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File Sharing Increases CD Sales 291

Andrew writes "ARIA have released figures that show for 2003, album sales have reached an all time high. In fact, according to Peter Martin, who recently went on Australian radio, before file sharing and CD burning they were selling 10 million less. Total unit sales were also at an all time high at 65.6 million. CD single sales declined 1.9 million over the year, but as Peter said file downloading is doing a better job. Should help Kazaa's legal problems."
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File Sharing Increases CD Sales

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  • by bizcoach ( 640439 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:44AM (#8608107) Homepage
    According to the article,
    the Australian Record Industry Association yesterday released sales figures for 2003 showing an increase of nearly 8 per cent

    Is there any reason to think that this trend might be specific to the Australian music industry (for example because P2P music sharing could help with making making Australian music more well-known internationally), or is it reasonable to take this as an indication that P2P music sharing does not really undermine the commercial viability of the recording industry, worldwide?

    • by Catan ( 98840 )
      I would believe that this is a very Australian specific tendency. Recently, I heard about European sales figures (Switzerland/Germany) which were about 20% less then 2002.

      Personally I buy more CD's then a few years ago but not being a P2P person anyway and so therefore might not be representative.

      Maybe, these Australian figures are that good just because of Kylie ;)
      • by jabuzz ( 182671 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:57AM (#8608142) Homepage
        Not really album sales for 2003 where an all time record high in the United Kingdom. Though again single sales slumped yet again. The reason for this is obvious though, they are way to expensive to bother with. Three singles would more than cover the cost of an album. I remember when it was more like seven or eight singles to the price of an album.
        • by gantrep ( 627089 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:52AM (#8608317)
          Why CD's are slipping down the charts [telegraph.co.uk]

          From the article: "Have you noticed that the singles and albums charts increasingly seem to bear almost no relation?"

          and

          "The music industry is being sustained by middle-aged men who can't use the internet."

          I think there's a lot of truth there.
          • by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @09:19AM (#8608635)
            The singles market is held up by children, hence the dominance of manufactured pop acts, while the market for albums is older - Fifty Quid Man, as that article says.

            My own opinion on what the recording industry should do is this: Give Up Selling Singles.

            Treat the single as an advertisement for the album. That's why you want it to be played on the radio and MTV and on TotP, right? You want people to hear the song, to like it and to want more - and then buy the album. So: release high-quality mp3s onto the net with no restrictions whatever (except maybe 'No Commercial Use') and positively encourage their trading. Make the rest of the tracks available from the same site on payment.

            You'd lose some revenue from singles sales, but that revenue stream is dying anyway; this could help strengthen the real cash cow, the album.

            It worked for iD Software - why shouldn't it work for EMI?

      • It could be an Australian thing indeed. I know I stopped buying CDs from the large record companies after they managed to block investigations into their illegal price fixing and their idea of attacking their customers and insisting that paying a levy on recordable media does not give the consumer any rights.
    • by Brissie_lad ( 523538 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:52AM (#8608132) Homepage
      No, there is enough evidence at Janis Ians website to support this, and Baen Books have been making the same claim with regard to their free library, see janisian.com [janisian.com] and Baen Free Library [baen.com] for more info.
      [Note: Bean seems to be down ATM]
      • by Chalybeous ( 728116 ) <chalybeous.yahoo@co@uk> on Friday March 19, 2004 @08:06AM (#8608359) Homepage Journal
        It's not just Baen's books, either.
        Cory Doctorow [craphound.com]'s books ( Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [craphound.com] and Eastern Standard Tribe [craphound.com]) were posted online for free under a Creative Commons license, and Cory reckons it had a beneficial effect on his sales.
        Don't believe me? Here's one of Cory's blog entries [craphound.com]:
        Just over a year ago, I released my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, as an experiment in what would happen if I allowed my precious copyright to be slightly eroded by one of the Creative Commons licenses. I chose the most restrictive CC license available to me, staying cautious, and I waited to see if the sky would fall.

