Streaming Surpasses CD Sales At Warner Music (ft.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The times are a changin'. "Warner Music Group has become the first major record company to report that streaming has become its largest source of revenue, surpassing sales of physical formats such as CDs and vinyl," reports Financial Times. Last year, Warner's streaming revenue surpassed its sales for downloads. It goes to show just how much of an impact streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music are having on the music industry. Warner is the third-largest record company and has embraced streaming more quickly than the rest of the industry. "This rapid transformation is evidence of our ability to sign, develop and market artists that thrive in the streaming world," said Stephen Cooper, Warner's chief executive. The company reports that total recorded music revenue grew 10 percent to $610 million in the first three months of the year. Overall digital revenue increased 20 percent to $328 million, offsetting declines in physical formats like CDs.

Comments

Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Even with Apple iTunes, even though you own it, you don't.

You're tied to their proprietary products and codecs. Movies and TV shows are further locked by their DRM.

And now they have that music subscription disaster, they make it almost impossible to buy music from their devices.

You can't preview a lot of songs anymore - just trying to preview brings you into the stream crap.

iTunes on the PC is going away, just like Quicktime.

iTunes on the Mac is a horrific mess.

Tim Cook needs to be fired, he's worse than that sugar water guy.