Digital music sales up 40 percent…but… |
13 Comments |
Posted by Marc Saltzman at 4:08 PM | E-mail this post
There's some good news and bad news for the music industry. Which do you want to hear first?
According to Nielsen SoundScan and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, digital distribution of music is up 40 percent in 2007 compared to the year prior.
Specifically, digital music sales topped $2.9 billion in revenues worldwide last year.
But before music labels consider popping champagne...
CD sales, on the other hand, dropped 19 percent from 2006, down to 449.2 million units sold.
The report projected illegal downloads now outnumber legitimate downloadable tracks 20 to 1. Yikes.
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Posted by Marc Saltzman at 4:08 PM
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Devin on January 25 at 7:40 PM | Report abuse
wow, big freakin surprise. people are ignoring copyright and downloading media. get over it. it is a new age and the old ways of the industry are dying. stop resisting it and find a new way to make money. art should always have been free. it is only because of the way we designed the economy that it seems normal to pay for it. it should never have been commoditized in the first place. I couldn't be happier about the downfall of the massive media dinosaur that is dying before us. finally.
costello on January 27 at 11:04 AM | Report abuse
yo w.e be quite our singers and producers and everyone else spend money to make good music for our injoymint if u like it buy it cuz if u dont pay for it they wont be able to afford making music then it will disapear
Doug on January 27 at 3:05 PM | Report abuse
In 50 years I have never heard of one person that followed through with that threat to simply walk away from what they do best because it doesn't pay! I do a lot of things for other people without pay. People volunteer their time every second of every day without pay. Artists are no different. Many do what they do for their own pleasure. I don't see that changing ever. If they can make a living at it, so much the better but that threat is so hollow. Name one performer/artist (in any field) who at the height of their career has decided to hang it up permanently and never perform again? Even Garth Brooks is back after swearing he was retired. It's the love of the art that keeps you going, not necessarily the renumeration!
jordan on January 27 at 4:47 PM | Report abuse
music is an expensive proposition, yes we all do it for the love of our art/creavitity and expression. the old ways do not work as they used to. 1. it's also well documented that artists make far more money from merchandise and performing over record sales. 2.the internet has opened so many new avenues for artists to get there stuff out there, however - to think that music should be free devin?? you would think you might want to support some of the artists, those whom affect you. buying records shows record sales, which is helpful both to the artists and labels, and puts money into the hands of these people who made it possible for you to hear it in the first place.
if anything musicians are terribly underpaid for what they do - what good music has the potential to bring into the world is huge. social change, knowledge, understanding, empathy..etc.
i truly believe it is a valuable as any of the other goods and services we all pay/or get paid for everyday.
and i choose to buy records of artits i support and use the internet more for demo's/bootlegs and to find rarities you will never find in a store.
Dave on January 27 at 8:06 PM | Report abuse
Maybe if the sellers didn't gouge people for the songs they sell online it would be more popular. As I see it I could buy the cd for cheaper than downloading the album. If the sellers of music wish to have a greater volume of people downloading make it cheaper!! There is no cd costs no covers no jewel cases why doesn't the music industry make songs 10 cents or 25. If they wish to charge these prices they will continue to see the terrible numbers that they have listed above. I am not against musicians making money. But there is too many Corporate execs making millions on the backs of the artists. That is there problem not mine. My problem is paying .99 a song plus taxes for something that I could get for free.
Morris on January 27 at 10:33 PM | Report abuse
Music business, owned by entrepreneurs who pay to have their chosen "artists" who they feel will make people buy the product they write, produce and release and later support their tour, their overpriced T shits, calenders and stuff they can brand on. What's wrong. The public can't choose artists because artists aren't usually the business. The business controls us and the death of the business will signal a new and improved model, controled and owned by artists and the public will choose which artists live and die as the system which evolves must ensure this is the method of success. I don't know where its going, but a change is gonna come - Sam Cooke would have made it at any time he appeared. Today there is too little talent and too much business.
