV show or movie, look it up and buy it before the song is over. It's only a matter of time before there are links to songs in TV shows, movies and music videos so you can buy it and download it while you watch.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[bergeron76]

Not only that, but Ne-Yo's track is being pushed HARD by the local radio stations. I am so sick of that song because they have it in an excessively heavy rotation.

It's almost like they're helping to promote this guy as a shill, just so they can have some numbers that defy iTunes' undeniable success.

A jewish rapper in Holly[RIAA]wood? Who would've thunk it?

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[dave1212]

Which is lame enough as it is.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[mr3038]

Some people are willing to pay more to get a book first, and they are willing to pay more than the difference between a hardcover and paperback copy - for example, a hardcover costs 10% more, but some people are willing to pay 40% more to get it early. If the publisher only released paperback, they would lose out on all the profits from the 'early adopters' while if they only released hardcover they would lose out on those who would be willing to pay a little less. So, release the hardover, which costs 10% more to produce, but has a 40% higher price tag compared to the paperback == more profit.

Then why not just release a paperback version first with 40% higher price tag and once early adopters have wasted their money, decrease the price to "normal". Is there any reason the publisher should use 10% valuable item for the first release? If the audience is ready to buy an overpriced product, they will do it anyway regardless of were it a paperback or a hardcover.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[gnasher719]

'' Then why not just release a paperback version first with 40% higher price tag and once early adopters have wasted their money, decrease the price to "normal". Is there any reason the publisher should use 10% valuable item for the first release? If the audience is ready to buy an overpriced product, they will do it anyway regardless of were it a paperback or a hardcover. ''

Of course they wouldn't. With the hardcover book, you pay more money, but there is a perceived higher value. The customer knows that the producer does this to maximise profit, but they also get higher value.

If the publisher only produced the paperback at initial higher price, customers would just feel ripped off and boycott that product. There is a thin line between maximising profit and ripoff. If your customers think you crossed that line, you're in trouble.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[mtgarden]

Nice analysis. I am in the print industry and there are several observations that I would like to make to further expand your point. First, not every book releases in hardcover becuase of the cost. The author must be a "good seller" or better. Otherwise, they go straight to softcover. (For many authors, it is a special day when they make the transition to hardcover.) Second, the print industry watches carefully thier sales. Sometimes they have a set window like Hollywoods 90 days from theater to DVD, but it isn't that solid. It changes per book based upon the current market for that title. Another issue to consider. The book must be worth keeping if you are going to print it in hardcover. The early adopters - those who have to have the book "right away" are also those who will keep the book forever. They love thier books. Those who buy softcovers, may or may not want to keep thier books forever (or they may just be to poor to buy the hardcover). Those who buy neither use the library. They have no desire to save books. The music industry needs to target every group. I think that releasing a CD several weeks ahead of the iTunes store is a good idea (in theory). It is the same as with a hardcover title. The difference falls in the availability of piracy. It is much easier to steal the music than the text of a book. Therefore, the CDs should probably be released 1-2 days in advance to limit the piracy and then probably only to the fan club or some other group of "loyals." Then the iTunes would fill the needs of the cheaper target like a softcover book does. Finally the streaming subscription groups fulfill the digital library groups.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[DissidentHere]

There is a thin line between maximising profit and ripoff.

That is exactly what the music industry needs to keep in mind.

Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians

[TheJorge]

it may have just been a better song, or appealed more to the masses.

While that makes sense to common people, that sentiment has no place in current business.

Does Kraft make "better" cheese? Or Coke "better" cola? Do these products inherently appeal to the masses? There's certainly something to be said for focus groups determining that people won't buy Full Contact Croquet, but by and large the RIAA is looking at music as a consumable that needs to be administered to the masses. Songs have little intrinsic value. If we play "My Humps" on the radio enough and put Fergie's ass on the television, people will pay for the song. The fact that it outsells [insert underrated, fantastic artist here] is a direct result of marketing strategy, and very little else.

A broader choice, and worse, the ability to listen to other bands before paying for them, reduces the cost to the consumer to deviate from the RIAA's plan. Historically, music labels have been the filter to bring the "best" musicians to the consumers. Now, we're finding better ways to do this, and this evolution threatens their revenue stream. The real threat is not pirating the deemed-popular songs, but a realization at some point that I like different things than some people and similar things to other people, and my choices may not fall into one of the four profitable genres. Once I can send my money to the people that produce music I like in return for the music, the RIAA loses out. This will happen, and sooner rather than later.

From one sample to conclusion

[Opportunist]

One sample? You draw conclusions from ONE sample? Hire some statistician, would you?

There are SO many variables to be taken into account that could influence that. Do they target the same audience? To give a very drastic example, if you compare CD sales to download of a Techno song and a Country song, it does NOT matter when it comes out on which medium to predict almost flawlessly which one has a higher download and which one has a higher CD count.

Were they released at the same time? If it is released around Xmas, that would boost CD sales compared to downloads (it IS after all easier to wrap a CD in gift paper than a bunch of bits). What's the weather like on release day? Bad weather and I'd rather download it instead of going out in the pouring rain.

Do the CDs offer the same "goodies" that come with the CD? Do they both offer the lyrics in the booklet, for example, or some pictures of the artist? How about the CD cover?

So please, before drawing conclusion from ONE SINGLE sample, at least make absolutely sure that the results are comparable. Or, better, get a few 100 samples before jumping to a conclusion!

Aaaaaand, let's not forget: If it's not available from legal download... especially if the CD is DRMed into uselessness.

Re:From one sample to conclusion

[op12]

Agreed...if the study is not based on numerous samples, this is garbage. And even then it can still be skewed. This is no way to measure the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of iTunes sales. You'd be just as accurate flipping a coin to tell you whether it impedes sales or not.

Re:From one sample to conclusion

[op12]

Can we get enough people to tag this "bogus study"? Or even just "lame".

Re:From one sample to conclusion

[iamdrscience]

Do the CDs offer the same "goodies" that come with the CD?umm... yes?

Re:From one sample to conclusion

[Tweekster]

Most booklets dont have the lyrics you realize? At least the cds I am used to. And generally the album art, its nice to look at once for 5 seconds, then it gets tossed away.

Re:From one sample to conclusion

[yfkar]

It's the Slashdot summary (surprise, surprise) that makes the conclusion "iTunes Sales Ban Does Increase CD Sales". The article itself is titled "Labels Halt Downloads to Increase CD Sales" which just means that labels are trying to increase CD sales by halting downloads.

Re:From one sample to conclusion

[Ryan Mallon]

It may not apply to everyone, but personally I don't mind paying $30(NZ) for a CD when it looks like some effort has gone into the design of the cover and liner notes. This is one of the reasons that I don't think that music distributions systems such as iTunes will kill CD sales, some people just like having a physical album with some nice artwork to look at.

Re:From one sample to conclusion

[MyNameIsEarl]

It some kind of collusion between the RIAA and makers of CD racks that sit in most of our homes. Without those square plastic cases where would CaseLogic be for example? Collusion I tell ya! /Sarcasm for those who can't tell

Tell a lie often enough.

[EverDense]

That is not a correct scientific method they using to measure it.

Re:Tell a lie often enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not a correct scientific method they using to measure it.

Sure it is as long as Chris Brown and Ne-Yo both weigh the same as a duck.

In other news...

[zubinjdalal]

... people turn to newspapers after leading news agencies refuse to publish new content and breaking news on their websites.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is, if one news agency publishes on the web, they all have to, because news agencies compete for readership. Because copyright is a monopoly on particular works, if your want a song or album, you have no choice but to get it from the record label in whatever format they deem fit. You can't go to the competition because there isn't any.

I think if there were two things I could change about the music industry, it would be so that artists could only sign non-exclusive contracts. That would mean that record companies would actally have to compete to earn their money.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno about everyone else, but when I can't find what I want on iTunes, off to P2P I go. I'm not going out walking for a cd, and if I wait, then I'll forget :p

Oh, yeah...

[tool462]

Nothing more statistically meaningful than a single data point! Their powers of extrapolation are mind boggling!

Re:Oh, yeah...

[brian0918]

"Nothing more statistically meaningful than a single data point! Their powers of extrapolation are mind boggling!"

Based on the one moderator who has modded your post Funny, I have come to the incotrovertible conclusion that your post is -1 Troll.

Re:Oh, yeah...

[Coryoth]

Nothing more statistically meaningful than a single data point! Their powers of extrapolation are mind boggling!

They are simply applying Vesilind's laws of experimentation:

1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.

Jedidiah.

Re:Oh, yeah...

[quickbrownfox]

You can prove anything with statistics. Fourteen percent of people know that.

Re:Oh, yeah...

[tool462]

I used that in some of my physics labs ;)

Re:Oh, yeah...

[JourneyExpertApe]

That's what I always say to enviroweenies whenever they talk about global warming. I mean, can you point to any other examples of Earths that have experienced rapid rises in temperature, CO2 and other greenhouse gases in response to human activity?

Re:Oh, yeah...

[bmo]

And based upon the one moderation point that modded you as troll, I came to the conclusion that your comment was funny, and bitchslapped in metamoderation.

