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Grex > Music > #35: The Twenty-Seventh "Napsterization" Item |  |
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krj
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The Twenty-Seventh "Napsterization" Item
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Jan 6 21:33 UTC 2007 |
The usual canned introduction:
The original Napster corporation has been destroyed, its trademarks
now owned by an authorized music retailer which does not use
peer-to-peer technology. But the Napster paradigm, in which computers
and networks give ordinary people unprecedented control over content,
continues.
This is another quarterly installment in a series of weblog and
discussion about the deconstruction of the music industry and other
copyright industries, with side forays into "intellectual property,
freedom of expression, electronic media, corporate control, and
evolving technology," as polygon once phrased it.
Several years of back items are easily found in the music2 and music3
conferences, covering discussions all the way back to the initial
popularity of the MP3 format. These items are linked between
the current Agora conference and the Music conference.
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| 15 responses total. |
krj
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response 1 of 15:
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Jan 6 21:35 UTC 2007 |
The Soundscan sales data is out for music sales in 2006.
Soundscan is the system which reports on actual consumer
transactions, so it reflects stuff consumers paid money to
take home with them. The RIAA will release a second set of
numbers, which reflects wholesale shipments, in the spring.
Numbers in the music business are difficult to interpret right
now as various reporters try to figure out how to combine
sales data for apples and two sizes of oranges -- physical CDs
sold for roughly $15, digital download albums sold for roughly
$10, and single download tracks sold for roughly $1.
So one example of silly positive spin is this report:
"Nielsen says that overall music sales were up 19 percent in 2006
over 2005," a number which is obtained by counting each
individual digital track sale as a single purchase, equal to
an album. Argh. The music industry is not dancing like a
business whose sales are up 19%; the number of transactions may
be up but the revenues are not.
(http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=328631)
A selection of numbers from the sales report:
Physical CD album sales: down 8.2%. Physical CD sales have
declined about 5-10% each year, except one, since
their peak in 2000.
Sales at independent CD stores: down 18%. I expect the vaporization
of this retail category to accelerate. Most of the
independent CD stores who are doing well are selling
lots of used CDs. (Sales at "mass-market retailers"
such as WalMart and Best Buy were only down 4%.)
Internet sales of physical CDs: up 19% That would be amazon.com
and any similar operations.
Album sales, both CD and downloaded whole albums: down 5%
But that doesn't include single-track paid downloads.
If you use a formula "track-equivalent albums" to
try to add the single sales in a meaningful way, then
the decline is very small.
Classical music sales: up 22%.
While this represents more crossover stuff
(the article cites Andrea Bocelli and Il Divo)
than core repertory, it's still a good sign for
a category which seemed headed for commercial
extinction.
http://www.coolfer.com/blog/archives/2007/01/2006_in_numbers.php
http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2007/01/final_06_cd_sal.html
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2007-01-04-music-sales-main_x.htm
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keesan
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response 2 of 15:
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Jan 7 00:22 UTC 2007 |
Were the classical music sales downloads?
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krj
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response 3 of 15:
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Jan 7 04:24 UTC 2007 |
I would love to have that breakdown; I have not found it yet.
I will keep watching the classical music news sources.
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krj
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response 4 of 15:
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Jan 9 18:15 UTC 2007 |
News item: The war over DRM on physical CDs of music appears to
be over. Big Music is reported to have capitulated.
Boing Boing passes along a translation of a Dutch report that
EMI has announced it will stop applying PC-infecting DRM software
to its music CDs. Boing Boing also reports that Macrovision
has discontinued development and sales of the copy-prevention system
formerly known as CDS, Cactus Data Shield.
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/08/emi_abandons_cd_drm.html
"Additionally there seems to be, says Billboard, a fear for
compatibility/playback problems with new computer software."
KRJ's guess: They looked at the issues involved with low-level
driver hacking for both Windows2000/XP and the new Vista system,
and they threw up their hands. Also, Big Music had to recognize
that a key application of legitimate CD purchasers was now ripping
the CD to play in their own MP3 player, and all of the CD-based
DRM systems were intended to frustrate that -- in particular
they were flat incompatible with the iPod, the leading MP3 player.
