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Music slump 'not caused by piracy'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2193310.stm
Internet piracy is not to blame for falling music sales, a US research company has said.
Record sales are down 15% in the US, but Massachusetts-based outfit Forrester Research, which surveyed 1,000 American online consumers, said it saw no evidence of decreased CD buying among frequent consumers of digital music.
The company's principal analyst, Josh Bernoff, said: "There is no denying that times are tough for the music business, but not because of downloading."
Forrester's report adds that record labels could use the internet to revive their fortunes by making it easier for people to find, copy and pay for music on their own terms.
Competition
It predicts that digital music will be worth $2 billion - 17% of the entire industry - by 2007, compared with about $3 million in 2001.
Competition from other media and the economic downturn are more likely causes for a fall in music sales, the report said.
The big five record labels - BMG, EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony - along with several independent labels, have launched online services in the past year.
But Pressplay, MusicNet, FullAudio and Rhapsody have not captured the imagination of consumers in the same way as unauthorised sites like Napster and Audiogalaxy did.
Forrester predicts the major labels will be able to fulfil demands of internet consumers within the next three years, with labels endorsing a standard contract which consumers would sign that would support CD burning and playback on a range of different devices.
This article and the Forrester research back up what I have been sayng for the past two years. To view a video of the Forrester report or listen to an MP3 go to http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/Report/Summary/0,1338,14854,00.html
User Comments
(These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)
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mp3manlou
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Date: August 14, 2002 @ 4:28 PM
predictions are nothing. artists are getting rich, what do they care?? there will always be people who buy the cd, ifr there werent anyone to buy the cd, these networks wouldnt exist!!! |
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princess-angry
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Date: August 14, 2002 @ 7:03 PM
yep... this really is true!!! all they ahve to do is lower the cd prices!!!! |
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ssokolow
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Date: August 14, 2002 @ 8:21 PM
Hear Hear! |
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Big250
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Date: August 15, 2002 @ 7:57 AM
I've always believed P2P didn't have much effect on sales or a record company's bottom line. These companies were scapegoating us, blaming us for problems that had nothing to do with us. And after all the bitching and whining about services like Napster and Gnutella they go and set up services like Pressplay. It should be easy for everyone to see now, suing Napster wasn't about the artist's right to be paid for their work, they wanted to seize control on internet music distribution. |
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furrball316
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Date: August 17, 2002 @ 2:19 AM
I've bought CDs that I otherwise wouldn't have bought if I hadn't had the chance to sample them online first. How can they say that's killing their sales? |
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DADO-1
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Date: August 17, 2002 @ 6:29 AM
CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL!!!!!!!! Is the name of the game. Fatcats and blinded artist(ie:metal drummer)
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weaponzero
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Date: August 17, 2002 @ 4:41 PM
indie labels have tons of free mp3s on their websites and aren't hurting :| |
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princess-angry
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Date: August 17, 2002 @ 6:38 PM
yep and that rocks.... besides this site has plenty of good music here!!! |
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princess-angry
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Date: August 17, 2002 @ 6:38 PM
yep..... this site will show them labels!!! ;) |
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Wordsense
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Date: August 18, 2002 @ 4:45 AM
FACT: The RIAA dont know shit!
FACT: Record sales are down because of the lack of quality music being released. Plus, CD prices are outrageously high, a statement in which artists also agree with.
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Wordsense
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Date: August 18, 2002 @ 4:46 AM
so in conclusion, who the fuck wants to spend damn near 20 dollars for a CD with mostly shitty tracks, when you can go online and download the GOOD tracks. |
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JCASTELLAIN
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Date: August 19, 2002 @ 5:58 AM
Blah ,Blah Blah...Whinge whinge moan moan,etc......................................................................................................... |
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Svensta
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Date: August 19, 2002 @ 10:49 AM
I haven't heard a single artist speak out that CD's are too high, WS, where'd you hear that? I would LOVE to hear that they are on our side, mind you, so let me know.
The root cause is that a college kid with 20 bucks in his wallet can now get Eminem for FREE and still be cool and have money for tomorrow's lunch. And they hate that. |
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W-B
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Date: August 19, 2002 @ 3:26 PM
Also, about CD sales going down: Consider also people refusing to buy the "product" being offered by the multinational "majors," the notion being that to buy this or that CD would subsidize the RIAA's continuing jihad against the average consumer.
