Export thread

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/21/tech/main6125189.shtml

Ok... so CD sales are going down but digital music is going up and making a profit. They blame piracy for lack of CD sales?? ummm.. hello!!! why would I buy a CD when I can download the SAME music via iTunes? (after paying for it) and burn a CD for my favorite tracks??

Do these record company even this may.... just maybe the CD cost too much?? maybe a lot of people prefer a-la-cart style to their music? iTunes is making a killing on their music sales and so does Rockband.

edit: maybe I'm missing something here. I know that piracy will always be around since people will continue to believe why pay for it when I can download it for free?

Regarding the OP: Yes. Yes they are.

Yeah.

What the hell is the IFPI? And the recording industry is much savvier than they appear...

The other problem is you get an album on iTunes for 10 bucks (unless it's a large amount of music or something that would be a 2-disc+ item) whereas at most stores you'd pay 12-18. Hard copy prices are too high and having digital versions is just more convenient in the long run. You can burn as many copies as you want and if you lose one it's not a big deal nor more than a 10 cent loss.

Chibibar said:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/21/tech/main6125189.shtml

Ok... so CD sales are going down but digital music is going up and making a profit. They blame piracy for lack of CD sales?? ummm.. hello!!! why would I buy a CD when I can download the SAME music via iTunes? (after paying for it) and burn a CD for my favorite tracks??

Do these record company even this may.... just maybe the CD cost too much?? maybe a lot of people prefer a-la-cart style to their music? iTunes is making a killing on their music sales and so does Rockband.

edit: maybe I'm missing something here. I know that piracy will always be around since people will continue to believe why pay for it when I can download it for free?

Click to expand...

You are missing something.

\"The Article\" said:

However, total revenue including CDs fell 12 percent in the first half of 2009, continuing a decline which has depressed sales by 30 percent since 2004, the IFPI's annual digital music report said.

Click to expand...

Total sales dropped, in other words the increase in digital sales did not make up for the drop in CDs.

They also use revenue as a measurement, which can be misleading. A lot of the sales are from single tracks, instead of full albums like it was in the past. Which means they are going to be making less money even if there was no piracy.

Covar;331950][QUOTE=Chibibar said:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/21/tech/main6125189.shtml

Ok... so CD sales are going down but digital music is going up and making a profit. They blame piracy for lack of CD sales?? ummm.. hello!!! why would I buy a CD when I can download the SAME music via iTunes? (after paying for it) and burn a CD for my favorite tracks??

Do these record company even this may.... just maybe the CD cost too much?? maybe a lot of people prefer a-la-cart style to their music? iTunes is making a killing on their music sales and so does Rockband.

edit: maybe I'm missing something here. I know that piracy will always be around since people will continue to believe why pay for it when I can download it for free?

Click to expand...

You are missing something.

\\"The Article\\" said:

However, total revenue including CDs fell 12 percent in the first half of 2009, continuing a decline which has depressed sales by 30 percent since 2004, the IFPI's annual digital music report said.

Click to expand...

Total sales dropped, in other words the increase in digital sales did not make up for the drop in CDs.[/QUOTE]

I did think about that, but with a-la-cart style, the popular music are sold per track, so Shakey is right that revenue is lower, but the growth is there.

In the past, I hate buying CD where I like TWO tracks and there rest are junk (IMO) so why waste extra money for stuff I don't want?

I think that is the problem with Record company looking in terms of pure revenues instead of unit sold. The same report shows a growth in digital sale (single tracks and such) so there is a growth and it is cheaper. People are willing to spend a dollar here and there instead of paying 15$ for a CD at Target.

Also, there's been a recession.

They're just using this to keep attention on piracy so they can try to pressure countries to pass three strike laws.

He called for more countries to adopt graduated response legislation - first warning people who are downloading illegally and then suspending their Internet connection if they fail to stop. Such legislation was passed last year in France, South Korea and Taiwan.

Click to expand...

^^ Yup

Nah, music is recession proof... only piracy ever affects sales.

Also: You can burn as many copies as you want and if you lose one it's not a big deal nor more than a 10 cent loss.

You know, I spent, mmm, oh, 97 to 2005 without spending a fricking dollar on music because CDs were so damn expensive and they only had like one song on them that I liked. Finally discovered digital music and last year spent about $1000 on music, and every dollar spent was worth it.