I never ended up owning many of the DRM PC-infecting discs.
I have two CDs from the Belgian band Lais
which have whatever system EMI Europe used -- one refuses to be
recognized as a music CD by my car stereo -- and one CD by
Martyn Bennett infected with the Cactus CDS system.
I oughta write to the labels and ask for a DRM-free upgrade. :/
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twenex
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response 5 of 15:
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Jan 9 18:42 UTC 2007 |
I have a couple of CD of eighties music (yes, I'm that sort of person) with
copy-protection which (they admit) causes the discs to be incompatible with
certain in-car CD players, but also is helpless in the face of whatever ripper
"abcde" uses (abcde is basically a wrapper which rips, encodes, and stores
music, and cddb album-and-track data in the formats and location(s) of your
choice).
So, completely f-ing useless, then.
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gull
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response 6 of 15:
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Jan 9 18:51 UTC 2007 |
I bet Vista has a lot to do with it. Getting into Vista at that kind
of low level is supposedly a lot harder. I know companies that write
personal firewall software have complained bitterly about it.
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keesan
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response 7 of 15:
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Jan 9 19:22 UTC 2007 |
Someone in Australia said the DVDs there are encoded and cannot be watched
with Mplayer in linux. Is there some way around this other than buying a
separate DVD player?
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gull
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response 8 of 15:
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Jan 9 23:36 UTC 2007 |
This is actually a slightly complicated issue -- for legal reasons, not
technical ones.
There is, as far as I know, no legally licensed DVD player for Linux.
For that reason, most distributions ship with a version of mplayer that
can't play encrypted DVDs. (Nearly all DVDs available for sale are
encrypted, to try to prevent people from copying the video from them.)
A system library called libdvdcss allows playing encrypted DVDs, but
its use is technically an illegal circumvention of the DVD's copy
protection, at least in the U.S.
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keesan
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response 9 of 15:
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Jan 10 01:46 UTC 2007 |
So how does MS get around the encryption?
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nharmon
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response 10 of 15:
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Jan 10 01:51 UTC 2007 |
They don't. They license the decryption software.
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remmers
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response 11 of 15:
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Jan 12 18:33 UTC 2007 |
The Techdirt blog has an interesting comparison between RIAA strategies
and 17th century French button makers:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml
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remmers
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response 12 of 15:
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Mar 13 17:05 UTC 2007 |
Viacomm (parent company of MTV and Comedy Central) has sued Google (owner
of YouTube) for $1 billion for "brazen disregard of the intellectual
property laws." Full stories here:
http://tinyurl.com/ytvg92 (from Ars Technica)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/business/14viacom.web.html
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mcnally
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response 13 of 15:
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Mar 14 04:34 UTC 2007 |
I just can't help picturing Sumner Redstone, stroking a white
persian cat, and demanding "one BILLION dollars!" Make it stop.
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tod
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response 14 of 15:
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Mar 14 19:45 UTC 2007 |
I'm thinking of "Number 2" in a grey jumpsuit listening to an iPod.
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krj
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response 15 of 15:
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Mar 21 16:53 UTC 2007 |
The Wall Street Journal has a good overview on how the collapse in CD
sales and the loss of retail outlets is now becoming a reinforcing
spiral. Grab this quick, I don't think the the WSJ lets content sit
out for free more than a day or two:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117444575607043728-lMyQjAxMDE3NzI0MTQ
yNDE1Wj.html?
"Sales of Music, Long in Decline, Plunge Sharply"
Tidbit: the new Norah Jones CD is selling at about half the rate that
the previous one did, and I believe that's the biggest selling release
of 2007.
Tidbit: Trans World Entertainment (Sam Goody, FYE, other brands)
reports that sales declined 14% in the last quarter of 2006, and music
fell to just 38% of their sales.
Tidbit: About 800 music stores closed in 2006.
Tidbit: "Best Buy has been quietly reducing the floor space it
dedicates to music, according to music-distribution executives."
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