*chuckle*

--
BMO

finally the truth

[tehwebguy]

now that we've compared 2 artists we finally know the truth about music consumer habits!

Re:finally the truth

[pigs,3different1s]

...Two "artists" I've never heard of.
A story based on bad data really isn't a story worth repeating, posting, or linking to.

Of course..

[mindtriggerz]

If there's anything all /.ers know, it's that the record companies can't stand competition. They have a (deteriorating) monopoly, and they've been milking it for all it's worth, and they will keep milking it until the cow kicks them or it dies.

Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo?

[Radi-0-head]

And why should anyone care?

Re:Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo?

[just_von]

Chris Brown comes on radio disney all the time (my daughter listens). Hes a rapper I think. I don't know who the other guy is...

Re:Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about Chris Brown, but I think that Ne-Yo is the son of this guy. :o)

Re:Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo?

[Anonymous Coward]

The /. crowd obviously doesn't listen to rap or R&B. Just because 'you' don't know them doesn't mean they're not big names. FYI, they are both young rising stars.

Re:Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo?

[Anonymous Slacker]

don't know, don't care.

Re:Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo?

[Coneasfast]

you obviously dont listen to urban music. and btw, i care!

so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales?

[swschrad]

hey, folks, it's epiphany time! -- the default physical medium for music sales has changed. it isn't Edison cylinders, Brunswick 77s (all "78" record makers used a different speed), 3-3/4 IPS 4-track tapes, or CDs, it's become electronic transfer.

selling CDs promotes ripping without any content copy-limiting software system. if the pinheads in Big Music had their schytte together, they'd stop shipping physical media, and sell it all online through iTunes and the like.

but all they have together is their off-key whining....

Why is this in YRO?

[Rude Turnip]

This might be an interesting business article, sure, but the topic is completely out of the bounds of Your Rights Online. Note to editors: articles should not be classified under YRO to complain about lack of convenience. Ironically, this is the first /. thread where the big complaint is that a song is NOT being sold in a DRM'd format.

Good joke!

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

"If you know you have something of depth, you have to be careful about how you bring it into the marketplace," he said. "We're in the business of having consumers believe in an artist." Haha! At least the labels have a sense of humor.

Sample OK, Conclusion NOT

[ackthpt]

One sample? You draw conclusions from ONE sample?

What they're obviously missing is that denying iTunes sales increases CD sales which translate into more piracy.

Good plan.

Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT

[Romancer]

I'd like to see if there are any statistics on which initial purchase method is released into the P2P arena.

If it's the CD rip that eventually gets on the networks or the iTunes. If they had a simple watermark at the end of the song that would show up in the resulting encodings and be detected they could track which method is actually contributing to piracy. If people who are more likely to purchase a CD and rip it to serve on the file sharing networks or if it's the iTunes users that serve it up. With a couple hundred songs marked and tracked that'd be compelling data either way.

In any case all it takes is one person to borrow/buy/steal/download a track and serve it up.

It makes a lot more sense to make it cheap enough and easy enough to get a song that illegally downloading it is not benificial. Not threatening them with vague lawsuites that people really don't care about. And not DRM crap that makes it better to download it illegally to use on the multitude of products out there being marketed by the same companies that restrict the customers ability to use them (cough-sony-cough).

If there were a service that let people pay a small price for music by the track in a high quality standardized format and allowed them to do whatever they wanted with it without any draconian DRM restrictions, it would be an alternative that would capture the majority of the market share overnight. And at the same time would make the p2p networks that much less attractive.
(didn't hear it from me, allofmp3)

It's not something new, but needs to be said again to these execs: Basic economics 101, if you offer an easier product at a cheaper price without a significant quality drop you will make more money in volume than your competitors.

The competitors in this case are virus ridden, illegal, spotty selection, gun to the head, can go away at any time, P2P networks.

You hear that RIAA? You could make millions happy, rake in billions of dollars in sales, have more volume with significantly less overhead and 3rd party costs. All you have to do is look at the market and act like business people and fulfill the obvious need.

Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT

[Scarletdown]

In any case all it takes is one person to borrow/buy/steal/download a track and serve it up.

And in many cases, I'm sure, that really does result in a significant loss of CD sales. People download that one track, listen to it, decide it's crap, and choose not to buy the CD with that crap track on it, figuring all the other tracks are crap as well. Of course, in an ideal situation, they would indeed delete the track from their hard drives and not download any more tracks from that particular CD.

Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT

[Hercynium]

The first point you made is very interesting - using a detectable 'watermark' (or some other scheme) to determine which format is pirated more readily - is just the type of thing I know I would do. It would provide a useful metric for determining prudent business decisions in a changing marketplace with new dynamics.

A good businessman would then weigh those results with the rest of the reliably collected demographic, technical, and marketing data so as to make a competitive, profitable decisions.

Ah, who am I kidding... it's easier to pay off senators and lawers and keep your head in the sand.

Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT

[Penguinoflight]

I dont think there is a need for a watermark. Just go to newzbin, and you can see that more albums are available to the public than individual tracks. Most media types will go through a release on usenet or bittorrent before they hit music networks.

Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were a service that let people pay a small price for music by the track in a high quality standardized format and allowed them to do whatever they wanted with it without any draconian DRM restrictions, it would be an alternative that would capture the majority of the market share overnight

Begin shill:

There is. It's called allofmp3.com, and despite its Russian roots, the apparent legality of this method is beyond reproach. Add to it the fact that your cc info is handled by a third party outside of eastern europe ought to be of some comfort. I've used them for a while, and had zero problems. The advantages:

1. 2 cents per megabyte for downloads; no per-song cost.
2. Completely legal in Russia, and therefore completely legal to import into the US for personal use.
3. Your choice of format and bit rate. Choosing from a lossless codec or from MP3, AAC, or OGG, at bit rates of 96-300+, is nice. While popular tracks are probably cached in certain formats/rates, most tracks are ripped on the fly from disc images.

Disadvantages? Selection. Allofmp3 only has around 200k tracks. This falls a little short of iTunes' 500k+, but is still a very respectable collection.

Summary: legal downloads, for pennies per song (most songs are 10 cents or less, even at high quality), with fast download speeds (over 100K/sec) and a wide variety of user-selectable formats and qualities.

You know, I have a problem with this....

[10101001011]

In scientific tests, one can take a solution, mix it in another solution, and observe the results. Then one can make a single change keeping all other variables identical and perform the same tests. Those results are (arguably), if not valid, then at least a decent indication of a pattern. This summary (and I presume the article?) attempts to use this methodology with music artists -- something that by its very definition stands itself apart from science. Just because one individual's CD sells a certain number of copies through one venue, while another does comparatively poorer through another does not mean that the results are valid.

First you are taking one individual CD's sales through a store and comparing them to another CD's sales through an online distribution. While this test is almost impossible to perform (release the song at the same time through both channels and see the online distribution win and people would say that it simply hurt the CD sales, or alternatively, vice versa), it might have been a better comparison to simply take one popular artist's newer album, release it exclusively online and compare it with previous releases. Even this is not an indestructable argument, but at least you would be comparing Granny Smiths to Red Delicious, and not fruits to vegetables.

Now I am by no means a scientific person (having a greater interest in history) but it astounds me (through every century) when one side tries to sound scientific by saying, look! ho! this way works better and one can see it conclusively because the stars are in the sky and not in the ocean! This was pretty much a complete red herring of an article.

Interesting quote...

[addbo]

"If you're buying a Picasso," he continued, "you can't just buy the upper right-hand corner."

This is a weird analogy... if I buy a single song... that's not like buying the upper right hand corner of a Picasso (though with some of Picasso's work I might enjoy it more). It's just like buying a single painting... you select the one you prefer and purchase it. You don't need to buy the whole body of work that an artist produces to appreciate the artist... a song I would equate to a single painting... meanwhile an album is just multiple paintings by the same artist.

At a buck a download... wouldn't they make more off of the album than at the 8 dollars they are selling the thing at Target for? How much does it cost to produce and distribute these CD's to each of the retail chains? How many of those CD's that are produced are in fact sold? So how many just sit on the shelves forever? Or... if you don't produce enough to meet demand... how much money have you lost opportunity costs?

Digital just seems so much more efficient... and this robbing peter to pay paul is silly... yes if you only sell a track in a single medium... of course the volume will rise for that medium... but in the end are you making more money or less? (Say you sold 300,000 tracks on iTunes... cost/benefit?)

Digital uptake is just ramping... if they start doing silly things like this to make it harder for consumers to get their content... either they'll go back to piracy... or it'll stop the whole legal digital distribution before it's even had a chance to become mainstream.

Re:Interesting quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you're buying a Picasso," he continued, "you can't just buy the upper right-hand corner."

Oh yeah? LOL. Who wants to bet they wouldn't sell "just the corner" for the price of the album if they could do it?

Re:Interesting quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the Picasso analogy sucks. But here's a better one. For a good album, buying one song is like getting one page of a comic book.

Seems to me they could just list the songs on iTunes as "only comes with album purchase" or whatever specific verbiage they use. Thus, people are again forced to buy the album instead of single songs. (Pink Floyd does this and it's annoying as hell)

Re:Interesting quote...

[MyNymWasTaken]

At a buck a download... wouldn't they make more off of the album than at the 8 dollars they are selling the thing at Target for?

