Music sales down, music sharing to blame?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting (Holiday Buyers Spurn Tunes As Industry Picture Worsens) that, after a brief recovery, music sales are down some 20% this year compared with the same period last year.
They’re blaming all the usual suspects - high prices, CD burning, competition from other sectors and - of course - ’sharing’. I think there might be another reason. Since I transferred all my old CDs onto my iPod I’ve realised how little of the music I owned I’d actually listened to properly. So I declared a moratorium on music purchases until I’d heard every track I already owned at least once. It just seemed profligate to buy new music until I’d cleared the backlog. I’ve been chugging through them (and some of them are pretty dire) for a couple of months. As a result I have only a thousand or so unheard tracks left now.
So that’s my contribution to the downturn. Of course I’m boycotting Sony BMG so even when I’m back off the CD buying wagon I’ll give them a miss - but apart from that I should be ready to start lobbing my hard earned cash down their greedy little gullets sometime in the new year. Let’s hope they can hold out that long.
December 17th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
While I don’t have any nifty gadgets, if I did, this would be exactly why I wouldn’t purchase much either. Plus, our local comminity radio station rocks and I get my fill of the kind of ecclectic variety that is my taste in music. I have never been in the financial position to squander money on the music that I did want, and I still have plenty of it, so it’s hard to justify more if I can’t find the time to listen now! :)
December 20th, 2005 at 9:01 am
I reckon that the main downturn in music sales is due to people being subscribed to so many podcasts, that they don’t have time to listen to anything else!
January 3rd, 2006 at 1:20 am
Isn’t the downturn in music sales something to do with the crap they’re churning out ? Oh, there is a general recession starting, hasn’t anyone at the labels noticed that high street spending is down by 15% - superfluous purchases like CDs and DVDs are likely to be the hardest hit. I did the same with the listening of all my tunes, yeah, my taste in music sucks, but I’ve got down from 406GiB (Jesus, did I really spend all that time encoding discs I’d never actually listened to !?!) of crap down to around 4GiB of the “good stuff” - yeah, also, Sony BMG - won’t be buying any of your stuff, rootkit, security hole, crap quality, same price - I don’t get bitten twice…
March 30th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
The reason record sales are down has more to do with a lack of interest in the shit that’s being shoved down our throats at every available opportunity by the radio and pop culture. 789789789707 groups that all sound practically the same. Selling albums off of 1 or maybe 2 good songs. Think about it. How many classic must-have albums are being pushed by the mainstream media outlets, nowadays? When was the last time you HAD to have an album? The industry sucks. They need to clean up their own act before attacking the little guy. Filesharing helps small unknown bands gain exposure that crappy trend obsessed radio stations won’t give them, which potentially helps increase their album sales. Groups like Metallica or Dre make more money from concert draws and merchandise and such, and are still gonna sell a lot of albums. So, they can’t get gold trim on their new yacht. Boo-friggin-hoo. That’s the antithesis of what these groups were about when they started, anyway. $ELLOUT$
June 6th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Wow! Just read this, and there’s something in it. Well there must be, my new year resolution was to stop buying music and instead listen to the old stuff I have sitting in boxes instead. I lasted 4 months, which is good going for a new music junky like myself.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:03 pm
So you’re boycotting Sony BMG? I bet they’re shaking in their boots…and anyway, you wouldn’t be into illegal file sharing would you? Nope, I reckon the fact that you’re a linux user (i.e. won’t pay to use someone else’s work) won’t be any consolation whatsoever to the multi-billion pound successful organisation, when they realise you wouldn’t have bought virtually any of their CDs anyhow, and find they have to mourn the loss of a tenner a year.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:20 pm
I’m not into illegal file sharing. I use Mac OS, Linux and Windows and frequently pay for software. I also contribute to a number of open source projects - so rather than being unwilling to pay I’m actually willing to devote my time to improving free software.
Oh and (quick back of the envelope calculation) I reckon I spent about £800 on CDs last year and of that probably about £50 - £60 went to Sony BMG.
All that said I’m slightly at a loss as to what your point actually is.
August 31st, 2006 at 11:12 am
Since I finally got an iPod and a computer fast enough to rip all my CDs I’m not overly bothered about buying new music because I’m rediscovering what I already own.
Once I can be arsed to get ripping vinyl then it’s going to be even longer before I buy much new stuff.