Slashdot Mirror
Music Streaming Sales Outstrip Digital Downloads For First Time (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes with this news, which might worry you if you'd like your music (or videos, or books) to be safely stored on your local PC, phone, or offline storage: Music streaming has surpassed digital downloads in terms of revenue, according to a report released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Its 'News and Notes on 2015' review shows that music streaming in the U.S. brought in 34.3% of the overall revenue for the year – generating $2.4 billion out of a total $7 billion. If the numbers are accurate, streaming beat music downloads by 0.3%. While this growth is an encouraging result for those in the industry backing streaming services like Spotify and the new Apple Music, many remain unconvinced of its value. RIAA chairman and CEO Cary Sherman noted an 'alarming' disparity between the growth in the number of ad-supported streams, and the growth in revenues generated by these.
belongs to us. It has finally happened.
Captcha: hegemony
They have a warmer sound!
So I have it whenever and wherever I want
Music is something you listen to many times, it is inefficient to stream it every time (especially if you're outside your Wifi and would have to pay your mobile carrier for extra data use.
I basically choose whichever option gives the **aa consortium the least say in what I watch, listen to, or ignore.
Steaming music subscription instead of MP3s/CDs. Video streaming subscription instead of DVDs. Satellite radio instead of free radio. Cable TV instead of OTA. Pay-to-play games instead of one-time-cost games. Office365 instead of MS Office Suite. Hell, Windows 10 is the last Windows OS that you can "own" instead of "rent" (where "own" means a perpetual license and "rent" means time-limited license). This is all part of a wider trend to a Rentier Economy where ownership is a privilege only the very rich can afford and everyone else is on a treadmill of ever-increasing subscription fees.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
"Revenue from digital album downloads dropped 5.2% in 2015, and sales of singles declined 12.8%."
If that trend continues, I wonder if we might see some price cuts, especially for decades-old material? I'm not paying $1 per song for a bunch of .mp3 files of 20+ yo albums. When they cut the prices for the old stuff to something like $0.25 per song on a full album download, they'll get some revenue from me.
A big difference for music & video is that new content is available and you won't necessarily be interested in listening to the old stuff. That is a big distinction between content & applications like office where the old software is probably good enough for a decade.
I'm curious... do record contracts still include clauses requiring the artists to pay for "breakage?" Or, do they now scam artists into paying for "lost packets?"
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
people pay for music?
The music industry has carefully tried to redefine digital downloads as different from purchases, pushing DRM which is later sunset and stripping us of our first-sale rights with the approval of the courts. Everyone knows that a CD which I can rip, trade or later sell legally is worth more than a digital download which I never really own, but rather license. So, the market adjusted. Streaming is clearly cheaper than amassing an aging collection of purchased music. The digital "licensed" albums were never that much cheaper than a CD or LP. It should come as no surprise that when the industry redefined what it means to "buy" an album stripping many long-held rights from consumers, the market adjusted as efficient markets do, and now we're paying a lot less. This is the market at work folks; it's called capitalism, and it's the basis for our whole economy. If the music industry doesn't like it, maybe they can find a more hospitable environment in China.
No, Mr. Sherman, what you are seeing is the competition that results from customers having more choice about formats and having a relatively large number of competing services trying to win customers driving prices down instead of a handful of companies essentially operating a price-fixing cartel and relying on customer lock-in. That you think this is a problem speaks volumes.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Who cares? We get access to the same stuff cheaper, and use the savings to access more stuff the rich used to have all to themselves. Your philosophical bullshit doesn't hold up much when food was 30% of the household income in 1950 and is 11% now, while cell phones went from $4,000 and $50/month plus 40 cents/minute in 1983 to $350 smart phone and $60 unlimited voice and data. By the way, that cell phone would be over $9,000 today, and you'd pay $550/month to talk for 2 hours per week.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
The whole music business' global annual revenues for 2015 are estimated to be bit under 15B$, which is bit less than revenues generated solely by Facebook.
So only one larger company in IT brings in same revenues, than the whole music industry.
Amazingly enough, a lot of people still listen to music created in the 1990s, 80s, 70s and even 60s and 50s. Just because millennials only care about the flavor of the month doesn't mean everybody is as fickle as that.
Some of my most heavily played tracks are from CDs I bought 25 years ago. I can listen to that same music for the next 25 years without paying anyone another damn penny.
So tell me again how software 'good enough for a decade' is worth buying while music I might enjoy for 50 years isn't.
The cost of discovering new content is much lower for streaming services compared to pay to own.
Spotify costs me the same per month no matter how many tracks from how many artists I listen to. The service encourages me to try new things and they also curate playlists like New Music Friday and Discover Weekly. With pay to own I have to buy the entire album whether I end up listening to one track once, or all of the tracks many times.
There's also the convenience factor of streaming services. I did rip my CD collection many years ago and then I never listened to those rips because it's much easier to play tracks from my phone or the web player. Spotify costs $9.99 a month, over one year that's about the cost of 6 physical CD's. It's much more expensive to go buy an album, take the time to rip it, move it to my phone and then manage backups.
"RIAA chairman and CEO Cary Sherman noted an 'alarming' disparity between the growth in the number of ad-supported streams, and the growth in revenues generated by these."
Genius-fecking-salesman in charge of an entire industry organisation doesn't understand that just showing a company's advert 100 times to the same viewer instead of just once doesn't automatically mean they'll pay 100 times more to run the ad.
Anything "ad-supported" is doomed to die the second people get used to the ads, or get bothered by them.
Absolutely, some of the older stuff sticks with you forever. On the other hand, looking at my CD collection mostly amassed during the 90's, I'd say half or more could have been a rental. Having both options available is probably better than having only one choice.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I'm still buying CDs thanks. And, I rip them to .wav.
My wife pitches a fit everytime Apple won't let her move music from one iDevice to another. Old account, old DRM song, iDevice of unknown origin...
I just point to the stack of CDs and say, which file format does iDevice prefer today?
If I want streaming, I get it free via FM radio!
When you say renting, the term is typically associated with paying someone $x/mo so you can live in an apartment, or drive one pre-selected car..
With these music and movie streaming services, it's like paying someone $x/mo so you can live in any apartment or drive any car. Use the same one all month, or change to a different apartment/car each day if you want. Even the new model that just completed construction and became available yesterday.
Heck, if there were a similar service for cars, I daresay most people would rent instead of buying a car. Use a small economy car for your solo daily commute, a bigger car for when the wife and kids decide you should go to a restaurant for dinner, a big minivan or RV for your annual week-long vacation. The conflicting constraints of being able to afford only one or two cars, while needing different size cars for different purposes leads to a lot of inefficiency.
A lot of people listen to music made in the 1780s !
I guess I am old fashioned, but I like to actually own my my media (books, music, movies, games, etc) instead of just buying access.