Not if there is really only one song worth purchasing on the whole album. I've purchased several albums like that.

Re:Interesting quote...

[emilv]

You can't compare two different art forms.
Rasmus Fleischer (known in Sweden as an anti-copyright activist, but he even writes about culture in many forms) wrote in his blog a few days ago about a newspaper comparing comics to poetry, and he didn't like the way they placed poetry as the highest and best art form.

Here's the blog in Swedish:
http://copyriot.blogspot.com/2006/03/serier-behver -inte-jmfras-med-poesi.html

Re:Interesting quote...

[e4g4]

Excellent point. I do think, however, that Mr. Brummel's analogy is apt - in some circumstances. Take, for example, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band (by the Beatles). As an album, it was quite popular (don't have any specific numbers), and yet, not a single song on the album hit the Billboard Chart #1 spot. The reason for that, IMO, is that the album was a complete work - the individual pieces did not make much sense. The same can be said for Dark Side of the Moon (whether or not you play it over the Wizard of Oz).

The problem, however, is that this is not how pop albums are put together. Basically, they take what they consider to be the best songs on the album, and put them within the first five tracks of the cd, and then fill in the blanks with songs that very few people listen to so that they can justify charging full price for the cd. In this case, it makes perfect sense that iTunes drives CD/album sales down (regardless of the worthless statistical data in the article) because there's no reason to buy the cd, which threatens the record company's business model.

Really, my point is that the record industry has no one but itself to blame. If you produce something that people don't actually want to buy, and then package it with something they do want to buy, and then force them to pay extra for the crap they don't want, do you really think that when offered the opportunity not to pay for the crap, they wouldn't take it? I mean, doesn't it piss you off that that winter weather package on your car comes with a racing stripe and chrome rims?

Re:Interesting quote...

[SydShamino]

When the whole album is one track and one contiguous work, or is themed in such a way as to make it one work (i.e. the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's or Pink Floyd's the Wall), then one could argue that it is one work and should be sold as a unit, maybe.

When there is no correlation between the songs, especially when the song order was chosen by a record company executive, and some songs are just used as filler to make the collection CD length, then this argument is not valid.

Artists know how to create larger contiguous works. See Inna-gadda-da-vida. (Note that IIRC the whole song sells for $0.99 on iTunes.)

Re:Interesting quote...

[Jon_E]

"If you're buying a Picasso," he continued, "you can't just buy the upper right-hand corner."

agreed that this analogy breaks down in a big way .. having an original painting is quite different than a digital reproduction. really with music you're getting captured performance art and with replay - it's ultimately designed to be cut, remixed, dubbed over, etc.

however:

At a buck a download... wouldn't they make more off of the album than at the 8 dollars they are selling the thing at Target for? How much does it cost to produce and distribute these CD's to each of the retail chains?

i believe the point the article is trying to bring across may have more to do with the cut that online distributors are taking as opposed to retail outlets. if content producers are claiming that their revenues are higher creating physical CDs, and distributing to retailers, than whatever secret deal they have with apple and rhapsody - that may be something to sit up and take notice of. CD rips are much easier to distribute illegally than DRM'd online content, but ultimately it seems that the content producers are saying that the extra money they may be paying tech firms to add their "DRM" is ultimately not worth their bottom line. i don't know, a much more interesting data point would be around revenue from content that is only available in an online DRM format.

Re:Interesting quote...

[Golias]

the individual pieces did not make much sense. The same can be said for Dark Side of the Moon

"Money" would stand alone quite well, if it didn't segue directly into the next track.

Re:Interesting quote...

[Siffy]

He's just wrong there. If I'm buying a Picasso, I can buy it and only keep a torn off corner. It's the CD that I can't just break into pieces and keep what I want, and give/trade the tracks I don't like to friends. I agree the analogy doesn't fit, just saying it's also incorrect as sure you can buy part of a painting (You're just going to pay for it all, just like an album).

Re:Interesting quote...

[Greeneland]

Everybody knows computer software is the highest and best art form.

Silly.

Re:Interesting quote...

[DannyO152]

Still not there, because a page in a comic book has some relationship to the page before and page after, which is not true of 99% of the cd's.

Maybe it's like buying a $20 Picasso poster instead of the $120 monograph

HEY, it makes sense to do that

Course, I've been saying that we're back to the days of the 45 and hit songs, as we were in the 50s and 60s. You want to sell cd's, write a Sergeant Pepper's. Or put a lot of hits in the album. Or, release a single and flip side not in an album, release a single and flip from an album. Release an album every year and a single every 13 weeks. Find people with something to say and let them say it without spending a gazillion dollars per utterance. Decrease the advances and increase the royalties. Get more concerned with development of performers, because the musician who starts out now and is playing in 20 years will be the one to move catalog. Be more agile. Dinosaur time is so over.

Re:Interesting quote...

[dwpro]

"If you're buying a Picasso," he continued, "you can't just buy the upper right-hand corner."

Uou don't see the top right hand corner by itself either when Picasso it is displayed, yet we hear only portions of an album on the radio all the time. And shame on him for comparing Ne Yo or anything he sells to Picasso.

Need broader statistics to be meaningful

[Bombula]

This is quite a particular instance, and it is probably reckless to draw sweeping conclusions from it. As I understand it, the broader statistical data show quite clearly that sales of CDs, as well as overall music sales, have steadily increased during the same period that P2P file sharing appeared and became widespread (even after correcting for inflation and overall economic growth).

It therefore seems hard to argue that file sharing and digital distribution has a negative affect on music sales.

amazing, headline news

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

The only possible conclusion you can get out of this is "customers don't buy the same product twice".

Re:amazing, headline news

[perp]

The only possible conclusion you can get out of this is "customers don't buy the same product twice".

No matter how hard they try to make us do so.

CD sales is not the point!

[tfcdesign]

If its selling online, then its still selling. Regardless if it replaces cd sales or not is irrelevent, its whether the over all sales are up or not which is important.

How the hell do record company execs manage to put their shoes on?

Re:CD sales is not the point!

[ShibaInu]

Let's see, if I'm a record exec and I see a digital copy of a song sell 3 million copies, which cost me nothing to reproduce or distribute, why do I care about CDs at all? Selling 300K CDs is pretty good in a week, but the lable had to press and ship all those CDs. They sent one digital copy to iTunes and sold 3 million, and they are complaining? These folks are really working hard at being stupid.

Wow, that's so Statistical!

[twifosp]

So two different CDS with two different audiences, with two different marketing strategies, had two different outcomes? DUH?

This fails so many statistical tests for process control and would never even be eligible for something like an Annova (test for statistical difference) tukey-kramer test. They find one demographic of people, internet buyers. Split them in two. Offer the download to 33% of the group, deny the download to 33% of the group, and let the other 33% have the choice to steal/buy online/buy the cd ect. All the while exposing them to the exact same marketing, radio singles, and ensuring their purchasing habbits are the same. Only then can you even begin to test which group is statistically more likely to alter their purchasing habbits.

In other words, doing all of the above is hard and takes time and just coming up with bogus conclusions is so much easier.

I can't wait until the RIAA gets so much control over the music industry that they legally charge each user every time they listen to the song. Hell, they'll charge the user 1 cent per second the song is played. It wouldn't be fair to pay the same price for a 2 minute song and a 4 minute song would it?

When that day happens, and it looks like it might, the RIAA will finally implode and independant music will return in a blaze of glory. Or be outlawed as a potential communication medium for terrorists. One of the two anyway.

Re:Wow, that's so Statistical!

[bnsg]

ANOVA
ANalysis Of VAriance. sorry, had to.

What a sample size!

[Spyder]

Ok a sample size of ....(say it with me).....1 for each case. This obviously proves a point. Now I don't know, but are these two songs targeted at the same fan base? Are they of the same relative popularity? Could this meerly be an abberation? Tune in next year for the final conclusion of As The Dataset Turns.

Your anacdotal evidence does not work on me, Jedi.

Not only what I said before but...

[tfcdesign]

CDs are easier to pirate than DRM protected iTMS songs. At least at the same quality.

Re:Not only what I said before but...

[Anonymous Coward]

CDs may be easier to pirate, but DRM protected iTMS songs are trivially easy to pirate too, so it doesn't really matter.

try this

[troll -1]

Search online before you rush out and drive 15 miles in your SUV to get that latest CD.

Message to the music industry:

The horse and buggy distro system of funny plastic disks has been superceded by an Internet. Tune in or drop out.

Re:try this

[filterban]

The horse and buggy distro system of funny plastic disks has been superceded by an Internet. Tune in or drop out.

Thanks for making my day.

Why is it that everyone who used Napster for the first time knew instantly that audio CDs were dead - except for the people who could have profited from that information the most? (In other words, the record company execs?)

Exec 1: Woah. Napster gives people any music they want easily. Let's FIGHT IT. Exec 2: Woah. Napster gives people -what they want-. Let's find a way to profit on it.

I think you know what happened. Exec 2 triggered a revolution in an industry that his company wasn't even involved in.

Re:try this

[troll -1]

The music industry is the least of it. This phenomena has been going on forever. We've seen it in the steel and auto industries.

