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Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?
Phonographic Memory writes "A new study has come out that purports to show a link between file-sharing and decreased CD purchases. Covering the period of 1995-2003, the study looked for a link between owning a computer and decreased CD purchases. The researcher found that 'some US music consumers could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.' In its coverage of the study, Ars Technica notes that the scholarly consensus on the possibility of a link between file sharing and music purchases is missing: 'the dominant impression gained from reading these studies is that finding accurate correlations between file-sharing and loss of revenue for the music industry is tremendously difficult.'"
Ok RIAA, I said what you told me to. Will you now drop the case?
1) I have never downloaded a song for which I don't own a CD already
2) I have bought maybe 2 CDs in the last year, vs. 20 a year in the early 90's
This is mainly due to the high level of suckage by today's "musicians". Has anyone done a study that includes that correlation? Also I've built my collection the point where I have almost everything I want already. How does that figure in?
But of course, increased online digital music sales couldn't possibly have anything to do with *that* could they?
Lots of things have changed in the last 10 years. P2P fileswapping is one of them. iTunes is another.
Said it before, say it again. It's not the Internet, it's the product. Music today sucks compared to years ago. I just have no desire to pay $18 for a CD when I could buy the DVD with full video for the same price.
The same applies to movies. Torrents aren't killing your ticket sales.. Your crappy movies are killing ticket sales.
"Honey, do these jeans make my butt look fat?"
"No, your fat butt makes your butt look fat."
See the concept?
i wrote an albeit sloppy paper on this a few years ago. i found that there were several spikes in cd sales. one was during the heyday of napster. after napster was shut down, cd sales started to slow down. they picked up again as iTunes was gaining in popularity.
personally, i know for a fact that i wouldnt have a huge chunk of my (legally puchased) music collection had it not been for file sharing, simply because i would have never heard the bands before.
And even an inexpensive CD (been out a few years, on a discount site, etc) is about $7.99 today.
That's less than 1 cheap CD a year. That's barely 1 brand new ($15.99) CD every 3 years.
WTF?
And the 80 cent decrease? That's 1 less CD purchased every 10 years.
Right. We download a song from an album that we *think* we want, then we say "Man, this sucks. I'm glad I didn't buy this shit."
End of story. So, yes, you could answer that music downloads hurt music sales, but that only identifies the symptom and ignores the actual problem.
I don't think it does purely for the story I'm about to tell.
Three days ago I had no intrest in Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon, but a friend had the rom so I went "WTF, I'll give it a try".. I found out it played just like nethack, some minor changes, but in my head it became "Pokemon Nethack". I played it for a couple of hours and decided that this was a game I'd want to play on my DS rather than on the PC. So today I ordered the game and it should be here in a few days.
Did I hurt the game industry by using a rom before I bought the full copy or buy a game I didn't have an intrest before I played it? Roms and P2P music has become the new demos, people will buy games they think are worth the money or they'll download games they didn't think were worth the money. You could even argument because of the rom I've now told Slashdot that they can get a Nethack like game on the DS now and may have even sold more GBA/DS consoles/games, but that maybe going too far.
Quality will always sell.
I like muppets.
I think the music industry hurts itself. When CD's were release they promised that they would cost around $5 in a few years as the costs of R&D were covered and mass production set in. The only CD's that sell for $5 are either crappy or used. They want to maintain their monopoly status and are unwilling to change. Those are the reasons I no longer buy CD's.
As for DRM protected content for $1 a song, the protection limits my ability to move to a new ipod every year without loosing music. The price point is too high, who has $10,000 to shell out on music to fill their iPod nano?
It's not file share that is there problem, they are their own problem. Their business model is horrible and I can't wait until they collapse over the next 10-15 years. Once the music conglomerates go broke or more artists move to independent labels that don't overcharge I will start buying CD's again. They claim its in the advertising and number of artists that they have to sign that cause prices to remain high. If they quite charging such a premium and actually went to a few shows put on my burgeoning artists they could cut those "costs" in 1/4.
