Music Industry Sees First Revenue Increase Since 1999

Zaatxe writes with a bit of news about the music industry; sales are slightly up (basically flat). From the article: "The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought recovery might have begun. The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5 billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the record companies to party like it's 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide significant encouragement. 'At the beginning of the digital revolution it was common to say that digital was killing music,' said Edgar Berger, chief executive of the international arm of Sony Music Entertainment. Now, he added, it could be said 'that digital is saving music.'" Because CDs aren't digital. CD sales are declining, and being replaced by the sale of lossy files. I wonder how much more money they could be making if they'd just sell folks lossless music on the open market (not just iTunes) since at least that's all that keeps me buying a CD or three a year (I own way too many CDs personally, and stopped buying music until discovering Bandcamp and easy lossless downloads rekindled my desire to find new stuff).

Comments

Re:CD's Not digital

[Chrisq]

"Because CDs aren't digital."

Uh..yes, they are.

At the quantum level isn't everything?

You could power an entire wind farm

[RevWaldo]

...with the turbulence created from "CDs aren't digital" whooshing over the ACs heads.

.

Re:Lossless Files

[Rufus Firefly]

More to the point, I listen to my music in my car piped over the interwebs through my phone through my bluetooth through my car's stereo to 105.1 on the dial. I don't really give a rat's ass about "lossy," I care about whether the tune rocks, or whether my kids want to hear a particular song off teh server (subsonic, ftw). I suppose if I were sitting in a dark room wearing huge 70s style headphones while masturbating with my monster cables, AND I were a dog so I could hear the difference, I suppose that "lossy" would make a difference...