Nevermind music, it's most prevelent today in the wireless provider industry which is why Wi-Fi isn't free like broadcast and radio television, although wireless shouldn't cost anything.

All the 802.11 devices in all the world could ultimately be replaced by shortwave radio devices equally as cheap that mesh together to form a totally connected free wireless Internet. Mesh networking technology for such a system is already being developed. Only thing stopping this from becoming a reality is the the entrenched incumbents (Sprint, Nextel, et al) who control the current system will fight forever to keep the current (inefficient) status quo. And will do whatever they need (via lobbying and campaign contributions) to ensure the FCC keeps the spectrum in the private hands of those who can make money from it.

The FCC could easily allocate a small part of the shortwave (long range) spectrum to the ISM to facilitate a free Internet. The fact that they won't goes back to the old horse and buggy entrenched keep-maiking-money do-nothing attitude.

I'm a phyicist, not an economist. But I'm also a capitalist and I believe people need to get up in the morning and compete with each other, if for nothing else then just for fun.

Re:try this

[jb.hl.com]

The horse and buggy distro system of funny plastic disks has been superceded by an Internet. Tune in or drop out.

Correction. The horse and buggy distro system of people paying for a CD with liner notes has been superseded by people leeching MP3s off torrent sites for free. There's no way any label or artist can compete with that.

Re:try this

[Mr2001]

The horse and buggy distro system of people paying for a CD with liner notes has been superseded by people leeching MP3s off torrent sites for free. There's no way any label or artist can compete with that.

Indeed. What they can do, however, is adapt to it by getting out of the business of selling copies of bits, and stick to the core business of actually writing and performing music, by insisting on getting paid for the time they put into it, rather than getting a little tiny payment for each copy sold. New technology has made obsolete the old system of distributing musical bits on pieces of plastic, but human creativity will always be valuable in itself.

Shocker

[Cyberllama]

You mean when a band puts out a cd with one good song and a pile of crap that cd sales are higher when people are forced to buy the entire cd to get the one worthwhile song than when they can simply buy that song alone.

The real story here is not "Itunes hurts cd sales" its "Itunes promotes better music". The a-la-carte style of music downloading that itunes offers punishes crappy cds for sucking and rewards good ones for being good.

Re:Shocker

[MrPiquul]

The record industry is aware that most of todays "artists" aren't really artists; There are no more Fleetwood Macs or Rolling stones or Carole King's.

Albums aren't art anymore. They aren't actual pieces of time, history, what-have-you. There's usually 2 or 3 "hits" on one cd and the rest are fillers. The last album that was a complete and whole statement was "Jagged Little Pill" (which is why it was so large) and that was what? Early 90s?

You're being sold an act -not- an artist.

They're a dying industry with dying acts churing out the same babble-cock-bull and for one to assume it's "all about greed"....at this point is totally correct. They shot themselves in the foot by trying to pass off crap as fantastic, know -we- know only 2ish songs are decent and only want those.

Shit Cd by Bull low-pay artist:
$8@Target / Large profit
$9.99@iTunes / Invalid

Likely outcome

[booch]

Most likely, the best way to maximize profits is to stagger the releases. Just like movies released in the theater first, then on DVD. You'll always get some people who will buy both. If you release them both at the same time, you'll get less people buying both.

The big question is, which would maximize profits more? Selling the digital download first, or the CD first? I suspect it would depend on the audience for the given artist. For pop music with a young audience, I would not be at all surprised to find that kids would be more likely to buy the CD, and then the digital download a few weeks later.

Re:Likely outcome

[wezzul]

Why on earth would someone buy a cd and then a copy of a song from that cd? Why not just rip it to your computer? I can't see how anyone is stupid enough to do that, really.

Re:Likely outcome

[IndustrialGeek]

Actually, it would be dumb to buy the digital format if you already own the CD, with which you could make your own MP3 copy "for archiving purposes" of course... ;-) I could see people wanting a physical copy after buying the DRM format though. I practically *never* buy a CD unless I have already heard someone else's copy, downloaded a copy, or seen the band live. Forget the radio, I bought a few too many heavily promoted CDs with 1 good single and the rest crap filler. If I enjoy it, I do buy CDs I have already downloaded, because I enjoy the artwork and liner notes as well. And no, I am not ripping the system, I have an estimated 600 CDs. The artwork is the only thing saving CD sales at all IMHO. Which brings me to my question: What are you buying when you buy a CD anyway? If you are buying the physical disc itself, they have no right to restrict duplication... the end result is not the same product. If however, you are buying the content rights, shouldn't stores be able to replace damaged CDs for the price of media alone? A lot of times you can buy replacement media for computer software for a small fee if you already own a license for it. And the real kicker? I have read a few places that bands only get about $1.00 per CD sale. I really would like to see the statistics on band profit per disc/track for CD vs iTunes or Rhapsody. Who knows, maybe it is less than 10 cents per track download, but if not, I can see why record companies want iTunes gone.

They should have taken the blue pill....

[TheDukePatio]

Noone will in about a year. With a name like "Ne-Yo" I smell marketing gimmick all the way. Record companies only care about what will make them cash now.

I predict Ne-Yo's successors will a group named "Tri-Nitee" and some chick with a large wardrobe named "Morph-Eus"

So, where should I buy music?

[Slipgrid]

Here's my dilemma. I like music and I like my computer. I used to like CD's, but I like my computer more than I like CD's. I don't like the mixed-bag-of-root-kits-and-DRM that CD's want to put on my computer, so I don't buy them. I also don't like the DRM from iTunes, but at least from them I know what I'm getting. But, I've never bought from iTunes. So, where should I buy my music? The answer is, I don't buy it at all. I would pay for it. I want to pay for it. I used to pay for it. But, I don't like my toys to be broken by greedy strangers... Ok, extremely wealthy and greedy strangers. So, now, I still get my music, and I don't pay. If the record companies still sold a product that wasn't broken, or a risk, I'd like to pay them, or better yet the artist, for the music. But they are not offering something I'm comfortable with, so they get none.

Re:So, where should I buy music?

[kronos7871]

Try http://www.audiolunchbox.com/ They offer a variety of plans - either a la carte or subscription with no DRM and they have a huge selection of indie music

Re:So, where should I buy music?

[tyme]

Slipgrid wrote:

Here's my dilemma. I like music and I like my computer. I used to like CD's, but I like my computer more than I like CD's. I don't like the mixed-bag-of-root-kits-and-DRM that CD's want to put on my computer, so I don't buy them. I also don't like the DRM from iTunes, but at least from them I know what I'm getting. But, I've never bought from iTunes. So, where should I buy my music?

You can buy from iTunes.

Once bought, you are free to:

1. burn a CD (sans-DRM) directly from iTunes
   
2. re-rip the songs off the above CDs as MP3s (sans-DRM)
   
3. re-encode your purchased music from (DRM'd) AAC to MP3 (sans-DRM)
   
4. burn the (DRM'd) AAC files to CD for archival purposes
   

I regularly do all except for #2 (re-rip from burned CDs) partly out of paranoia (I don't want to lose any of the music I paid good money for, so I have multiple backups in multiple formats) and partly because I like to reencode the music I have on my iPod at half the bitrate (it still sounds pretty good and you fit a lot more music in iPod).

For all the fuss people make about Apple's DRM it's really pretty toothless. The total amount of extra work required to get non-DRM music out of iTunes is pretty minimal: you can do it with nothing more than the software Apple gives you and you don't even need to do any techie stuff (no hex-editing the iTunes binary, no mucking about in the registry, just a round trip through a CD-burner). The fact that the major labels agreed to Apple's DRM scheme almost suggests that they don't really care about piracy so long as it can be made inconvenient (or, alternately, that nobody at the major labels is bright enough to recognize the gaping holes in Apples DRM and thought everything was tight as a drum).

Re:So, where should I buy music?

[object88]

So, where should I buy my music? The answer is, I don't buy it at all. I would pay for it. I want to pay for it. I used to pay for it. But, I don't like my toys to be broken by greedy strangers...

I'm in the same boat. Well, I used to be in the same boat.

The last time that Slashdot ran a story like this, I activated a free trial of eMusic. I strongly suspect that when the trial is over, eMusic will not get a cancellation notice, that eMusic will get ~$190 to pay for 90 mp3s/month for 12 months, and that I will happily get what I want-- legitimate, paid-for music without restriction.

Seems like a great deal to me.

Re:So, where should I buy music?

[Anonymous Coward]

5. Suck Steve Jobs dick
6. Lick his balls
7. Masterbate on mca mini

The Real News Here...

[Anonymous Coward]

What I find quite interesting is that no one is bringing up the real news here, in that what this article is pointing out is that iTunes/Raps needs to have an option to only allow buying the entire album, and not just the individual song. The actual CD has nothing to do with it. The overall concept would be that on initial release, only the entire album can be bought for the first 5 weeks. After this, individual songs can be purchased.

Why dont they have this now??? It is because iTunes is about selling players, and not about revenue from downloading songs. The blame for this is directly on the recording studios for not making downloading of music more profitable for the internet providers....

Re:The Real News Here...

[BurntNickel]

I was under the impression that iTunes did have the option of buying only as an entire album but don't think I've seen many albums that way.