Oh, there it is, the word 'could.' So on a level from one to a hundred, where does 'could' lie? I mean, if this was a rigorous statistical procedure -- no matter how complex, they should be able to give a percent confidence. You can measure deviation from your model and give it to me that way but I'm concerned that there might have been uncontrolled variables affecting the sale of CDs.
And I believe that iTunes Music Service has been out since 2001, is that accounted for? It doesn't seem to be if you search the below linked document. I mean, I assume this study is targeting illegal downloads. iTunes is legal to my knowledge yet it would still decrease CD purchases.
If you'd like to read the paper, it can be found here (PDF alert).
While this study does take into acocunt some variables, I'm just afraid there are too many for it to be conclusive. I would recommend that the article ignore Family Size and find out how many of their users used a legal music download service.
Also, is 2,000 samples per year enough to be accurate? Possibly, but then again, they are talking about an economy of 250 million consumers.
My work here is dung.
Here's a few little goodies that the RIAA forgot to include with their pet study...
1. Nicholls State University is in Thibodaux, Louisana which isn't exactly a hotbed of business research
2. His study doesn't state where the funding to conduct the study was obtained from.
3. The data came from the Consume Expenditure Survey, which is notoriously inaccurate
4. RIAA has cut back on advertising and promotion for music across the board
5. Their sales were actually better while Napster was in operation, without any additional expenditure on their part.
Just my 2 cents,
QueenB
HDGary secures my bank
yeah! it's just like when the casette tape killed the recording industry and the video tape put all the movie theatres out of business and the radio wiped out record sales. we've know this connection for years! ever since the public library put all the publishers out of business.
seriously. people buy cd's (and books and movies) as much for owning an artefact than for the actual content. people want to have personal libraries and large music collections and so they will buy books and movies. history proves it.
2 1337 4 u!
I've got a computer. I haven't purchased a CD in about 6 months, however, I know that Amazon will still deliver them to me for free, so the cost of driving to the mall has nothing to do with it.
I just don't want their damned music. I don't want their damned music badly enough that I haven't downloaded any of it either.
That CD I bought 6 months ago? It was made on a computer. In the home of the artist. I bought it from her at one of her appearances at a local coffeehouse. It's got a CC license. It doesn't even show up on the sales statistics.
Ya think that might have something to do with the official sales numbers?
". . . finding accurate correlations between file-sharing and loss of revenue for the music industry is tremendously difficult.'"
Yeah, I have the same problem counting the number of pixies living under my bed.
KFG
And how exactly to you propose to objectively measure the "level of suckage"?
Seriously, what you say is not true. What sucks is the music that's played on the radio, not modern music. This is mostly a result of the deregulation of radio that occurred in the 90s, paving the way for a few giants to own just about everything.
The effects were somewhat delayed by the "grunge" boom; every major label was so desperate to find "the next Nirvana" that they took chances with all sorts of interesting bands that wouldn't have otherwise gotten major label deals. They have since realized that they'll make more money sticking to the formula, so they push nothing but garbage on the radio and MTV nowadays.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
you are a lying troll. you can use as many ipods as you want. and you can use music you didn't buy from the itunes store. you can make as many backups as you want, and you can play on 5 computers simulataneously.
your friends are idiots or are lying to you because they hate you and don't want you to enjoy ipods like they do.
I mean seriously, I remember the exact year I stopped buying the same quantity of CDs... It was 1994. Yes, my computer had something to do with it, but it wasn't file sharing. It was I found myself spending most of my disposable cash on computer upgrades and games for the next 2 years. Seriously. I still bought CDs, but my guess would be I had cut down by about 90 percent.
Then about 1996, I moved in with my girlfriend, and the focus of my life completely changed. Again, still bought CDs, it's just music slowly fell down the list of important things to do with my money in my life. You end up living together, then you get engaged, buy furniture, get married, buy a house, start a family, etc... I personally just never found myself back in that stage where it seemed like a good idea to toss massive amounts of my disposable income on music.
