Music sales dive—don’t blame pirates
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-949717.html

Steve Jobs has pleaded with the music industry to allow consumers to easily access their music collections via any device, as long as the music they were accessing was legally obtained. Now it looks like RIAA’s efforts to kill online song swapping is going further, and the music industry’s income is taking a header.

I am all for protecting the rights of copyright holders, but we have seen only the beginning of the Record industry’s legal fight. It is going to get get ugly very soon.

Does anyone feel sorry for this industry? I don’t. I have bought one CD in the past 6 months.

Mitch

Nope, I don’t feel sorry for them at all.  I think we’re in complete agreement, in fact.  The RIAA’s heavy handed tactics and absurd pricing have slowed the sales of music, not piracy.  I, too, have bought I think exactly one CD in the last 6 months (might be zero for 6 months, because I think it was 7-8 months ago), no more than two in the last year.

Pirate? Someone call for a Pirate?

I started buying more CDs around the same tie Napster was at it’s peak. While I too have bought few CDs in the past 6 months, my reasons are purely economic: I gotta pay off my creditcards before I spend money on entertainment. Those CDs will still be there in 6 months time.

Total CD’s: almost 400

CD’s Bought since February:
Creed : Weathered
Star Wars : Ep II Score
Harry Potter : Score
Moulin Rouge Soundtrack 1
The Tubes
and a few replacement CD’s for discs that my car ate, or got borrowed and never returned.

I blame my lack of CD purchases on the severe lack of talented musicians out there.  I’m not buying a CD of someone who needs their voice digitally enhanced just so they sound good.  If you can’t sing/play/whatever… DON’T GO PRO!!!

So, my solution to the RIAA… spend the money to find some REAL talent (not Spear Britney or N’SUCK) and quit sinking your money into lawyers and image-whores who sing whatever their producer tells them.

I think the last cd I bought, outside of some people selling out of cardboard boxes at their shows and a couple reissues to replace old vynil, was Tonya Donelly’s Lovesongs for Underdogs. That came out in, what, the fall of ‘97? I might have bought the newest U2 cd if Bono would just shut up offstage.

I used to buy one cd a week, but I just haven’t heard anything new lately to excite me, aside from the afore-mentioned cardboard box cds and the comedians who appear on The Bob and Tom Show. (Hm, would DaVinci’s Notebook count?)

I haven’t bought a lot of CDs recently either, but I think that’s just because (a) I am still assimilating my last year’s purchase of all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas (there are quite a few…), and (b) there is no new Richard Thompson CD. To those of you who haven’t heard anyone interesting lately and don’t know him: you should check him out. One reviewer on Amazon.com titled his?her? review of his ‘Watching the Dark’ “Buy this now or repent for all eternity!”, and though I’m not normally given to hyperbole, I thought: that’s exactly right.

Interesting article. I especially like the prediction that online sales will be standard around 2005. I can see myself shelling out a few bucks to download the latest album or whatever - but the thought of actually getting my lazy butt out to the mall to buy another space wasting CD makes me cringe. I haven’t bought a CD in years, not because I’m downloading (because by and large I am not, except to get a few rips of songs I already have on cassette) but because I am simply not interested in buying CD’s, and I find myself listening to the radio more often, or just replaying all my old CD’s (ripped, of course).

But if I could impulse buy an album online with my credit card then I can certainly see myself re-entering the song buying public..

I don’t do anything not-online anymore.. I do all my banking online, register for my courses online, apply for student loans online, I even order pizza online now. Come to think of it, if I can’t get it online I typically don’t get it at all anymore..

RIAA’S RUBBER SOUL

[quote author=“ERNesbitt”]
I blame my lack of CD purchases on the severe lack of talented musicians out there.  I’m not buying a CD of someone who needs their voice digitally enhanced just so they sound good.  If you can’t sing/play/whatever… DON’T GO PRO!!!

So, my solution to the RIAA… spend the money to find some REAL talent (not Spear Britney or N’SUCK) and quit sinking your money into lawyers and image-whores who sing whatever their producer tells them.

Honestly, this is one of the big reasons I have not bought many CDs. Every week, you see new releases in the Best Buy flyer or on Amazon.com, but the music is really low quality (EXAMPLE: who or what is ‘Nelly’). Talent seems to have been completely replaced by image and/or perceived personality of a group or individual. I am not going to buy the new Celine Dion CD, but I know she can sing. She has talent. Spears and the many like her are what is really wrong with the music industry.

One more point about piracy. I am against individuals sharing MP3 or Ogg Vorbis or whatever format they are sharing, but the RIAA battle against this is going to end up only worsening their situation as a economic model. Eventually, they will bleed out or shut down. One really big point I have never really heard much about is that a lot of great music is out there in cyberspace, already transformed into high quality digital formats, and it is never going away. The entire Beatles collection is on millions of CDs that have ZERO copy protection. The Rubber Soul CD will be available until the end of time in any format you want. That fact alone should make the RIAA end their witch hunts, and redirect their significant funds to finding real talent to support and protect.