        It didn't.
        Another of his blog entries [craphound.com] continues this theme:
        Not (just) because I'm a swell guy, a big-hearted slob. Not because Tor is a run by addlepated dot-com refugees who have been sold some snake-oil about the e-book revolution. Because you -- the readers, the slicers, dicers and copiers -- hold in your collective action the secret of the future of publishing. Writers are a dime a dozen. Everybody's got a novel in her or him. Readers are a precious commodity. You've got all the money and all the attention and you run the word-of-mouth network that marks the difference between a little book, soon forgotten, and a book that becomes a lasting piece of posterity for its author, changing the world in some meaningful way.
        The long and short? Putting stuff online like Doctorow, like musician George Michael [georgemichael.com], like Baen Books, or my friend Jules Reid [moonfruit.com] (guitarist, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, English major... if you're in the Liverpool area, please support him! </shameless plug>) gets it out there - it's free advertising.
        IMHO, I'm more likely to buy a videogame if I've played a demo version first. The same goes for picking up a dead-trees book, or buying a CD (or, in the near future, using a pay-per-download MP3 service). Sure, some people abuse the system, but it's still a beneficial system.
        Going back to Cory Doctorow, for example. I've read his books. I would LOVE to get dead trees copies. I've passed the URLs around my friends, and some of them in the US have bought his books. Not once have I cost him a sale by passing around copies of his work, nor have I cost any other author a sale by telling people about sample chapters online (although I don't always buy the books - I don't like everything I read!). Similarly, a friend sent me a couple of MP3s of a singer called Katie Melua [katiemelua.com], and I liked her work so much I bought the album.

        So, to sum up: my thoughts on media in the digital age are that licenses should be loosened and more made freely available, purely because it allows for word-of-mouth (i.e. free) advertising, and - much like a movie trailer, or putting a track on the radio - if people can see/hear/read/play it for themselves (or a cut-down version thereof; I personally think there needs to be a new kind of web-based movie trailer where you can download a couple of scenes as they appear in the film, or a 5-minute sequence, rather than the jazzy wham-bang 30-second TV trailer), they can judge it for themselves, and if Joe Public finds he likes the album/book/videogame/movie in its sample form, he's more likely to pay for the rest of it.
        (Sure, people can read e-books on their PC, but what if they want a book for a flight? And okay, they can burn MP3s off the net to audio CD, but I don't have a comeback for that yet.)

        Anyone want to support or refute what I said, or toss their two cents into the ring?
        • by AzrealAO ( 520019 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @09:21AM (#8608657)
          But in every single one of those cases, the copyright holder made the CHOICE to release their products in that manner.

          The problem with the most common, widespread P2P use is that people are distributing products without the consent of the rights holders, removing that choice from whoever holds the copyright on that work.

          By all means, support those who make this choice as much as you can, but do not then turn around and TAKE other peoples work, who have not made this choice, and demand that they do, or you'll just keep taking it.

          • by gripdamage ( 529664 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @10:30AM (#8609265)
            The record companies have a monopoly. They illegally collude to fix prices and control the market. Whenever that happens, people work extra hard to find a way around it. There is no sense calling these people criminals for wanting the music industry to be reasonable. That's the kettle calling the sugar black.

            I'm sure p2p does cut down on the sales of some artists.

            Those artists you hear on the radio or a club in passing, and think "hey, that seems cool." In earlier days you would have to buy the album to discover it is total crap and the artist is a talentless hack. But now p2p gets the word out before you get robbed. The record companies are all upset, because their whole business is putting blind people in fields of shit and asking them to find a rose. That is to say, they intentionally pump up one hit wonders to sell as many records as possible, but don't put as much effort into the whole album, and do even worse by most second albums.

            It is in their interest to make money on talentless hacks, because while a talentless hack may be capable of producing a one hit wonder (usually with a longtime producer working with them on the track), they won't be able to achieve long-term success or the power that comes with it to demand reasonable percentages from the record company and creative control. Hence by having ten artists sell 10 million records a piece, they make more money than on a talented band with staying power who sells 100 million records.

            It is a pump and dump but for music instead of the stock market. And just when they get the scheme nearly perfected, p2p comes along and lets people preview what they'll be getting in advance. At which point reasonable people pinch their noses and walk away from what the record companies would prefer that they buy.

            Furthermore, those in the record industry that bitch and moan about the artists being robbed are a bunch of liars and hypocrites. They steal from their artists in numbers that p2p can never touch. They make it almost impossible for an artist to audit independently how many records they've sold, but inevitably when artists do audit (usually in a very limited area), they discover they are being paid even less than the lousy terms in their contracts. No part of this argument is about the artists: that is just a smokescreen for what's really going on.

            It is the record companies' feces trade that they are worried about: they want to continue getting you to trade the money earned with the sweat of your back for fertilizer, meanwhile all their cows are starving in the field and they claim it is your fault for not buying enough sewage.

            That business model, like all pump and dump schemes, eventually has to fail. Right now they are just trying to legislate a delay for the day of reckoning, while they can try to come up with a new scheme to sell us formulaic shit we don't want.

            Notice that creative, independent, offbeat, artists invariably seem to make up the examples people use when they need to point to somebody who successfully leverages the Internet and p2p. Artists, in the grandest sense of the word, often can do very well in that environment.