I can't possibly be the only one can I?
"Our morality is good, theirs is repressive."- Partisanship Rule #3
Before we talk about filesharing, we should talk about the more basic issue: transmissable digital file formats vs. plastic media discs
stored in poorly designed (easily breakable) jewel cases.
Let's face it: CD's suck. And I'm not talking about the music. I'm talking about the medium.
CD's have to be swapped out of the cd player. They hold too little music. They're easily damaged. And the jewel case is one of the worst atrocities
of industrial design to be inflicted upon humanity in the last 20 years. (I'd say 30% of mine are broken).
MP3's by comparison are instantly accessible, contain meta data, are sortable, and can be shuffled into infinite playlists. Not to mention, they're
not breakable.
When the recording industry pushes CD's, they are pushing a sub-par product on us.
The music industry was slow to adopt a commercial alternative, and when they did they gave us DRM infected, vastly overpriced, low bitrate shite because they were
still convinced that if given no other alternative we would continue to buy the sub par plastic discs.
But there was an alternative: An infinitely better, cheaper, higher quality and more accessible alternative. The recording industry attmpted to
control the market at the expense of the consumer. They gambled and they lost.
When businesses offer subpar products they fail.
The message to the recording industry is simple: Sell me non-DRM infected tracks at
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I don't listen to radio, but one objective example of suckage is the decreased dynamic range of modern mastering techniques. Nearly all music from the last 10 years is so overcompressed as to be unlistenable (and even old music is not safe - "remastered" rerelease versions replace the old versions with much inferior versions).
In other news the RIAA has sued Microsoft for stealing thier business as computer owners spent more money on microsoft products than non computer owners... and this obviously means they have less money to spend on CDs and must pirate instead! It's all Microsofts fault!
On a more serious note, how could they seriously not realize that owning a computer opens up new entertainment mediums to people? 1 computer game is 2-5 CDs... it's not like people have a limitless supply of entertainment money.
Gotta love bad studies...
'some US music consumers could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.'
In related news, some Congressman might now be accepting 80% more bribes, 50% of people might be below average, and 100% of statistics prefaced with "some" and "could have" are sensational bullshit. If you've got real statistics, you don't say "some might have."
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
There you have it. Their product is bad, overhyped, bubblegummy teenage nonsense.
When I find good music I buy it, and in the last 15 years or so the good music is coming out on smaller, independent labels.
Amen.
I buy CDs at shows all the time. The artist gets the money, I get the music, a major label record company gets nothing - everyone wins.
Sure, suckage is very subjective. Another possible cause is a shift in demographics. For us people who used to buy CDs, but now don't because of perceived suckage, we have stopped buying. Period. We have not started downloading (well typically anyway). The higher volumes of new releases are now more biased away from people like me to those who like rap or whatever. Perhaps the rap-buying demographic has never been strong in CD purchases, so perhaps that explains a lot, perhaps not.
Analogy alert: if you replace a French resturant into a MacD,then expect your patrons to change and expect your sales numbers to change too. The wine bar next door should also expect changes since your average MacD eater is probably less likely to fit the wine bar profile.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I will not spend $1 for a song that sucks.... But you have accused me of being a thief when I actually have only legal MP3s without DRM.
According to the RIAA, that makes you a thief. You're a thief if you buy used music. You're a thief if you buy music on sale. You're a thief if you buy any recordable media other than Music CD-Rs, and you're a thief if you use them for music. And even with DRM, you're a thief if you bought it from iTunes and a thief if you bought a CD (you bought music; you must like to steal it too, so here's a free rootkit so we can keep an eye on you). You're a thief if you listen to the radio, you're a thief if you hum or whistle, you're a thief if you can sing, play an instrument, or keep a beat, until they sign you to a label(*) and they can start stealing back from you.
And you're a thief if you don't buy enough new music every 10 minutes.
Basically, everyone's a thief. You've stolen profits they could have had if you'd just bought more.
You haven't lined their pockets enough.