You know, when the horsedrawn carriage business started to lose revenue in the early twentieth century, did they go crying to the government to make the internal combustion engine illegal? Or did they all invest in Ford? The cd is a dead end business strategy, get over it.

I spent ten bucks on amazon's digital mp3 downloads last night. Why? Because I'd rather spend $1 on amazon than spend five to ten minutes going through blogs trying to find a free download of the track I want. That 95% of business you "lost" to piracy are people whose time is not valuable, meaning they're earning no money, which means they wouldn't be able to afford the music anyway. It's not lost revenue, it's FREE FRICKIN ADVERTISING!!!

Join the 21st century already, jesus. [/rant off]

Zonker said:

Join the 21st century already, jesus. [/rant off]

Click to expand...

Working on it

Zonker said:

You know, I spent, mmm, oh, 97 to 2005 without spending a fricking dollar on music because CDs were so damn expensive and they only had like one song on them that I liked. Finally discovered digital music and last year spent about $1000 on music, and every dollar spent was worth it.

You know, when the horsedrawn carriage business started to lose revenue in the early twentieth century, did they go crying to the government to make the internal combustion engine illegal? Or did they all invest in Ford? The cd is a dead end business strategy, get over it.

I spent ten bucks on amazon's digital mp3 downloads last night. Why? Because I'd rather spend $1 on amazon than spend five to ten minutes going through blogs trying to find a free download of the track I want. That 95% of business you "lost" to piracy are people whose time is not valuable, meaning they're earning no money, which means they wouldn't be able to afford the music anyway. It's not lost revenue, it's FREE FRICKIN ADVERTISING!!!

Join the 21st century already, jesus. [/rant off]

Click to expand...

Shhh.. don't bring your logic in here.

Not only the recession but a lack of decent music. Unfortunately music execs formulate X% growth in sales revenue per year regardless of the kind of product they produce. That's why this year we likely won't hear much about piracy around movies because of the billion dollars that Avatar brought in.

The record companies are just mentally unable to divorce the music from the physical CD. The software industry has been doing this for ages...it's all about licensing the software, you only own the media upon which the software resides, etc. But the record companies do not technically make their money selling music, they make it selling little plastic discs dressed up with music (and art). And the sale of little plastic discs is falling.

Not like they can claim the discs themselves are expensive to produce, either. If they were, I wouldn't still be pulling old AOL CDs out of every corner of the attic.

--Patrick

BTW a site I visit every day follows a lot of this stuff that you are talking about http://www.techdirt.com
They can't believe how silly the execs are either. Also they follow a lot of the artists that have blown off the music label deal=success thinking.

I meant to put this up earlier, sorry bout the semi necro.

Well dropping sales in CDs has a direct impact on record companies who have heavily invested in the distribution side of the business. We the shift between Vinyl to CD occurred it was embraced by record companies because they retained control over the means of production. Record shops (many owned directly or indirectly by record companies) had more stock space on the sales floor so quickly adopted the new technology. The big pain the companies feel will be in manufacturing and distribution as well as point of sale, if shop revenue slips you still need to pay staff, land rent, business rates. The digital sales market is nearly wholly out of their control. That's their fault and is not an excuse but does in part explain their resistance to change. What would have been better for them would have been a total cessation of sales of CD. Then you don't need to spend as much on art work, manufacturing and retail costs change dramtically in their favour. Sadly there is the irritation of customer choice.

Who honestly has bought an actual music CD in the last 2 years? CD's are old news man, but record companies still try to peddle them as if they're still the hot item. You walk into Best Buy or FYE (shittiest store ever btw), and you still see rows and rows of fucking CDs. What a waste of space. The record industry totally missed the boat when they tried to curb digital media instead of embracing it as the next thing. Think about it, instead of selling music on CDs, they could have made the switch to SD cards. If they want physical media a 50mb jump drive or SD card would have been great. It would have been a great side by side deal with stores like iTunes; give customers the option to entirely skip the internet download process and give people easy, nice little SD cards for 2-5 bucks that can transfer the album to an mp3 player. See how that taps another market of users that don't want/have access to internet/credit cards etc...