Experiment on a store like AudioLunchbox.com? hmm

[kronos7871]

If the major labels really want to try an interesting experiment, why not offer the albums on a store like http://www.audiolunchbox.com/ or emusic.com where the users don't feel handcuffed by DRM. Just a thought..

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

So they gave up nearly 2mil iTunes downloads for an extra 150k CD sales? What percentage of sales does the label get from each of these sources? But, at $15/cd, the $2mil iTunes sales vs. $2.25mil in CD sales doesn't exactly look like a huge windfall.

Oh...sure..don't believe them...

[PenguinBoyDave]

You think they would actually LIE to us? Shocked I am. SHOCKED!

Re:Oh...sure..don't believe them...

[woot account]

Obviously, if he thinks that they would lie, he must be a dirty pirate and a terr'ist.

I don't get it.

[jcostantino]

They're proud of selling a CD for $8 at Target with all the costs of shipping, printing, materials, markups, etc... instead of selling it for $9.99 on ITMS where it's (from what I recall seeing, I could be wrong) 90% profit for the publisher?

I don't get it...

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, here's why --

They market the band to individual people. If they market well, then they sell the person on the band. With single track downloads, they risk that the person they spent money to market the band to, only buys the ONE song they like and then move on to the next band. Total sale per customer = 99 cents.

With the CD, they know that if they market the band well enough, the person will buy the album. Total sale per customer = $8

So it's because they are nervous that people will only buy 1 or 2 songs per band. Of course, what they don't realize is that a lot of people still buy the whole album online. And those that don't are may still buy MORE music in the long run because of convenience.

advertising with "piracy"

[jonastullus]

there's nothing like advertising with other people's wrong-doing, is there?

now "piracy estimates" are used to push business models... is this madness never going to end? let's all just agree that the collective conscience owes the music industry 1 quintillion dollars and be done with it.

"stealing" copyrighted material is wrong, pushing people into "law-circumvention" is too, suing them for ridiculous amounts of money certainly is. let's all just switch to legal (mostly not well produced) music and hope it'll get better in time. the big labels creep me out and the commercial online distributors are starting to scare me too, with their current line of reasoning.

they are basically blackmailing the music industry, saying "either you syndicate through us, or [we'll let] people steal it from right under your noses"

Not a good idea to follow the movie industry

[ursabear]

Stick with me on this for a minute:

If my family wants to see Harry Potter [insert episode here] at the movie theater, we'll go see it so we can have a blast sitting in the dark listening to the overly-amped up sound and get a fun thrill from the big screen.

However, if the DVD were available at the same time, we'd still go to the theater to do the family thing, then buy the DVD if we liked it.

Means this: we go to the theaters to see the things in which we are interested - irrespective of DVD availability. We then wait with anticipation for the DVD for a release (and generally buy it on the day it is released) if we really liked the film. What I'm trying to say is, if we like it enough to patronize the film, we'll see it several times.

Enter the music industry: The industry is trying to figure out how to stay in business, and along the way, they're forgetting something critical: the fans. If the fans like it, the ones who pay for music will buy it (and some of us will buy the CD if we want to support the musician(s)). Those that don't buy music probably won't buy the downloads or the CDs.

Key point: If the artist makes the fans happy, they'll buy whatever makes the fan happy (CD or individual download). Preventing one of the means of purchasing is not helping the artist or the label. Truthfully, (this is a personal opinion, folks) if I really like a given artist, I'll buy the CD - even if there are some tunes to which I won't listen - so I can patronize the artist. If I like one tune of a given artist - but the artist doesn't generally float my boat, then I'll download the one tune and not buy the CD.

Cutting off means of distribution is not a smart business tactic.

Re:Not a good idea to follow the movie industry

[kickabear]

If you really want to support an artist, buy a t-shirt or a keychain from their website. Or better yet, buy a concert ticket and get your t-shirt at the show.

Re:Not a good idea to follow the movie industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just mail the artist five bucks and download the album. That way the artist gets paid (probably more than they would get from buying the CD), you get unrestricted music that you can *shock horror* listen to on multiple devices when and where you like and the greedy music execs/DRM promoters get another kick in the family jewels. Everyone's a winner!

Nothing like...

[CupBeEmpty]

...an n=1 for a good statistical correlation. This is statistically meaningless you cannot establish a trend with one sample.

Maybe they didn't consider...

[Kelz]

Maybe they didn't consider the fact that maybe people liked one song/album better than the other?! Tomorrow in the news: Sales of online-ordered giant broccoli stumps plummeted today whilst store-bought beer flourished. Is this the end of online-ordering?!

I would think

[Anonymous Coward]

that this would just lead more people to download them for free. I mean if I just want the one song why am I going to buy a whole CD for it? And what is going to make me wait to get the song until after the full CD has sold some? This practice just seems like it will cause them more problems.

Only if.

[Belial6]

Only if they drop a bunch of letters out of the book to make it take less space, then make you use one of those little red filters to read the paperback so that it would be difficult for you to go and photocopy it. ;)

Re:Only if.

[yurnotsoeviltwin]

Don't give them any ideas.

Missing numbers...

[drew]

Regardless of one's ability to draw meaningful conclusions from one datapoint, they also left out another key figure.

Ne-Yo's CD In My Own Words sold 301,000 copies using this method. Chris Brown's Run It, that was in the itunes store, sold 154,000 copies in its first week. Ne-Yo's So Sick was downloaded approximately 3.4 million times on the peer to peer networks during the week of his album release while the album Run It! was downloaded approximately 5.3 million times in the same release period.

OK, so how many downloads from "Run It" were sold in the ITunes store during that time period? If it was only about 50-100K songs, then they may have a point, but if it was something along the lines of 500K songs, then all they did was to give up some profits on CDs to make the same money on downloads. So, yeah, Duh, people are going to buy less CDs if they have the option to buy a CD or buy from iTunes than they will if they only have the choice to buy CDs.

It's like a deli that sells both ham and roast beef sandwiches complaining that they don't sell as many ham sandwiches as the deli down the street that only sells ham sandwiches. Big deal...

pop music value meals

[fermion]

I see this kind of like the fast food value meals. A customer can either buy an individual item, or for more, but less than the seperate items, the customer. The fast food stores implement these schemes to, among other things, increase the average order price. This then begs the question of why fast food stores don't implement a value meal only policy? Sure, some customers would be lost, but the price of a hamburger probably barely covers costs.

This attempt by the labels to push albums is nothing new. The last time we saw, which was only several years ago, was when they were trying to stop the sales of singles. The singles were cutting into sales of albums, and the theory was that if singles were not available, then the consumer would be more likely to buy an album.

I think the more likely aspect is the key. Wiithout singles, one might be more likley to record a song from the radio or just copy it from a freind. Even then there were albums that are so bad no one wanted anything but the same album. Not even the b-side was worht anything. With singles it was more likely all parties would be compensted for the product the consumer wants, and if we dig our heads of the artistic bigotry, when one is talking about selling a million albums, we are fundementally talking about providing a product that the student wants.

So, when singles were pulled, it was a statement that the labels would tolerate more copying in the hope they would end up with increased overall profits, even if the formula used to calculate royalties meant the perfomers and other parties recieved less. I wonder if this algebra will work out in the current climate of rampant unlicensed distribution of any hit track, not to mention much more sophiticated distribution channels for used albums. Frankly there have been way too many times lately when I have gone to iTunes hopeing to legally acquire a track, only to find it unavailable or only as an album. If it is an older album, I can get it used for much less than iTunes. If it is a new album, I soon will be able to get it used. Does this help the company bottom line?

Back to the original question. If the fast food joint only offered value meals, then a person with only a burger would cause a great deal of havok at the unfairness of the situation, disrupting bussiness. And such a person would have a point. The burger is seperate, you could sell it seperately, but you choose not to. It is simply not worth the effort, despite the clear benifits.

Dear Mr. Quirk, aka Rhapsody guy...

[TCQuad]

every single track that you are worried about is available for free whether you want it to be or not

From the industry's standpoint, every single in your rental collection is available for free, because there is no downloading charge. They get the same amount of revenue if the customers download their track or not. If they delay release on your platform and force people to buy the CD instead, they have gained extra money.

Re:Dear Mr. Quirk, aka Rhapsody guy...

[wanorris]

Of course, lots of people use Rhapsody as a platform to sample music and decide whether they like it before buying it. So by keeping it off Rhapsody, they are impeding people from hearing their music and deciding to go buy it.

This is analogous to making sure your new music doesn't get on the radio, so people will have to buy the CD to listen to it -- not exactly a proven business model.

A related phenomenon is that DVD sales of a movie increase when it's on television. Counter to the intuitive "I saw it on TV, why would I buy it?" logic you might expect, the fact the movie is on TV reminds people that it exists at all, and that they liked it. Therefore, they go buy it while it's fresh in their minds.

Re:Dear Mr. Quirk, aka Rhapsody guy...

[kevcol]

Background information:

Tim Quirk, former singer for late 80s - 90s band Too Much Joy

http://www.sayhername.com/tmj.php

Great band.

(Light goes on) Dang!

