|
|
|
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.
15 responses total.
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
Were the classical music sales downloads?
I would love to have that breakdown; I have not found it yet. I will keep watching the classical music news sources.
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. :/
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.
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.
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?
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.
So how does MS get around the encryption?
They don't. They license the decryption software.
The Techdirt blog has an interesting comparison between RIAA strategies and 17th century French button makers: http://techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml
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
I just can't help picturing Sumner Redstone, stroking a white persian cat, and demanding "one BILLION dollars!" Make it stop.
I'm thinking of "Number 2" in a grey jumpsuit listening to an iPod.
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."
Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.
|
|
|
- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss