Grex Music Conference

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Grex Music Item 52: The Thirty-First "Napsterization" Item [linked]
Entered by krj on Sun Jan 20 08:08:55 UTC 2008:

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, music3
and music4 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.

7 responses total.

#1 of 7 by krj on Sun Jan 20 08:10:59 2008:

The Nielsen Soundscan sales data is out for music sales in 2007.
Quoting what I wrote last year:

 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.

-----

CD sales:                   down 19%
                                     (down 8% in 2006)
"Total album sales"         down 15%
   (physical + downloads             (down 5% in 2006)
    sold as an entire album)

"Overall album sales"       down  9%
   ("Total" sales as above,          (essentially even in 2006)
    plus #of single downloads/10
    which they call 
    Track Equivalent Albums)

Digital download albums rose to become 10% of units sold, but
that wasn't good enough in the face of horrendous CD sales.
These are the worst numbers since the album market peaked in 1999 or
2000.

Looking at some genre numbers:

Rap              down 30%
Alternative      down 19%
Rock             down 12%  (what's the difference?)
Classical        down  7%  

Compared to the overall market, Classical looks pretty good, but a
lot of those sales probably represent the Josh Groban NOEL album, the
year's best seller at 3.7 million copies.

Here's the press release with as much happy-spin as they 
can manage.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080103/20080103006104.html?.v=1

-----

EMI, the smallest of the four major labels, has new ownership
from a venture capital firm, and the new owners have announced
plans to dump 2000 staff (about 1/3) and possibly the majority
of artists on the label.    Several of EMI's big-time artists
have responded by saying they will withhold new releases because
they no longer believe EMI will have the staff to mount 
effective promotional efforts.

#2 of 7 by keesan on Sun Jan 20 15:28:49 2008:

What are the other 'labels'?  Is SONY (CBC?) still around?

#3 of 7 by hera on Sat Jan 26 05:30:50 2008:

Will someone please give her a loaded gun to put to her head?

#4 of 7 by krj on Fri Mar 14 19:16:15 2008:

News item from late February:

The NPD survey group reports that iTunes is now the #2 seller of music
in the USA.  Rankings:

1.  Wal-Mart
2.  iTunes
3.  Best Buy
4.  Target

NPD also tosses out the following bits:

One million consumers dropped out of the CD-buying market in 2007.

48% of teens did not buy any CDs, a number up sharply from 36% the
year before.

The paid download market is dominated by consumers aged 36-50.

The use of file sharing software may have plateaued at 19% of the
population, same as last year; however the number continues to rise
among younger people.   (See above about the age range of most paid
downloaders.)


http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/02/26/itunes_sales/

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_080226a.html

(I have seen a conflicting report -- I have lost the link -- that Amazon
is the #2 music retailer, going by Soundscan point-of-sale measurement.
 The NPD report is based on their survey of consumers.)

#5 of 7 by mcnally on Fri Mar 14 19:36:34 2008:

 Any word on what percentage of the market those top 4 retailers represent?
 (i.e. do they collectively represent 10% of the market combined?  25%?  50%?)

#6 of 7 by krj on Fri Mar 14 20:10:58 2008:

From other recent stories, Wal-Mart is 20% of music retail, so at a guess
those top four retailers would be in the 40-50% range, collectively.
 
(Sigh, there's another Wal-Mart story I forgot to get to; I've been 
slacking.)

#7 of 7 by gelinas on Sat Feb 21 02:56:44 2009:

Today's XKCD reminded me of these items: http://xkcd.com/546/

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