Morris on January 27 at 10:40 PM | Report abuse
PS - sorry about the T shirt slip - I swear it wasn't intentional...but I could
on the other sleeve say it isn't also intentional that a superbowl was jaded by
a nipple and a "we ain't ready for that" pull back...the music industry wasn't that cool - no touchdown yet...retreat, retreat and blame the bad judgement on the girl, not the wimpy wannabee soul singer, ahem, solow singer.
shelley on January 28 at 9:37 AM | Report abuse
Maybe the music industry should wake up and realize that some people like certain individual songs rather than the whole album. I'm tired of seeing albums being sold for $30 or more because not enough people buy them like XTC, old rolling stones or moody blues albums. Yet for $15 or less you can get tired old albums you are sick of hearing on the radio are plentiful. There are old songs I'd love to hear again but the radio doesn't play nor can you even find them on the internet. The music industry should be going back to the old formula of using concerts for real money and promotion of artists. They are being lazy just using large cities for concerts sites and using media outlets for selling cds.
D.E.W. on January 28 at 11:11 AM | Report abuse
Enough already! I'm sick of hearing how the poor music industry is losing money! I've paid them for the album. I've paid them for the tape..but I ain't gonna pay them again for the CD! If they made it a lot more reasonable in costs to download online they'd be stunned at the responce. In the "good ole days" a friend would buy the album and "share" it with their friends who would make a copy on a tape. What's the difference? It's called major greed in the music industry. Sadly the money does not trickle down to the artists in most cases.
Charlie on January 28 at 11:42 AM | Report abuse
Get over it and move on, the horse was replaced by the car.
Before the advent of the phonograph (which wasn't that long ago), musicians made tons of money touring.
They can still make tons of money touring. Get them off their lazy asses.
The period of time in which you could make serious money from recorded media has come and gone. Much Like radio, the web is going to be a place where your music will be played and get noticed and develop the critical mass necessary to put on Live shows, cuz that's where the money will be.
neil fawcett on January 30 at 2:36 PM | Report abuse
The notion that "art should be free" is ridiculous, selfish, and incredibly disrespectful to the artist.
People who refuse to pay for the artistic creations of others don't seem to realize that if you don't pay for art, eventually there will be no art, because few will be able to afford to make it. Too many people, especially young people, have no concept of the idea of intellectual property. Their moral code seems to be: "I want it, it's available, I'm not interested in the rights of the person who created it."
Jay on February 10 at 6:28 PM | Report abuse
With tools like mediaconverter.org you can get any video off youtube and convert it to mp3. Now would that be legal? Well probably more legal than using LimeWire to get your songs, but hey, is there really a difference? Oh and by the way, even though it isn't legal to download copyrighted music off the internet for free, here in Canada we are protected against P2P lawsuits. Not much effort to end this craze by anyone.
Myriam on April 4 at 9:34 PM | Report abuse
I side with the one who said live is the way to go. I remember reading at the start of '07 about radiohead putting an entire, free album online. Gutsy, but I bet it worked. A tour will not kill you-it didn't kill anyone else. (Well, okay, Ozzy came close after biting off the bat head... Uh, just don't bite nothing then. XD) The point is-we're not disrespecting here. Mom actually bothered to get the studio version of "Billy Jean" by David Cook the minute it went up. Wouldn't be on P2P fast enough for her. It's just that, the money can be made. Everyone, STOP saying that those who won't buy art will kill art-one, that has never happened-I can't recall a single artform that actually DIED. Besides, we ARE buying art. In concerts, where people put on a SHOW. Second, this is not a painting. I'm willing to repeat that. The system behind one of those is drastically different. You cannot charge a performance with a painting. You can't really resell the original over and over again, somehow still getting the same price. The painting and prints system is much different, as is every other artform. (Except for videos, but that's why the movie industry is whining too. *shrug*) I don't know what to say to movie people, but to singers, get over it. Let people admire the price of your sell-out ticket, instead. If your as good as your albums make you sound, you'll do fine. ^_^ And if you're not, you shouldn't be here. Shoo, go get a real job, :P