And it isn't that RIAA doesn't know. It's that they don't CARE. |
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mp3manlou
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Date: August 19, 2002 @ 10:17 PM
read the forum ideas by me, its all in there |
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debart
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Date: August 20, 2002 @ 9:23 PM
The main problem with the music industry is it's dead. D-E-D, dead.
Has been for 20 years now.
I remember when I was a senior in high school, I'd go out and buy an LP and on the back cover there was a little picture of a casette tape with a crossbones under it, and it said "Home Taping Is Killing The Music Industry" - which was completely laughable. They were running scared, as casette recorders were getting good enough so that you could make your own high quality tapes.
They pissed and moaned until the mid 80's and then the CD manufacturers got the price down on the players enough and the CD format took off.
CD's and CD's alone saved the industry from imploding, as the labels suddenly discovered that they had a great chance to turn out their old catalogues and sell folks 'new' digital music.
The main problem still exists, though, in that the executives running the labels don't know good music from the sound of Kathy Lee Gifford.
Now 20 years on into their CD free-ride, it's over. They have still yet to figure out that it is the quality of music that sells, not MTV teen-puke 'chart-toppers'.
How can you support an entire industry on 5% of your artists and hope to stay afloat? You can't, and roughly 5% of the signed acts are what you are 'allowed' to hear on most Clear Channel Radio stations (which is half of the stations in America), MTV and other low-end corporate sanctioned 'outlets'.
Bleaah. I think I'll listen to silence first.
Truly, they are stupid, musically tasteless idiots. Here's hoping to a long drawn out, horrible, painful end to the 'biz'.
Deb. |
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macwhee
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Date: August 21, 2002 @ 12:34 PM
My sentiments exactly. The popular music scene hasn't been this dead since 1960. And there's no relief in sight.
Maybe it's time for this industry to undergo a rebirth. they are as artistically bankrupt as the rest of Hollywood and serve no real purpose.
Any artist could set up their own web presence and distribute their own material as it is. Maybe then we would hear something decent again.
The other thing is, Someone must be buying this tripe they are selling as music. What do you think is the annual average income of a 13 yr old? There's yer sales problem LOL. |
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W-B
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Date: August 21, 2002 @ 10:41 PM
Of course, there was no Internet or "online" this-or-that in 1960 that could be scapegoated for the omnipresence of the bland music scene that existed then, as it now is for the ubiquitous presence of Britney Spears et al. But there were the "payola" scandals, as well as other issues such as Little Richard's leaving rock 'n' roll for the ministry; Jerry Lee Lewis's marrying his 13-year-old cousin; Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens dying in a plane crash; Chuck Berry being sentenced to jail for Mann Act violations; and Elvis's serving in the Army, among others. I remember reading in Ben Fong-Torres's book "The Hits Just Keep On Coming," that the 1959-60 payola investigations were referred to as "ASCAP's revenge" in a retaliatory vendetta against rival music licensee BMI, which was seen as harboring the "devil music." (Never mind that the pre-rock-'n'-roll Frank Sinatra classic "Young-at-Heart" was published by a BMI-licensee company; but that's for another thread on another board on another website.)
And as for the current decline in sales: Also remember the relentless driving down of workers' wages in the last few years since the NAFTA / GATT / WTO three-headed monster first reared its ugly head; the epitome being the average Wal-Mart clerk whose wages are more or less within slave status, with NO pay whatsoever for working overtime. For those people, surely, CD's are more a luxury item.
Yet something more to think about . . . |
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JimsMyName
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Date: August 22, 2002 @ 1:39 PM
P2P is wrong. It's piracy and that is stealing. No matter how much you want to deny it. |
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Chaz706
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Date: August 29, 2002 @ 6:14 PM
Here's an idea...
A Radio station that only plays the good tracks...
Like that will happen in my lifetime...
Until then, I'll be sticking with my trusty MP3 player and my Cable Broadband connection until then. |
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Chaz706
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Date: August 29, 2002 @ 6:17 PM
And by the way... about what W-B said... when I think about NAFTA/GATT/WTO, I think about the book '1984'. When information ceases to be free, we cease to be free. Or, as the WTO (and the shadow behind all of this, the UN) would say it: 'Ignorance is Strength.'
Well, I believe that 'Knowledge is Power' and screw anyone who tries to stop the spread of free knowledge. |
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