Mitch

I gotta disagree slightly and say that the drop in sales does have a lot to do with online availability (much of it not legal) and availability of cd burners (what’s the legality of that again? ). I work at a record store, and several times a day I hear “Oh, don’t buy that, I already downloaded it. I’ll just burn it for you.” I do occasionally hear complaints about prices (which is generally major-label junk…smaller labels haven’t jacked up thier prices…plus the store I work at doesn’t charge $18 and $19 per cd anyway), but people always buy that Britney cd no matter what the price. They don’t want to deal with their kids crying about it.
The concept of puchasing pre-recorded media is definitely going to disappear at some point in the near future, which is just inevitable technological progress…but I’m pretty sure a lot of the “other” methods of attaining music right now aren’t entirely legal.

It’s funny to see what this has done to record companies…the band System of a Down has released three different versions of their latest album. Two have “exclusive” DVD content, so someone who downloads it or burns it from a friend doesn’t get the special content. The new Springsteen, James Taylor, Eminem all have special limited editions so that they can lure consumers who insist on spending an extra $5 on pretty packaging or a couple of extra tracks.

Whenever I want a song, I buy the cd. Hey, I’m keeping myself in a job.   I won’t download music (maybe if I didn’t have a 56k modem it would be different!), and I don’t feel like a burned copy of a cd is quite the same as the actual purchased copy with liner notes and everything. Just my opinion!

I still have a bunch of CDs i would like to purchase to replace cassettes (lots of Floyd and Queen stuff), but I haven’t simply because they are too expensive. They cost the same now as when I got my first cd player in 1990. That’s ludicrous compared to the drop in cost of other technologies (like computers) - I have bought a hell of a lot more DVDs than CDs - I feel like I am getting much more bang for my $15. If CDs cost $5, I’d buy them all the time (assuming there was stuff I liked - don’t get me started on that

CDs bought since last Friday:
[list][*]The Nina The Pinta & The Santa Maria
You Never Finish What You Start
[*]Joyce Cooling
Third Wish
[*]Grey Eye Glances
A Little Voodoo
[*]Liquid Soul
Make Some Noise
[*]Journey
Captured
[*]Rusted Root
When I Woke
[*]Eleanor McEvoy
Yola
[*]Nerissa & Katryna Nields
Love and China[/list:u]All but one of these won’t show up on any sales charts because all but one of them were used (and the new album was a local artist, so doubtful that one will show either).

I can’t say how much I love used CD stores—for stumbling across that rarity you’ve been looking for for years, but also for getting major label releases on the cheap. Radio stations and reviewers dump their “not for resale” discs with a pleasing regularity. I’ve also found good artists by taking an interesting looking CD up to the listening stations (and avoided purchasing even more that didn’t turn my crank as a result).

Coupled with internet browsing and a few similarly-inclined musical friends, finding new music that I enjoy has never been a problem.

[quote author=“someToast”]

I can’t say how much I love used CD stores—for stumbling across that rarity you’ve been looking for for years, but also for getting major label releases on the cheap. Radio stations and reviewers dump their “not for resale” discs with a pleasing regularity.

That’s actually one way the store I work at has tried to shy away from being dependant on the sales of major-label new cds. Music fanatics love them…people who don’t really like music and just want the one N*Sync song love them (they don’t have to spend as much on the whole album)...retailers love them (good profit).

I hardly ever buy full price (Ђ22.00+) CDs. I usually go through the sale box and pick the Ђ9.99 ones. The last CD I bought at full price was Murray Perahia playing Bach’ Keyboard Concertos 3,5,6,7 and that CD cost Ђ22.50. I honestly don’t see why someone would want to pay Ђ22.95 to hear ‘la Spears’ fill <60 minutes on an 80 minutes CD.

So IMO CDs are way overpriced.

If one of my favorite core bands releases a new album, I always buy it the day it comes out, rip it and then put the CD in the closet. I hate paying $15 bucks for all of that useless packaging (to me.) I just want the music so I can listen to it digitally on my stereo (via iMac) and in my iPod, oh wait I don’t have an iPod.

Regardless the music industry needs to realize that the people that feel okay dowloading free music will always find a way to get it regardless of any sort of restrictions they use. I think they (music companies) need to start utililizing the technology instead of fighting it. The internet is one huge sprawling distrubition channel and I for one would love to buy the rights to download an album for $5-8 bucks and be done with it. Plus this would help to keep us from filling our landfills so quickly with useless packaging.

Geez, I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD. It must’ve been over a year ago, maybe two. I think it was a Black Sabbath CD. (Paranoid. ) It’s more that I haven’t had a whole lot of disposeable income in a long time than anything. Whenever I do have disposeable income again, I will be sure to shop at a second-hand store. $14-19 per CD is absolutely absurd. For that price, I’d much rather buy a DVD, with all of the extra features and everything that makes it actually worth the price. I seem to remember getting a CD or two at a used CD shop for $8 or less, which is a good price.

No matter how easily accessible MP3s are on the internet or elsewhere, I’d still MUCH prefer a real CD to do with as I please. Buy the CD, rip MP3s to my computer/network, make a copy for my car (assuming I had a CD player in my car. ), etc. It’s my CD. I bought it. I’m not making copies for everyone I know. I’m doing nothing illegal or immoral, despite what the RIAA might think.