[Anonymous Coward]

the default physical medium for music sales has changed. it isn't Edison cylinders, Brunswick 77s (all "78" record makers used a different speed), 3-3/4 IPS 4-track tapes, or CDs, (has) become electronic

So that's why I can't find a portable player for my 16 2/3 rpm 16-inch transcription disks! Mystery solved at last.

Poor summary

[dilby]

Seems to me the issue here is not about delaying the release of songs on itunes increasing cd sales but not releasing songs as singles increasing album sales. The fact that the song wasn't released on itunes etc was only due to the record company wanting to bundle the song with the rest of the album, because surprise, surprise they make more money.

It looks to me like the record companies took a page from Microsoft's book.

whoops

[tfcdesign]

Regardless if it replaces cd sales or not is relevent...

Re:so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer: even though legal online music is DRMed, the labels and RIAA do not look kindly on iTunes or other online distrubution precisely because they would lose control of distrubution. They love control, they sleep with control, they make sweet anal love with control when things go their way, control is within and without them. They can't think of having it any other way. In fact, they have a very hard time thinking that technology hasn't progressed since the 50's.

With online distributors, they lose control--they rely on another company to distribute their product because they were to narrowminded to innovate the idea of legal online electronic dirstrobution in the first place, even though they had the best chance of anyone to successfully pull it off... The industry as a whole will never move to such a system. We'll see music on DRM'ed holographic data crystals before they'll sell all of their music online, providing the whole industry dosen't collapse first.

Re:so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales

[bloodmusic]

but all they have together is their off-key whining....

Maybe someday the big record companies will learn about pitch correction tools so they can at least seem to whine on key...

How about just selling singles?

[mgkimsal2]

There seemed to be nothing in the article about selling physical singles. The choice is selling singles online, or promoting a single on the radio and only selling a full physical CD. Where's the middle ground? Record companies have been bitching about sales going down, but have made it harder to get the songs they promote. Hint - offering it in more formats (physical and digital) will increase sales.

Re:How about just selling singles?

[MrPiquul]

Offering both services won't increase sales, it will increase the validity of both services. If folks don't like the songs they won't buy them. The record industry is fighting something they agreed to in the first place. They're fighting themselves which is why it's blowing up in their faces. Single, album, what-have-you.. I remember back in the 80's when tapes were used and there was a b-side. The single was purchased but there was a sample of the artists other work. Rarely is that true today. It's the song and a remix -of- the song. Dance, "featuring", etc. The b-side would often provve if the artist was more than "one hit"; That can't be done now because most -aren't- more than. Record industries (don't lack their intelligence) -know- this. That fact has been bypassed so much. They are being greedy as a whole but because they know they don't have actual talent.

What it promotes is more illegal downloads...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Keep it up RIAA. You're going to lose this one :)

Re:What it promotes is more illegal downloads...

[jb.hl.com]

Of course they are. They can't compete with free.

I recently had a discussion with a relative about her wanting to get some music off the net. I linked her to iTunes and Yahoo's music subscription service (ranting about DRM aside, it's what she wants; shitloads of music). She gave up in the end and just said she wanted free stuff like she used to get off Kazaa.

You cannot compete with that. If you tell most teenagers that they'd be better off paying for downloads, they'll look at you funny, laugh their asses off and go back to using LimeWire.

CD *sales* ?

[nurb432]

Who buys cds anymore?

Ok, let me clarify that: Who buys them from RIAA supported producions? Indie labels dont count, as they should be supported.

Costs

[bladedom]

That's 154,000 copies that aren't returnable vs. some percentage of CD's returned for defect, or fraud. Plus packaging, plus transportation, plus overhead. Plus you there's none of that couterfeiting and such. And the record companies can't fudge the nu,bers in theor favor. All in all more a win for the artist.

Retail: Yes, but at the right price

[Admodieus]

Right now I buy more CDs at retail than on iTunes Music Store for a few reasons: 1) I have two computers with iTunes that I want to put the CD on, so just popping it in the drive and ripping it in is much more organized and efficient. 2) Best Buy sells most of the CDs I buy at $10, which is what I consider a fair price. Next year I'll be away at college, though, and I'm fairly certain my acess to Best Buy will be severly impaired, and I'll only be using one of my computers heavily (laptop). Thus, I'll probably buy CDs through the iTunes Music Store, as they sell Music Store cards in the campus bookstore. There's simply no reason to restrict access to one method of purchasing or the other. You're simply hurting your own sales one way or another.

News Flash: Hype and delayed gratification sells!

[bill_kress]

When the DS was unavailable a couple years a go it sold like hotcakes, same with xbox360 this year. Special colors (my wife wants a Pink DS) are only released in small quantities and therefore are highly desired.

Making people listen to a song on the radio without making it available for purchase means that it will hit the charts hard when it does release. Is there anyone who could possibly be surprised by this?

two artist songs compared...conclusion both SUCK!

[Anonymous Coward]

First off i didnt' know who these people were. So I investigated and listened to their songs. Conclusion, more "Music Mill Retards". The music sucks.... Just like everything else that the music industry just "churns out" to formuliac suck-a-tude.

I'm so sick of hearing something a unique artist that I actually enjoy, and then have the music labels sign 10 different bands with slightly less talent all copying that same sound, then complain that music sales are "off" and try and blame it on peer to peer networks or legit online downloads.

that biz is just full of asstards just like the movie industry, who i'd like to thank for killing superhero and sci-fi movie genere (aeon flux, ultraviolet, electra, bloodreign, etc.)

Correlation and Causation

[Dalroth]

Repeat after me... Correlation is NOT causation!

Thank you,
Bryan

Re:Correlation and Causation

[kickabear]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Apples != Oranges

You can't compare an album by one artist to another album by another artist. What if the guy who sold fewer copies just sucks more? One album by one artist is not a control group.

err

[karearea]

Can we please have examples of good music?

I mean I've never heard of those 'artists' so I can't say what the target market is. I mean are they teeny bopper type stuff, or hardcore rap? It'll make a difference to what socioeconimic group the 'music' is targeted towards.

I mean Bowie would have a different target market to Brintey Spears (or whoever the lastest half naked prepubesent music factory output is). And particular target markets will have greater tendancies to CD sales vs online sales and singles sales vs album sales.

Re:so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales

[ignavus]

Environmentally friendly, too.

One Song vs Entire Album

[TheNinjaroach]

There are usually only two or three songs that sell an album. Price of an album: $12-$18 Price of three iTunes: $2.97 If execs can force people to buy their three good songs for $12-$18, why would they want to break the album into pieces and only sell the good stuff at a much reduced profit?

Re:One Song vs Entire Album

[dreamer-of-rules]

What is the label's profit on each?

The major labels pocket about 55 cents per dollar sold on iTunes, with minimal overhead. CDs have the additional costs of printing, distributing, and "breakage", as well as the reseller's cut. It looks like $1.70 per CD is "label profit". (Though it also appears that they pocket a total of $7.00 per CD which includes money for "label overhead" and "marketing/promotion".)

Re: One Song vs Entire Album

[usurper_ii]

Well you know, they can force iTunes to sell the whole album only. A friend gave me a free iTunes download a couple of weeks ago. I spent quite a bit of time picking out a song to download. Had it picked out and tried to buy it, only I couldn't because the stupid thing was only available if you purchased the whole album.

What the crap? The whole point of iTunes is to get only the songs you want. Leave it to somebody to screw that up!

Heck, if they want to play that game, I'll wait for it to come out in BMG's catalog and pick it up for 6.00 or 7.00 bucks (shipping included) and have a real CD.

Usurper_ii

Amazing

[SuperKendall]

Oddly, I can find no record of BroccoliStumps.com. I was sure someone would have tried that at around the same time as pets.com. In fact I could imagine it coming from the same people.

Real explanation

[CrimsonScythe]

The extrapolation was done using the enormously powerful algorithm that are used in law enforcement (X Files, CSI: Miami, etc) for zooming in on digital pictures. This algorithm can easily extrapolate a handful of pixels into gigapixel images. Don't mock what you don't understand.

What about the artist?

[GoNINzo]

Ne-Yo's CD In My Own Words sold 301,000 copies using this method. Chris Brown's Run It, that was in the itunes store, sold 154,000 copies in its first week. Ne-Yo's So Sick was downloaded approximately 3.4 million times on the peer to peer networks during the week of his album release while the album Run It! was downloaded approximately 5.3 million times in the same release period.

Let's take that arguement for a second. Ne-Yo now has around 3.7 million people with an interest in his music, while Chris Brown has around 5.4 million people interested in his music. Because artists don't make much money off cd sales, they make it on people showing up to concerts and other options they have. So who is in a more actionable position? And how much money does the artist get from an itunes album sale versus a physical sale?

I can see why the RIAA is getting upset though. The artists might actually make a buck and not need a monopoly pushing their product.

Wait, Wait

[Zebra_X]

But if the industry determines that restricting digital sales pays off with bigger album sales, fans may soon find the instant gratification of snapping up new songs online becoming a little less instant.

Ummm bigger album sales? Digital or CD, the record companies are still selling the same damn thing. Thus it shouldn't make much of a difference if the music is sold online or otherwise.

