p2pnet - rss feed: The ‘digital recording revolution’
p2pnet.net news view:- On October 8, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) proudly announced the creation of a new singles chart, “integrating for the first time data from sales of physical singles and their digital counterparts”.
The new chart would combine its digital track chart which measures authorised digital download singles, and its physical CD singles chart and would effectively replace the old ARIA singles chart for use by TV and radio in their “top 40 countdown” shows.
This seemed like a great advance for the Australian recording industry. In its press statement, ARIA said it was “thrilled”, and pledged to continue “to develop charts of the highest calibre for the Australian public and industry alike”.
Record company advertisements invited consumers to purchase releases on DVD, CD and digital download.
But how much of the recording industry’s digital revolution is real, and how much of the revolution remains rhetoric?
Currently, the most popular song in Australia is Chasing Cars by English band Snow Patrol. Dominating Australian radio playlists, it was heard by 1.8 million Australians over the closing credits of the Grey’s Anatomy season finale, as well as in ER, The 4400 and One Tree Hill. Chasing Cars has been the most downloaded song from authorised Australian services for the past two months. Yet an examination of the ARIA national singles chart finds that the track is absent from the top 50. Why?
Chasing Cars hasn’t been released in Australia as a CD single. It’s only available as a digital download and under ARIA chart eligibility rules, songs aren’t eligible to enter the ARIA singles chart if they’re digital-only singles. They’re only eligible to enter the digital track chart, and aren’t included in the combined chart.
Put simply, a CD single which is unavailable as a digital download single can enter the ARIA singles chart, whereas a digital download single which is unavailable as a CD single is excluded.
ARIA’s chart rules discriminate against digital downloads. Under the rules, approved by record companies through the ARIA Chart and Marketing Committee, unless a song is available as a physical single, digital sales simply won’t count. It seems despite the embracing the digital revolution, a digital single isn’t a single for Australian record companies.
Further, no matter how popular the song, a digital download can’t be certified gold or platinum. Therefore an artist who chooses the digital market rather than the physical market can’t be recognised for their commercial success.
While for record companies, the physical CD single “priorities” can “ship” gold or platinum based on the quantity of CDs sent to stores but not sold to consumers, genuine download hits purchased by consumers go uncertified and receive little recognition.
The disparity in treatment between artists who choose the digital market and those who stick to the traditional physical market is best characterised by the story about the Australian artist who reportedly shipped four-times platinum to record stores in November, only to see all of the CDs returned to the record company in the following February. Obviously it wasn’t a digital download-only release.
Despite the self-generated publicity about the digital revolution, this is clear evidence that Australian and international recording artists who support download technology are being denied the opportunity for chart position, gold and platinum records, and status in an increasingly competitive market place.
Why are digital-only singles discriminated against?
The Australian recording industry is one of the few global recording industries that refuses to publicly release actual sales figures, including digital download figures. And yet, it purports to encourage consumers to eschew unauthorised services in favour of licensed services through piracy cases. So why not give artists supporting the digital revolution their due? If Snow Patrol is No1 on the digital track chart, why not include Snow Patrol in the ARIA singles chart? Unless of course, digital downloads are only selling a fraction of physical CD singles.
Could it be that a No1 digital only single might only appear at No5, or No10, or No15 on a combined digital and physical chart? If so, would this demonstrate that the Australian authorised digital download market isn’t nearly as developed as the recording industry would like us to believe? Good old-fashioned record company self-interest may also be in play here.
Australian consumers who want a CD copy of Chasing Cars have three choices.
They can buy a physical CD import at a prohibitive cost, or “burn” a CD copy after obtaining a digital download, an action which despite (or because of) recent legislative amendments still raises substantial legal uncertainties in Australia.
Finally, consumers can purchase the Snow Patrol CD album just to obtain one song, and many already have. Snow Patrol’s album Eyes Open is double platinum and sits at No6 on the ARIA albums chart after four months.
Of course record companies wouldn’t want consumers to spend $20, or $25, or $30 to own a single song. Would they?
Alex Malik - p2pnet
[Malik is a music industry commentator and academic researcher at the University of Technology in Sydney. He’s presently finishing his PhD in law.]
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December 31st, 2006 at 12:14 am
I don’t usually agree with wot this guy writes but he seems to have this one right. The record company fat cats talk large on the digital revolution but it’s still serfdom for artists….
December 31st, 2006 at 12:17 am
You can’t have any sympathy for artists. they still crawl on their bellies to the record companies and sign anything put in front of them. The revolution wont arrive until artists rise up and demand new deals
December 31st, 2006 at 1:29 am
funny watching a recent awards show procaliming that the CD was not dead seems they can’t get theitr spin right one way or the other
December 31st, 2006 at 3:57 am
Any educated person would know, that greedy American record board excecutive’s decide what music gets played here in Aus. Another reason not to buy mainstream music….
December 31st, 2006 at 1:28 pm
This is my take on this.
Record companies are scared of the digital revolution in great part and in addition to the “sharing” problem because of the advantages in having a lame excuse for the archaic accounting of CD production and royalty payments.
Having been involved in a few royalty payments (lack of, really) I am amazed how big music industry companies are still doing manual accounting and royalty reports.
With digital disribution the day will come when record companies may have to report sales and make deposits on a daily basis to artist and songwriter bank accounts and simultaneously to the tax authorities. They will simply have no chance or time to cook the books or to produce ficticious royalty reports, without getting cought.
Ad the making of records without authorization as Sony did with the music on my family, forget it.
Its a new era and they are scared. The age of fake accountig is nearing the end.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
January 1st, 2007 at 5:52 am
The record companies are not scared of anyone in the digital domain and for anyone responding to this article to suggest otherwise is perhaps niave, or unnecessarily optimistic. This author has always been pro user….when is he going to declare his position on the whole idea of copyright? Is he one of these bleeding hearts who disagrees with copyright and wants copyleft
January 3rd, 2007 at 7:33 am
this guy must get hate mail from the record companies in Australia. He used to work for them so he must know what goes on and they never publicly criticise or contradict him. He’s either got it right or they are so arrogan they don’t think they’ll get taken on the government for their behaviour