p2pnet - rss feed: Most US music isn’t paid for
p2pnet news | Music:- “NPD’s annual survey of Internet users, which is some 80 percent of the population these days, found that 10 percent of the music they acquired last year came from paid downloads,” says the New York Times, going on:
“That is a big increase from 7 percent in 2006. But since the number of physical CDs they bought plummeted, the overall share of music they paid for fell to 42 percent from 48 percent.”
But the Guardian’s Jack Schofield puts it another way, saying, “Most music comes from friends or from peer-to-peer file-sharing, according to NPD Group research.”
The problem is: it’s hard to know how much credibility to give NPD and its surveys.
It, “appeared out of nowhere to start churning out highly questionable statistics blatantly slanted towards the entertainment cartels,” p2pnet posted in 2005, going on:
“This is the outfit which came out with a report which claimed iTunes was beating LimeWire.
“Back in 2003, when NPD first started producing reports on file sharing, and so on, we emailed them asking how many years’ experience they’d had in the field. We didn’t get an answer and when we visited their site, we weren’t able to find a single music industry client. In fact, three representative companies on NPD Group’s client list, plucked from the top, centre and bottom, were: adidas International; International Flavors & Fragrance; and, Wrigley.”
Be that as it may, the NPD is now widely quoted and, quoting it, “Music industry lawsuits also failed to stop peer-to-peer file sharing, which grew from 14% to 19% by volume,” says Schofield. “This equalled the amount of music that NPD classes as ‘Burned from others’ or ‘Ripped from others’ (19% each).”
He also notes:
“One thing hasn’t changed: people still do most of their listening to music via the radio, followed by playing CDs.”
Says the New York Times, “But digital music is coming on strong. Listening to music on a computer has the third largest number of people, followed by listening on a portable device like an iPod. And people using portable players listen to it rather frequently.
“That is mixed news for the music industry because digital files on players are the easiest way to use borrowed and stolen music.”
New York Times - Amazon Gains Share of Shrinking Paid Music Market, April 17, 2008
Guardian - In the US, 58% of music isn’t paid for, April 18, 2008
appeared out of nowhere - Happy Christmas from the RIAA, December 15, 2005
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April 18th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Most US music isn’t worth paying for.
If it’s good enough to pay for, fans do pay for it.
A fact ignored by the industry way to often.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:54 am
hell even if you pay, sound exchange only seems to be able to the RIAA owners and what is it now 40% of the artists.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I was buying music back when it was recorded on 45’s. The music I have downloaded today is stuff I wouldn’t have bought anyway, so the corporations haven’t lost my business. They just never had it to begin with.
The technology has evolved too much to keep the old business model. Having my music as binary data that I can play on whatever open source player, is far preferable than 45rpm vinyls (which, oddly enough, I can play on my computer as well).
I would prefer buying this type of data, but there is no resource to do so. I purchased DRM laden music in the past, and it’s been a bad experience completely, and refuse to waste my money there again.
The real money is in live ticket sales, and commercial play. Corporations exploiting the “one hit wonders” is probably a thing of the past, and they should just let it go.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Stray Mongrel,
Amazon (among others) is selling non-DRM infected decent quality (192kbs) MP3 files of a fair percentage of their music offerings. The 99 cent per track price is too high IMHO. But the other problems you object to have been dealt with.
Note: If you are at all computer savvy don’t bother with the software they want you to install. You don’t need it.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Hmmm… big surprise… when the only thing on shelves is some new hip hop person that gets replaced every couple of months. Never liked the stuff on the shelves.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I’ve had a long time to buy what I wished of my era growing up listening to music. What I see now are remixes of the same stuff to buy over again. I’ve already got that in the originals so I am not going to buy it again. Newer artists are made artists with very few in the top that are actually good musicians.
Instead, big media has went for the computer predicted formula sales that have no staying power. Ever notice how fast the one hit wonders are falling off the charts today? They now produce filler as top hits, something I am not interested in.
If I were a buying customer at this point, I would not be long. The dastardly tactics the majors have given their pet dogs to sue everything that walks has put me on boycott. Not a hard thing to have to do. They’ve earned a black eye in the PR department from me and it will take more than just a few words to bring me back. Right now, they ain’t cutting it.
April 19th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Years ago in the 70’s, you actually had movies and tunes from those movies that people wanted. Nowdays, most music is trash anyway. And the ones that usually DO sell, are re-hashes from tunes of the past!
Until music gets back to being original and fairly priced, you will see people in droves downloading off their favorite p2p app for free. That may not be what the music execs want, but then again they have basically told the public to go to hell and the public is just returning the favor. And guess what? The public is winning!
They can make as many lawsuits as they want, but it will not stop the music industries inevitable destruction. Yet they refuse to see that if they take OFF the DRM, offer decent music at affordable prices and quit acting like every customer is a CRIMINAL, they may get some business back! But no, they want to go and act like jackasses…..when they finally destroy themselves….. they will have nobody but themselves to blame!
I hope they remember at least that much of the truth when the file sharing wars are over.
April 19th, 2008 at 11:24 am
umm isn’t all this survey doing simply identifying the computer and mp3 players as new ways to play music? All it’s doing is listing out the most preferred “music-mediums” from most used to least used. There’s really no point to it? o_0
April 20th, 2008 at 6:54 am
How sad for the old whore industry. Its really too bad. “borrowed and stolen” music. It’s just copying the tunes, it’s not grand larceny as performed historically by the industry. They’re just thieves, thugs, druggies, and lowlives. The average Joe is a far better and moral person.