Canadian music tale of woe
p2pnet.net news:- The Canadian music industry is doomed, more or less – but Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) can save it!
That’s the fanciful message, more or less, in a CRIA spin-piece released, not at all coincidentally, with the World Intellectual Property Day lobby-fest.
Singled out as “as primary factors in decline” are, “unabated counterfeiting and Internet file-swapping”.
According to the CRIA, “Digital music sales, estimated at about 6 percent of the Canadian market in 2006, are falling far short of replacing lost CD and DVD sales” and, “Such declines have forced Canada’s music industry to reduce its workforce by approximately half since 1999″.
Canada’s music workforce?
Canadian-controlled companies, “reported having more full-time staff in 2003, with 681 in 2003 compared to 578 in 2000,” says the recent Canadian Heritage Music Industry Profile.
On the other hand, “Foreign-controlled firms saw the number of full-time staff decrease 20.5% from 2,013 in 2000 to 1,600 in 2003,” it says, going on:
“The number of freelancers working in the industry however, increased, from 555 in 2000 to 647 in 2003. Part-time employment marginally decreased in the same period, from 159 employees in 2000 to 150 in 2003.”
The CRIA is owned by EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US), the multi-billion-dollar Big 4 record labels, not one of whom has a significant presence in Canada.
“Ninety-five percent of Canadians listen to music by Canadian artists,” says the Heritage study.
Says the CRIA:
In contrast with Canada’s relatively undeveloped digital market, in the US, where stronger copyright laws and other measures against piracy are in place, digital downloads, subscription services and mobile music now comprise 17 percent of sales. Per capita digital music sales in the U.S. are nearly four times those in Canada. Because of weak copyright rules that inhibit investment in legitimate digital services and their entry into the market, digital sales in Canada are failing to replace declining CD and music DVD sales at the same rate they do in the US.
“Independent research, academic studies and common sense all point in the same direction – that file-swapping and counterfeiting, and the decline in music sales, are closely linked,” the spin-piece has CRIA president Henderson declaring.
We’re not aware if any academic studies which say files shared equal sales lost, and of the ‘independent’ research, one of the most widely quoted examples, commissioned by the CRIA, is from Pollara.
Ottawa University expert Dr Michael Geist called it an ‘own goal‘.
Nor have the Big 4 ever been able to produce evidence to back up Henderson’s statement.
There have, however, been a number of authoritative studies which say the exact opposite.
For example, one of the best-known, genuinely independent, studies, The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis from Harvard University Business School’s Felix Oberholzer, and Koleman Strumpf, from the University of Kansas School of Business, concluded unequivocally: “Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero,” also stating, “Our estimates are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the decline in music sales during our study period.”
Also See:
lobby-fest – World IP Day: lobbyists’ delight, April 27, 2007
own goal – CRIA own goal, March 18, 2006
genuinely independent – File sharing: zero effect on downloads, February 12, 2007
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