(*) I'm only kidding on that point. They don't sign people who can sing, play instruments, or keep a beat; they have machines to fix that now. It's easier to keep a perfomer if all their talent actually comes from the label's hardware. (They're still working on supplanting physical beauty; lip-syncing stand-ins aren't working well enough.)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I know that I can put not DRM music on an iPod, I just don't see the point of owning one since I usually listen to XM. Since I pay for the service I just use it in my car. At home I can listen to it as well plus I have a good collection of legal recordings and some older CD's. If I flew more often I might consider an iPod but when I do fly I usually am too busy working to pay any attention to music or I just watch a movie (either on my laptop or the screen).
Most of my firends with iPods are dedicated users and would never give it up. I on the other hand just haven't found the need yet.
DRM and High prices on CD's are problematic, not the iPod or any other MP3 player that I know of (I didn't know some applied DRM to non-DRM music). If I purchase music I should be free to copy it to as many forms of media as I like as many times as I like. I have a horrible track record at maintaining backups and CD integrity, therefore I need the ability to copy it or I don't want it. I am actually supprised that I have been able to keep my DVD's in good shape but I don't put them in my car where I have to drive, swap cd's, etc. I don't feel that I should have to pay $18 for a decent CD. I do buy the occasional box set because they usually give me a good collection for a reasonable price relative to individual CD's (especially when a decent one goes on sale).
My real point is that the RIAA business model is failing due to a shift in consumer habits, not the piracy of music. It wan't much harder to share music back in the days of tapes (look at international markets back then, anything was available on the black market for cheap). The RIAA is upset because they can actually see their music being stolen in front of their eyes and the consumer has had it with their monopoly. I applaud apple for their iTunes store and the fact that they were able to come to an agreement with the RIAA. I only dislike the current model of $1 per song. An artist is entitled to compensation for their work, I just don't think that the labels should get most of the profit when they don't even know how to market effectively, are horrible a spotting talent, and just want to control prices. The artists should be the first to rebel with this age if Internet distribution and put together some cooperative recording studios to work from. There are plent of quality artists out there that the labels ignore. When I have baught CD's from local bands I usually get CD's they produced, the quality is great, and the prices are more like $10 then $20. Everyone wins except the major labels which have no inherant right to make a profit, they should earn their keep before asking anyone to pay them.
I doubt it. I'm in my 40's and I've noticed a distinct lack of cow bell in today's music.
But forcing Blu-Ray on me won't get me to buy the White Album again - I already burned it onto MP3.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
you can make as many backups as you want, and you can play on 5 computers simulataneously.
You are correct, but it makes a crappy backup.
Lossy AAC to CD audio and back to lossy MP3 is quite a degredation in sound quality.
That and you use your ID tags.
Personally, I use an iPod but I rip my CDs I purchase from the store to 256kps MP3s for quality and compatibility of all my players (Audiotron, CD mp3, and iPod and VBR is problematic on the CD and audio tron)
I'm tempted to start doing high quality MP4 because I'm an audio freak like that. Too bad iPods don't support FLAC or OGG, but I still like my nano.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I agree. My buying habits have changed. I still listen to a wide variety of radio stations; but my desire to buy what I hear is zero. So I go to extremes to buy stuff that doesn't suck. I noticed I starting buying more from Amazon 'cause HMV,A&B,BestBuy,etc/etc were all selling the same "promoted" crap. Now I see more indy record companies pushing their own and bypassing traditional distributors (for example, I heard Dervish on FolkAlley.com and could not find them except through their associated on-line store.)
One thing that truly freaks me out is the blatent theft of riffs and complete lack of originality by many of the leading "Pop" artists. Hey... isn't that Madonna butchering ABBA? Rihanna pilfering SoftCell? Gwen and Fergie ripping off children's songs - or each other.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Music today is no better nor worse than yesterday. You remember the good stuff and forget the crap, the same way I remember the good 90s music and not the crap.. That is how things work. You remember the good and discard the crap.