However, if this becomes widely practiced then it begs the question of "why are cd sales preferred by the record companies?" the answer would lie in the gross profit margin. One would think that digital delivery would be cheaper as the distribution channels are "virtual" and that there are no materials involved. If cd's are preferred then cd's might have a higher margin than the downloads. Then it makes us wonder why cd's cost so much in the first place.

Hopefully this will provide more fodder for the case against the record companies and allegations of price fixing.

Re:Wait, Wait

[chad.koehler]

I think what we might find is that it costs a certain amount to produce a CD over the amount to produce ONLY the digital meadia. However, the reproduction cost of a CD is much lower (just burning multiple copies of the produced CD).
What I mean is that the cost to produce the MASTER CD is high compared to the cost of burning multiple copes of it (20K, 200K, whatever).
Since they don't plan to get rid of CDs all together, they have to carefully choose the amount to produce in order to maximize profits. Providing only the physicial CD for a period of time will assure that MORE of the CDs are sold (seems obvious) thus increasing the OVERALL profit margin.

Re:Wait, Wait

[Zebra_X]

Ahh fantasitc answer. I didn't really think about that - there is a fixed cost associated with the creation of the master, and of course with the producion of the cd's. It's always cheaper to make more, but if they start making less - then the CD becomes very expensive to manufacture.

Bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, I say! Bah!

Music Industry-what a laff!

Todays music = "buncha girlie men".

Let's roll the videotape from back a bit, shall we....

In the 60's and 70's, rock stars had to WORK HARD, and they had no "DRM" protection. Anyone could copy off an album or single or cassette. Yet, they became millionares! *GASP* How was that possible, without digital "protection"?

Adjusted for inflation, BUHZILLIONAIRES today! *DOUBLE GASP* OMGBBQ11LEVEN!

How DID they do it one might ask? OK, now that you asked, I will TELL YOU.

Did they spend their time with a TiVo shoved up their butt watching back to back firefly and "friends"?? NO, in between live gigs and unloading bales of pot at night they played like frisbee and crashed motorcycles, MANLY MAN stuff.

Did they sit around on their keister and play "video games" and pork out and get fat stubby little greasy fingers useless for guitar???

NO! They balled dozens of babes *per night* and kept in tip top physical condition, you didn't see lardbutt musicians then (well, maybe meatloaf), but that's it! Lean, mean, sex, drugs and rock and roll machines!

Did they spend their time bolting wings and skinny weird looking wheels and crap on their rides, and neon fender feelers? NO! You work on the ENGINE and make it MUCH MO BIGGAH, THAT'S what they did with their rides, and it helped them build strong muscle, 12 ways!

And THAT is why todays music industry needs artificial help to "make money", because they are a buncha outta shape porked out zombie eyed pansy momma's boys! Wanna make money, fame, fortune and maybe get laid?? Go on tour! Work that axe, sling them sticks! Just because you got a piercing and a tattoo don't make ya a rich star! ;)

Think of this logic being used 10 years ago

[ibeetle]

Can you imagine if this logic had been used 10 (or so) years ago.

Record Artist to record label: Oh and by the way I do not want my newest album on this new format... what is it called... VD?.... LSD.... oh yea... CD... what ever it is I do not want anything to hurt my album sales.

----
  iTunes is not the enemy. It is simply another delivery device to get your product to your customers. If someone buys a CD... you get money... if someone buys that same CD from iTunes.... guess what.... you get money. And sense there is no packaging, manufacturing, or shipping cost with iTunes you actually make more money. What do you care if we buy our music from Wal-mart or Best Buy or iTunes?

-----

I bet in a few weeks Island records will release a statement of retraction. Saying it was all a big misunderstanding and what they meant was unlicensed music download sites, and they would be proud and honored to have their music on iTunes.

Yeah, well your momma.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, if it's not available on iTunes, I download something else. Availability makes little difference to me, I can wait until it's available or download that song I like 2nd best and get my goove on to that instead.

Maybe these exec's are simply trying to save the CD stores, the distributors and manufacturers - JOBs.

Imagine what would happen if everyone simply downloaded everything - no more CD sales at all. Where would those billions of people world wide who are currently employed in those industries go? Wow, can you say unemployment?

Debunk

[layer3switch]

Ne-Yo
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EGCVK2/103-42 41130-8103063?v=glance

Chris Brown
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B0WOHG/103-42 41130-8103063?v=glance

Perhaps this has little to do with the low sales, but I'm sure not being on Amazon count for something.

RIAA's study methodology...

[pelrun]

Isn't it obvious that RIAA already flips a coin on all it's studies? Of course, they use two-headed coins... :)

Re:RIAA's study methodology...

[eikonos]

Isn't it obvious that RIAA already flips a coin on all it's studies? Of course, they use two-headed coins... :)

And both of those heads are still jammed firmly up their asses...

Increased sales, but what about profits?

[aquarian]

Focusing on sales is misleading. How much money is really being made? CD sales are higher because of higher prices for CDs, but what about the costs of producing, shipping, storing, and selling them? How much is left as profit? It seems to me digital distribution would be more profitable, because of lower costs. The main problem with it is there are still more retail consumers than online ones.

Re:Increased sales, but what about profits?

[iibagod]

Thats certainly one big factor. The math shows that theres a certain threshold where online profits outstrip physical media. Given the sales, if these two CDs were priced the same, the online profits creep ahead at just about $13.79/CD. Of course they weren't. It's even more pronounced.

Chris Brown's CD, which lists at $18.98, sold less physical CDs, but ended up making a profit of $8,015,920. Ne-Yo lists at $13.98, making more CD sales, but only ending up with a profit of $7,272,980.

This does not take into account of physical costs like shipping and storing. Nor does it take into account costs of online storage and bandwidth (although probably a lot less than warehousing and shipping).

So just taking the numbers from sales and cost of actual production (assuming $1 per CD actually duplicated, recording, marketing, and associated costs would be the same for both types of sales), the heavier online sales made the difference and actually made MORE profit...just like we've been saying all along.

We're also not taking into account that, to be fair, you'd have to add in the online sales of all the OTHER tracks on the album to get a clearer picture of what's going on. This comparison is merely single vs. album in differing media. Once you add in online sales of other singles (I dont know if they're available), the online sales figures rise...while the CD sales stay the same.

There's more information to be had here, and focusing on initial sales is rather misleading. But as the RIAA et al. try to claim postponing/banning online sales drives up CD sales, they fail to notice that it actually makes them LESS money.

What's the incentive to buy a CD?

[Anonymous Coward]

This does make some sense; as one poster noted, it's like releasing a movie in the theater first, then DVD. The problem is that there is an incentive to seeing movies in a theater other than just impatience - big screen, good sound, a chance to cuddle with your date without your parents walking in - but little incentive to spend $18 on a CD instead of $10 on the iTunes download. The only likely benefits of the CD are lyrics (which you can get online) and sometimes some art or photos in the liner notes.

Personally I'd like to see them stop selling CDs and sell albums on DVD - mixed in both stereo and surround sound, with a few bonus tracks and maybe some extra content like a video, interviews, or clips from a live show. That's something I'd spend $18 on.

The iTunes first track outsold the CD first track.

[MacDork]

RTWholeFA...

CD First:

"In My Own Words," burst onto the national album chart yesterday at No. 1, with sales of more than 301,000 copies, easily ranking as the biggest debut of the year so far. And just as eye-popping: the digital single of "So Sick" sold almost 120,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

iTMS first:

"Run It!" was available for sale online for more than three months before his eponymous CD hit stores. During that time, Mr. Brown's song sold more than 300,000 copies. When the album finally went on sale, it sold roughly 154,000 copies in its first week.

Total, 421,000 copies for the CD first track. 454,000 copies for the iTMS first track. Yeah, the CD first album sold more copies, but that was at a reduced price of $7.98... cheaper than the 'album' is sold on iTMS. Wow, big surprise there... you lower the price of something and you sell more of it! That's news? No, that's not news... here's the big news:

So far this year, album sales have declined about 3 percent from a year ago. But if every 10 singles sold so far were bundled together and counted as albums, sales would be up about 2 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Once again, a story on Slashdot is misleading and flame worthy. It's almost like they do it on purpose to sell more page views or something... Noooo, Slashdot is 'news for nerds' and would never treat its readership as if they were illiterate morons.

Yep, not only that, but...

[msauve]

Given that the numbers are correct ( 301,000 CDs and 3.4 million downloads vs. 154,000 CDs and 5.3 million downloads) it's hard to draw any conclusion.

If one takes the difference in downloads (1.9 million) and divides it by a typical CD cost ($15), one gets ~127,000. That's almost enough to make up for the difference in actual CD sales (it leaves a delta of ~20K CDs), with no marginal cost of goods for the record labels to bear.

It all seems like a wash to me, and of course only has any hint of significance if the two albums/artists can be considered equally in demand, a tenuous assumption.

Oooh, look. Promotion for two rappers.

[zingbot]

Why is the NYT publishing this as an article when it is so clearly just publicity for two barely-known artists?

This makes me never want to buy another newspaper or piece of music again.

TV Sourcemusic Songs and Opportunities Missed

[xanderwilson]

I know they've missed out on a few sales from me for just this reason. Just a few weeks ago I heard a song I liked on Scrubs, Googled the lyrics to figure out the title, and went on iTunes to purchase it that very night.