Back to CDs. Even if I wanted to buy a new album I'd buy it on iTunes. Pretty much everyone under the age of 50 does. My old CD collection from High School sits in three of those CD organizers that never get used. I remember when I was buying my 2008 Subaru. The dealer was trying to sway the deal with bragging about the 6 CD changer. I rolled my eyes so hard I think I may have seen the inside of my head.

Hm, yeah. Problems with the current digital model: being able to browse and preview music depends on your dl speed. Very difficult to track obscure artists you like and track down other artists that might be similar. What would be neat is if beatport's model of allowing you to track producers, labels, and genre's that you like could be matched with lightning fast internet connections so you can preview music without skips and hiccups because of a poor connection and the ability to download the music quickly. I would totally go into a brick and mortar establishment for that. Just have a whole bunch of listening cubicles with lightning fast internet connections and a proprietary producer/label/genre/others also purchases software and I'd do it. Focus your business model on saving consumers' time and you'll make a mint.

Shoot, you could stick cubicles in Borders. Get a cup of joe and a book, listen to some tunes, hear one you like and tag it for your crate.

Shoot, now I'm all psyched. I should quit my job and sign a mega deal with Borders.

It would probably work better if the stores were able to house a server that had all the music on it. The record companies could push new music to them whenever they want. I'm surprised places like Best Buy haven't done something like that yet. They could have more music available and not have to worry about it getting dusty on the shelf.

Shakey said:

It would probably work better if the stores were able to house a server that had all the music on it. The record companies could push new music to them whenever they want. I'm surprised places like Best Buy haven't done something like that yet. They could have more music available and not have to worry about it getting dusty on the shelf.

Click to expand...

That would be one fucking big server, but I guess it would create a buttload of skilled jobs at Best Buy for programmers.

The music industry is worried about two things: internet purchasing of CDs and digital music, both of which strongly impact the only number they care about $/sqft/day at Walmart. They all have contracts with Walmart to provide a certain $/sqft/day, and if they ever do not meet those requirements, Walmart will (excuse my vernacular) ride them like a rhino. These record companies need to continue selling CD's until they can re-organize into a digital structure, or face imminent extinction from their largest source of revenue.

I'm actually thinking Borders would be better because you already have people sitting around drinking coffee and reading books, it's a nice leisurely place. That would be a good place to put a little cubicle where you could browse around and download music. Then if it takes off there'd be lines to get a seat at the cubicle and you'd be expanding the number of them and putting them in Best Buy and stuff as sort of a second wave. Since the whole business model is based on saving people time, you really have to target people whose time is the most valuable, so I'd put them in really hoity toity places first rather than wal mart and stuff.

Chazwozel;332384][QUOTE=Shakey said:

It would probably work better if the stores were able to house a server that had all the music on it. The record companies could push new music to them whenever they want. I'm surprised places like Best Buy haven't done something like that yet. They could have more music available and not have to worry about it getting dusty on the shelf.

Click to expand...

That would be one fucking big server, but I guess it would create a buttload of skilled jobs at Best Buy for programmers.[/QUOTE]

Storage wise it would be big, but I wouldn't expect more that 10-20 people trying to pull music from it at one time. I suppose they could just keep the most popular stuff locally, and go to the internet for the less popular.

I don't think you need each store to have its own server, there could just be one big Borders server somewhere and all the subsidiaries could plug into it. If you have your own intranet doesn't that eliminate a lot of congestion issues?

Digital music is not a new thing for a while now. Record company was resistive against it (just like Car company was resistive against alternative fuel car back in the 90s) now they are paying the price. iTunes is kicking their butts since they only need a server (well server farm) to host all their music and sell them butt load of it without needing to produce CD, shipping, display and sales. Instant transaction via the internet and everyone goes home happy.

I do like the idea of buying digital music in stores via SD card or something. It is HARD to browse rows upon rows of CDs and "hoping" you pick a good one if it is new or obscure. It is WAY easier to browse in the comfort of your home and download as needed.

Zonker said:

I don't think you need each store to have its own server, there could just be one big Borders server somewhere and all the subsidiaries could plug into it. If you have your own intranet doesn't that eliminate a lot of congestion issues?

Click to expand...

