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CDs, Vinyl Are Outselling Digital Downloads For the First Time Since 2011 (mercurynews.com)
Digital downloads had a short run as the top-selling format in the music industry. It took until 2011, a decade after the original iPod came out, for their sales surpass those of CDs and vinyl records, and they were overtaken by music streaming services just a few years later. Now, digital downloads are once again being outsold by CDs and vinyl, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. From a report: The RIAA released its 2017 year-end revenue report on Thursday, showing that revenue from digital downloads plummeted 25 percent to $1.3 billion over the previous year. Revenue from physical products, by contrast, fell just 4 percent to $1.5 billion. Overall, the music industry grew for a second year straight. And with $8.7 billion in total revenue, it's healthier than it has been since 2008, according to the report. Nearly all of the growth was the result of the continued surge in paid music subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music. Those services grew by more than 50 percent to $5.7 billion last year and accounted for nearly two-thirds of the industry's revenue. Physical media accounted for 17 percent, while digital downloads made up just 15 percent.
I've been buying CDs and never opening them when the CD version is cheaper or the same price as than the streaming version due to Amazon offering "AutoRip" on many CDs.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
66% is music services
the fact that downloads are separate and of the same order as CD or Vinyl is rather irrelevant, the main way of getting music is through the internet and physical media is dying.
read the summary again, music services are exploding, taking away share from physical and "downloads"
Boo hoo, RIAA. So, it hasn't been even this high since 2008? And streaming/downloads only makes up $1.3B of that? Unreal. It's a mere 1/8th of your total revenue stream. That's not news, it's just bragging that your portfolio shifted around and you're making more, but in different areas. If I had to guess, I'd fall into the same thought processes as others and say it's the Amazon-like approach of selling an 'pre-ripped' album that also comes with the tangible CD/Vinyl, too, albeit for a slight markup more --- and it makes sense for some because you get it encoded for none of your time and it's instant use. Then your second surprise shows up in the mail a few days later you never open and shelf as a nostalgic backup.
This is like the NFL complaining about how 'viewership' is down this here for baseless excuses and is really impacting their product, but still manage to increase their entire network every year.
I'm surprised to see that "CD/Vinyl" is the excuse vs. pirating. Never see a witch-hunt for that as long as it's making you something.
So for $120/Year you can play all the music you want.... The average CD cost about $10, so that's like buying 12 CDs a year....... However, MOST people listen to a few dozen artists or a few songs they'll want to listen to over and over again, and before the advent of streaming services might have purchased 2 or 3 CDs per year.... ~$20 or $30/Year in music tops.
So let me get this straight... the avg. subscriber will now pay 6 TIMES as much per year to listen to probably roughly the same amount of music, AND better yet.... after the year is over, you don't own anything for having subscribed, so next year you gotta pay again to listen to the same music.
The music companies should be THRILLED by this model. All they have to do is raise CD prices even more to ensure they become less popular and get a tighter lockdown on "higher fidelity versions" they can upsell later, then make sure they eventually get an 80% or 90% cut on all subscription services, and keep renegotiating royalty rates a few % higher every year to provide growth.
'Streaming' is shit. Why can't you all see that the Corporate world is trying to move everything in our lives to a 'rental' model? Do you really want to live in a world where you can't own anything yourself? Rich get richer, poor get poorer.
TFA is at the Mercury News web site, and credits Derek Hawkins at the Washington Post. But TFA says its source is a Medium post by the RIAA's Cary Sherman, and sure enough if you go to the RIAA's web site you can find a post with a link to the Medium post as well as to the RIAA's actual report: https://www.riaa.com/riaa-rele...
ProTip for submitters and editors: if TFA has a source, the source may well be on the web too, and may have real actual data.
Look, I support the artists, not the music industry.
I buy my LPs and CDs (and DVDs) direct from the artists at performances, where they get 50 percent of the take, not via Amazon or some digital intermediary who takes 99 percent of the cash and maybe, if they feel like it, gives the artists less than 1 percent.
Oh, check out Giants in the Trees and Golden Gardens, they are excellent!
I'll be buying more at performances like UpStream this summer.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
That's nice. And if the 'service' goes out of business, or there is some sort of Rights dispute with the content creator -- or your 'service' just decides that you don't have anything anymore, even if you paid for it -- then it's gone, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Also, enjoy knowing that ALL of your reading, listening, and viewing habits are now logged and surveiled: they know what you're doing, when you're doing it, and for how long. How does that make you feel, Hal? Loved? Or creeped out? When you own your own media, it's yours; someone would have to come to your house and physically take it from you. When you read a book, or watch a DVD/Bluray, or listen to a CD, it's nobody's business that you're doing that, and your privacy is intact. That's why owning physical copies of things is superior: they can't take it from you (or alter it after you buy it), and you use your media in privacy, and nobody has the right to know what you're reading/hearing/viewing.
..oh, and before you go off on a rant about how you think 'privacy doesn't matter', or 'I'm not doing anything wrong so I have nothing to fear', or 'people who want privacy must have something to hide', or 'people who think their privacy is being invaded are paranoid', or anything like that? I have no respect whatsoever for people who think that way, I think they're stupid to the extreme, and are giving away something that is beyond price, for free, to people and corporations and governments who do NOT have your best interests at heart, and I have no interest in having a conversation with people like that -- so if you're one of those, don't bother responding, I don't want to talk to you.