I'd have to purchase a whole album with songs I already own (it was apparently only available on a movie soundtrack)? No thanks.

Alex.

interesting idea, WRONG TARGET AUDIENCE

[muel]

Labels know damn well that the target audience for hip-hop and R&B is America's young, black audience, a group that predominately isn't as connected to MP3 downloading as white kids. iPod proliferation has shortened the gap between audiences, but I'll wait until this sort of statistic is done on a TRL-beloved rock group before I make a connection about anything more than how hot an R&B artist is.

Re:The iTunes first track outsold the CD first tra

[jrockway]

> Noooo, Slashdot is 'news for nerds' and would never treat its readership as if they were illiterate morons.

Slashdot posts stories to discuss. They don't write their own stories. The point of slashdot is comments like yours -- that's why people read slashdot. If you're just here for some tech articles, you're in the wrong place. (Check out digg.)

If you're here for discussion, that's what slashdot is about. You're in the right place ;)

Sick of the Song

[PBPanther]

Another factor that is not mentioned in this set of statistics is how long before the song was released people started hearing it on the radio.

If the song is played for weeks on the radio before it is released then people are sick of it. This seems to happen with so many new singles these days, especially from the big names. They are hyped and hyped and played and played to death so much that no one wants them by the time they are released.

Re:Sick of the Song

[kellererik]

Spot on, I don't listen to the radio too often these days (podcasts are so much better), but I do from time to time. The latest to-be-hyped songs are played about three times an hour (my unscientific guess), means I really don't want to hear them again after a couple of days. I do not dare to imagine, what this scheme does to regular listeners of commercial radio.

A failure to respond to the market

[vanillaspice]

One of the biggest faults in the "online sales hurts CD sales" argument is that the mainstream American recording industry, depending on multi-media ads and promotion (like MTV), has helped to create a market based on singles. That doesn't work if one claims to depend on album sales. Even the most reliable measure of music sales in North America, Nielsen SoundScan, produces numbers for sales of albums, not singles. If album tracks are hampering sales, maybe it's time for a change in how music gets produced and promoted in the first place.

In other countries, artists frequently cut singles and make videos, then book TV performances and radio interviews to promote their work. Only after a series of singles do they release an album and then go on tour to promote it.

The RIAA might benefit by changing in this way and not dumping so much money into advertising and payola for music video and radio play. It's kind of like bloatware in that way. If a record has to go platinum in order to break even for the record company, the business model might very well be broken.

Also Overheard at the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

"If we don't release this album on cassette tape, we'll sell more copies of the vinyl!"

Correlation

[minorproblem]

Correlation Does not imply Causation...

CD is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The CD is dead, let's move forward! Unfortunately, the music labels are greedy and make more money from selling CDs than selling online. I think new releases should come to iTunes and CD at the same time, otherwise its not fair. Who really wants to walk to a store to buy a CD that they can buy within seconds from online to put on their iPod?

Won't happen. At least not at a cent per listening

[Opportunist]

99 cent a song is more profitable. Or do you know any recent songs that you would willingly listen 99 times?

Additionally to the billion times you hear it on the radio so you actually think this song might be good, 'cause they play it like a billion times.

Recorded music is like a picture of a painting

[Anonymous Coward]

Recorded music is like a picture of a painting: virtually worthless.

I wouldn't mind paying for a recording of music with a photocopy of money, but they'll have to come here and perform live, on stage, if they want real money.

Too Little Data

[Makarakalax]

You can't make any conclusions based on two data points ffs. 2000 perhaps. 20,000, and I'll have some respect for the conclusion.

Re:so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr ... I think you're missing the point that the majority of audio sales go to the generation that aren't techno savvy.
Electronic and physical media - both available at comparable and affordable prices are the way to go - the emphasis being "affordable"

umm../..

[way2trivial]

lots of hardbacks have material that never makes the paperback version...

The John Ringo novels had CD's with interesting stuff in the hardbacks only

I've owned other texts (in both formats) where there were appendices and long ass forwards by authors... that never made paperback.

as for the red filter, ok then....

Re:umm../..

[numatrix]

You can download that CD image for free whether you bought the hardback or not. In fact, if you read the copyright associated with it, you're encouraged to give it away to other folks to get them hooked on Ringo. (It works too. A friend at the office got me hooked letting me borrow one of his Aldenata books. I'm not sure why other publishing companies don't get this. Baen, quite clearly, does.)

The CDs are all available online at:

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

Of course, your point is still valid. Hardback versions occasionally include extras not available in other forms.

Re:umm../..

[Bob Uhl]

I'm not sure why other publishing companies don't get this. Baen, quite clearly, does.

Baen rock. Their Webscriptions service is a great way to get books online--they've taken a fair chunk of my spare change that way. And the Baen Free Library is what introduced me to the works of Lois McMaster Bujold.

$5 CDs

[labmouse42]

If CDs were $5 I would buy 2-3 a week. $5 is an impulse buy, where $18 is dinner at a restraunt.

Now I only buy used CDs to save money and deny the RIAA my money.

Not simply margins...but art

[bodland]

If cd's are preferred then cd's might have a higher margin than the downloads. Then it makes us wonder why cd's cost so much in the first place.

CD's are still preffered by not only the labels but more importantly by the artists as well. For two main reasons: First, there is still a desire to have a tangible "object" to sell. Something that can be held with content exclusive to the packaging. Booklets, liner notes, artwork etc. These objects have a perviceved longevity. A CD or LP still has a easily assigned "value" to it because it physically takes up something more than simply ones and zeros. The creation of music is really about leaving some little piece of yourself behind for future generations to discover and enjoy. And a tangible object like a LP, Analog Tape or CD is the prefferred method of that archive.

Seccond is the "bundle". Since The Beatle's "Rubber Soul" recording artists work to put together a collection of songs or pieces to satisfy the need to present a more complete picture of who they are and what they are about For many musicians a digitally released single simply doesn't present enough information to the listener. The "album" will always be present in some tangible form. It may be CD, LP, DVD or what ever new package technology comes up with. Artists and a significant percentage of music consumers will still want the "bundle". The single is simply a "loss leader" for the album. Single only releases will remain the exception rather than become the rule.

My biggest fear as a musician is that the day will come when ALL music is simply a stream of random songs piped into your ear with no tactile interaction, visual queing or control. (The Big Brother Muzak from hell...satellite radio)

The other day I bought Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits LP at a thrift shop for a dollar. The album was a second pressing from 1969 release and had the original poster and album sleeve. My daughter wanted the poster and thinks that it is so cool that things were "so big" then. At 15 she wants her own turntable and stereo in addition to the required iPod so she can buy "really cool" records. She already has made her own CDs and sold them to her friends. http://www.myspace.com/notpicturedhereyo

That made me feel good for the future for recording artists. There will always be the desire by the listener to have control, choice and a object to hold and read while the music plays. And the artists will always want to present a collection of music on some physical media with a extended vision of what the music is about.

It is difficult for non-musicians to understand what it is like to first hold their finished CD. Be it a home made burned and ink jet printed version or a commerically produced, printed and shrinkwrapped bar coded one. It is the culmination of countless hours of practice, writing, recording, mixing and working with creative professionals to present a image of the music in the form of the graphic design and photograghy. A Mp3 is simply a minor step in much bigger creative process.

http://soul-amp.com/

Morons...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you dumbass kids would stop buying CDs that only had one good song, those talentless hacks would get honest jobs.

Maybe kids are better paid than when I worked at the drive-in. It only took one or two albums with "one good song" (e.g., the Box Tops) before I stopped buying albums unless a) I heard it at a friend's house and the whole thing rocked; b) I heard the whole album on KSHE and the whole thing rocked (I would stand for one or two shit songs; Aerosmmith's 1st album was good except for Dream On, the only song on the album that got airplay); or 3) best-of, greatest hits, and live albums, all of which were proven to be moneyworthy.

You kids are all bitching about "one good song on the album..." STOP BUYING THEM! There are and have been thousands of artists who put out whole albums that don't suck.

Of course, your idea of an album with "one good song" might be my idea of an album with one shitty song.

You kids are screwed; John Bohnam is dead. Zepplin never EVER made a bad album!

is this really a dilemma ?

[freaker_TuC]

It's the same moral dilemma as when your friend jumps from a bridge and you wonder if you should jump too or not. If you care about the ones who made the music, authored it, put their time and soul in creating a song and you can give your share in the creation of that song; would you still be saying the same?

There are enough alternatives next to iTunes which have the same quality, without DRM, even on CD, available on the net as independent publishers. It also doesn't take a long time to watch on the CD/the underside of the CD if there are any copy protections or DRM features. Shop wise, skip the labels you don't trust, it's like shopping, do you buy cowboy-n-western music if you are not really into it ? No you skip that isle; do the same with your music label selections. If you really want you can de-atomize your iTunes tunes which will strip the DRM atoms and save your file in DRM-FREE .aac or .mp3 format.

As well, I got to agree, the music industry is sucking up our money and the greedy lil bastards want even more and more, because the digital age of the mp3 player is out there... A CD shouldn't cost so much.

Still, this argument of "because one is bad all are bad" or "should I also jump of the bridge" does not go up for me ...