I figure if someone comes in and decides they want to buy 5 albums it's going to be quicker to transfer over a 1 gig internal network rather than the internet. If I have to wait 10 minutes for my stuff to download I might as well buy it at home.

Chazwozel said:

Who honestly has bought an actual music CD in the last 2 years?

Click to expand...

I still buy them on rare occasions. I only buy them if they're around $10. The majority of my purchases have come from Amazon or iTunes though.

Shakey;332410][QUOTE=Zonker said:

I don't think you need each store to have its own server, there could just be one big Borders server somewhere and all the subsidiaries could plug into it. If you have your own intranet doesn't that eliminate a lot of congestion issues?

Click to expand...

I figure if someone comes in and decides they want to buy 5 albums it's going to be quicker to transfer over a 1 gig internal network rather than the internet. If I have to wait 10 minutes for my stuff to download I might as well buy it at home.[/QUOTE]

Well, that's my question. If you have an intranet connection to a central server (between, say, Florida and Chicago) do you get any congestion advantages over a regular internet connection?

[Edit: I'm assuming all these stores are buying lots of bandwidth so IN THEORY you would get blaziing download speed as long as there's no congestion. So the question is, if I've got my own propriatary servers in Chicago that no one else has access to, and am transmitting all this info over a nice wide trunk line, is it still possible for overall internet congestion to affect me?]

Like most things, I buy the CD or digital song of an artist I really want to support. If I buy the CD, I download the MP3s later.

drawn_inward;332412][QUOTE=Chazwozel said:

Who honestly has bought an actual music CD in the last 2 years?

Click to expand...

I still buy them on rare occasions. I only buy them if they're around $10. The majority of my purchases have come from Amazon or iTunes though.[/QUOTE]


To be honest, I don't really care about music as much as I used to. I'm happy with just using Pandora or the radio anymore.

To be honest, I don't really care about music as much as I used to. I'm happy with just using Pandora or the radio anymore.

Click to expand...

I have become addicted to Grooveshark myself. I don't even load up my iPod for work anymore, because if there is a song I want to listen to, I have my computer and my speakers. In the car I just listen to the radio.

CDs are a dying buisness. Any company that tries to halt progress in favor of old models is only doing the world a disservice, and has no right to try to cast blame anywhere but themselves. That is how I see if when all these companies complain about piracy without realizing the reasons it keeps growing.

ScytheRexx said:

To be honest, I don't really care about music as much as I used to. I'm happy with just using Pandora or the radio anymore.

Click to expand...

I have become addicted to Grooveshark myself. I don't even load up my iPod for work anymore, because if there is a song I want to listen to, I have my computer and my speakers. In the car I just listen to the radio.

CDs are a dying buisness. Any company that tries to halt progress in favor of old models is only doing the world a disservice, and has no right to try to cast blame anywhere but themselves. That is how I see if when all these companies complain about piracy without realizing the reasons it keeps growing.

Click to expand...

but but.... you are asking company to blame themselves??? why do that? there is a perfect scapegoat the pirates! (/sarcasm)

Dude Grooveshark fucking owns.

Zonker said:

Well, that's my question. If you have an intranet connection to a central server (between, say, Florida and Chicago) do you get any congestion advantages over a regular internet connection?

[Edit: I'm assuming all these stores are buying lots of bandwidth so IN THEORY you would get blaziing download speed as long as there's no congestion. So the question is, if I've got my own propriatary servers in Chicago that no one else has access to, and am transmitting all this info over a nice wide trunk line, is it still possible for overall internet congestion to affect me?]

Click to expand...

Short answer, the internet connection Comcast et al keep shouting about is residential services, or service that shares residential service lines. Companies doing serious traffic of data do not use these carriers. Ever.

Usually the Intranet connection for stores using a lot of traffic is simply a secure VPN connection over T1 or FIOS (depending on the stores local teleco) that is pretty much a full backbone connection. Unless a store has like 50 registers with lines of customers out the wazoo the actual download needs would be minimal when looked at as a commercial connection. A partial T1 would do fine in most cases I think. Working with sites like this they use 5 gig test files and pass them at about a gig a second, or get on the horn to the telco and find out whats wrong.

I have wondered about why this kind of thing could not be done since early 95, why should a recordable CD, book, or movie ever go "out of print". Technical answer, it never should. Real world answer, lawyers and money.