CD sales in decline: report
p2pnet.net news:- Expect to soon see renewed cries of outrage from EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US), the members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, aimed at “those @#$%^& p2p file sharers!” who are “devastating us!”
The outrage is, of course, feigned. The labels know quite well they’re the authors of their own misfortune, such as it is, created by:
- Their continuing refusal to treat their customers as honest people, preferring to accuse them of being thieves and criminals who need to be shackled by DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control; and,
- Their insistence on seeing p2p sharing and distribution technology as a scourge rather than the answer to their problems in the 21st digital century.
“Amidst continued declines in the global music industry that amount to a nearly 25% reduction since 2000, recent research from Ipsos’ TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Digital Music Behavior reveal for the first time that the proportion of Americans who have purchased CDs in the past six months has dropped approximately 15% since 2002,” says Ipsos.
And you know who’ll be accused of being responsible for that.
Meanwhile a, “majority of American Music Downloaders continue to purchase CDs by their favorite artists, and instead frequently rely on music downloading for sampling new and unfamiliar music,” says the study.
Translated, this means more and more people are relying on the free p2pnetworks for try-before-you-buy sessions; and, are checking out new independent artists on non-corporate download sites, or on musicians’ own web pages, untrammelled by DRM.
“Half (51%) of U.S. consumers aged 12 and older purchased a physical CD in the past six months,” says Ipsos. “This represents a decline of roughly 15% since 2002, when approximately 60% of consumers reported doing so.
“Although overall CD purchasing has declined in recent years, the proportion of Americans purchasing physical CDs off of the Internet has increased, perhaps reflecting both the gradual reduction of retail music outlets in America coupled with increased consumer comfortability with e-commerce.
“The average number of CDs purchased in the past six months is just fewer than three (2.8), and the average total number owned is 78. Teens own the fewest CDs (average of 32), while those consumers aged 18 to 54 own considerably more (upwards of 100).”
Data suggest the answer, “lies in what could be referred to as the ‘impulse gap’,” namely, “the increase in the number of digital music acquisition options, including on-demand downloading and easy unfettered copying, have slowly eaten away at consumer impulse music purchases, thus creating a gap in revenue,” says the report’s author, Matt Kleinschmit., adding:
“Where in the past someone may have purchased a CD from a new or unfamiliar artist on a whim, they are increasingly more likely to digitally sample the music before deciding to make a full physical CD purchase.”
If your Net access is blocked by governBryan Adams slams Net radio hikement restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
As interest in CD’s grows less and less, interest in digital music will continue to grow more and more. As a user of Mercora, I really find my need for CD’s to be even less than my friend’s. They’ve got a huge catalog of music, and with the “M” app, which I can use on my Q to hear my music wirelessly, I think they are the future.