Growth in US music sales
p2pnet.net News:- “US sees growth in CD sales market.”
That’s the headline over a BBC story, which goes on:
“US CD sales rose by 2.3% in 2004 – the first rise in four years – despite the growing popularity of legal digital music downloads.”
There’s a picture of a grinning Usher with the caption, “Usher was the biggest selling artist of the year”.
He’s also doing OK in the unofficial File Share Top Ten where this week, he’s at Number 2 with My Boo.
In the meanwhile, “The CD format still accounts for 98% of the 666 million albums sold, according to research company Nielsen Soundscan,” says the Beeb, going on:
“A total of 140 million digital tracks were legally downloaded last year, equivalent to 14 million albums.”
It doesn’t say a word about the literally billions of tracks on the p2p networks, where all the online music action is.
That’s because by far the vast bulk of online music lovers flatly refuse to have anything to do with corporate music sites and their exorbitant $1-a-download charges for a very poor selection of mp3s.
Surfers would happily pay for their downloads, but not at that rate, particularly since the mp3s being offered are low quality, highly compressed versions of the originals and are barely worth a cent, let alone a dollar.
“Although it was slow to react to the problem the launch of services such as iTunes and the relaunched Napster has persuaded many to use the legal sites,” says the BBC story. “The end of the year saw downloads reach a weekly high of 6.7 million tracks, up from 300,000 in mid-2003.”
Against that, the number of people logged on to p2p file sharing networks simultaneously at any given moment averaged 7,452,184 in November, says p2p research company Big Champagne. And upwards of one billion files are moving computer-to-computer every month.
“Slow to react” doesn’t really cover the situation. Actually, the entertainment industry hasn’t reacted at all to the fact it’s now in the digital 21st century instead of the physical 20th century. Rather than welcoming p2p technology as the new mode of delivery for the new age, it’s desperately trying, and failing, to sue ‘consumers’ into buying its shoddy product.
“The UK recorded a record year for album sales in 2004, with 237 million sold in the 12 months up to September, an increase of 3%,” adds the BBC.
===================
See:-
Number 2 -File Share Top Ten, p2pnet, January 6, 2005
140 million – US sees growth in CD sales market, BBC News Online, January 6, 2005
January 7th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
I rather buy CDs and rip them. No DRM to deal with. Can give them to friends, copy to as many portables as I want, even copy from portable to portable, and even share it.
January 8th, 2005 at 5:00 am
666 Million 666 I knew the music industry was the Devil all the time this only proves it!!!!!!!!!!!