Every generation has had its share of good and bad music and the manufactured pop idols, but one thing is different today than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago.
Clear Channel owns all the radios and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
This means artists are chosen by the media cartels payola system rather than a voting system by the populace.
As a kid I remember every year, there would a video that would play at midnight and then it would get popular and play at 10pm and then later it would be playing nonstop at primetime for an entire month.
Now, a band is just manufactured and *BAM* they are on the prime time whether you like it or not.
Mabye all those old bands were manufactured as well, but these days it isn't even remotley democratic.
Do you remember the days when any local band had a chance of getting their demo played on the radio and then making it big?
These days there is no such thing as a local radio station. They play the same lists on the East Coast as they do the West coast. Hell many of the shows are getting the same audio stream.
So I wouldn't say the quality of music has gone down hill, but rather the industry itself and its promotions methods. RIAA and crew are no longer satisfied with taking chances with people possibly making it big. If they sign you then they force it down everyone's throats even if they aren't liked.
Which is of course why we see more one hit wonders these days of people who real job was making jingles for commercials or have a pretty face.
It isn't the internet or piracy nor iTunes killing the industry, but the industry itself.
The only way to fix it would be to break up the RIAA monopoly and force Clear Channel to sell its stations.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
File sharing DOES hurt the current model of the music biz... one that is based on the disposable mega-pop-star. It is hard to sell 10 million albums for a musician with one hit song when someone can just download the single they like so easily. For a pop-phenomena, it is very easy to hit the critical mass of people online to share something.
On the other hand, there is a lot of music that is very hard to find on file sharing networks. Whole genres of music are pretty much unaccounted for on file sharing networks. If you can't listen to it on an FM radio station, good luck finding it. There might be a successful business model in selling fewer records of more artists, than selling more records of a handful of artists.
Regardless, it is not the role of the government to be propping up outdated business models. I think it is pretty clear that the automobile was pretty disastrous to the blacksmithing and livery industries... but it created even more profitable industries in the long run. Think of the mess we would be in if we tried to save the blacksmithing and livery industries as large scale parts of our economy. True, file-sharing IS stealing and immoral, I don't deny that: but so is taking my tax money against my will, in order to fund a government agency to preemptively go after file sharing, or to legally harass potentially innocent people, or to legally restrict new technologies because they *MAY* potentially be used for file sharing. The immorality of file-sharing (extremely minor evil, if it is evil at all) is far outweighed by the immorality of the draconian methods required for enforcement.
And specific to the music industry... WE WILL NEVER HAVE A SHORTAGE OF MUSIC!!! Music is one of those things people enjoy doing without payment... and one of those things that garners a lot of non-financial rewards (attention, respect, adoration). Look at all the garage bands, amateur musicians, people making demo CDs, people posting their music free on websites, and tell me that we would not have lots and lots of music, even if the entire industry collapsed. Making music is not like building airplanes, in that it takes vast amounts of capital and can be dangerous if done by people who don't know what they are doing.
I bought a DVD the other day for $5. Yet a band from the 70's still cost $11-15. I can't find a good CD for $5. If the movie industry can do it, then the music industry can. I hear that tape sales are way down due to downloads and piracy as well. Why wasn't that ever mentioned in the article?
Can I bum a sig?
This is so good it just had to be answered... heh.
A friend of mine calls this "lying with your teeth in your face." I call it stupid. First off, the RIAA members are public corporations, and the big boys are all growing. In fact, they have been growing for quite some time. You have public records to demonstrate this on any finance site you want to visit. What's changing is the business model. Now, in specific, that "unit shipments have fallen" figure fails to account for online sales and other alternate media formats. This is just bad statistics.
Which clearly demonstrates that music sharing is not illegal. Sharing copyrighted music to which you do not have a valid license or ownership of the copyright is illegal. This is a fine point that the RIAA would appreciate if you simply forgot.
In other words, you are responsible for your own actions. Yes, thank you. Now would you please stop trying to sue ISPs, dead people and little kids?
Music sales are soaring. There, that was easy.