            When people can sample music freely, and be picky about the artists they will support, the music industry can no longer control the market. And that is what they are afraid of. So stop calling it stealing or copyright infringement. The only thing being stolen is the RI's ability to sell stuff people don't really want to hear (not after they've heard the good music out there).

            If you took away this monopoly, instead of 5 gigantic record companies that fix prices and control the market together illegally, you would see 500 small record companies become medium sized. Smaller record companies benefit the consumer, because now there is competition. The cost of producing, promoting, and distributing has fallen way down thanks to technology, but the big record companies keep taking more and more for this service, both from their artists and the consumers.
            • I don't believe I could have said it better myself. I often download songs before buying the album. I can remember a friend of mine buying the Chumbawumba album because of the song, "I Get Knocked Down." I don't think I've ever listened to an album more horrid than that, excluding the classical music CD a friend's aunt bought her that had chirping and screeching birds accompanying the music.

              But I digress. "The people" are speaking in their refusal to pay $20 for a CD until they know that it is of decent q

              • by AzrealAO ( 520019 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @10:57AM (#8609600)
                own sites? A LOT Of bands these days have music samples, and videos on their websites, they let you sample the music on the CD's all you want, without violating their copyright and downloading the entire CD.

                If you can't find samples provided by people who own the rights to distribute them, don't buy the music, and let them know that you didn't buy the music because they had no samples available.

                Maybe that'll lead to more positive change than using a P2P app to commit wholesale piracy, which only fuels their perception that people just want their music for free.

                There are constructive ways to seek change, and destructive ways to seek change. Wholesale P2P fuelled piracy is a destructive avenue to the change you, and all of us are seeking.
      • "No, there is enough evidence at Janis Ians website to support this"

        The premise that unregulated P2P helps CD sales is so silly I'm surprised that it's still discussed seriously. In fact on the generally pro-p2p Pho email list [pholist.org] a recent thread had "P2P helps CD sales" as a meme that should be dropped.

        Any technologist who understands that a CD is just data, and that broadband bandwidth is increasingly common, as are CD-RWs and nice printers and so on, knows perfectly well that the CD itself stands no cha

    • by haakon ( 10961 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:58AM (#8608146)
      It only covers albums sold in Australia. The stats don't include the sales of Australian artists in overseas markets.
      • Correction (Score:4, Informative)

        by nfabl ( 748199 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:56AM (#8608331)
        It actually refers to albums that have left the warehouses, not actually cash money sales.

        An album could technically go platinum in its first week if they do a run at the factory of 50,000 (or whatever) and put them straight on a truck.
        • What happens if they are returned, unsold? Do they take away the platinum?
          • Doubt it, unless there were publicity to be gained.
            Of course, L. Ron Hubbard had some interesting methods for managing his best-sellerness...
            • > Of course, L. Ron Hubbard had some interesting methods for managing his best-sellerness...

              Similar to the Bible -- why is it the all-time best selling book? "Buy this book or suffer an eternity in hell!"
  • by ThomasXSteel ( 545884 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:48AM (#8608118)
    "Obviously our enforcement efforts are working. If we sue more people sales will be even higher."

    -RIAA

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Like many others, it really doesn't matter to me anymore.
    I've recently made the decision to only buy CDs second-hand if at all.

    Don't really care how new CD sales do, since I won't be giving my money directly to the record companies...
    (Yes I know I am still supporting the industry, and have indirectly paid for the CD by increasing 2nd hand sales, but you get the point...)
  • I hate to say it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ckwop ( 707653 ) * on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:48AM (#8608121) Homepage
    But correlation is not equivelent to causation.. Maybe people are buying more albums for a different reason.. Economies around the world upturned in 2003.. Maybe that's important factor too..

    Simon.
    • by kundor ( 757951 )
      But their main argument, that file swapping is obviously decreasing sales because sales have gone down, has no legs to stand on when sales are increasing.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:09AM (#8608187)
        But their main argument, that file swapping is obviously decreasing sales because sales have gone down, has no legs to stand on when sales are increasing.

        No, you're wrong. Since file sharing has been going on for years now, it's basically a constant factor.

        The fact that CD sales have increased doesn't say anything one way or the other about whether file sharing impacts CD sales. File sharing has been going on, basically the same, for the last year or two... it's much more clear that there have been changes in the economy over the last year. Occam's razor, anyone?

        Also, file "swapping" is not an accurate term, since the files are being copied. To swap usually implies that a physical object is transferred from point A to point B --- not that a duplicate is made and sent to point B, while the original remains at point A.
        • I have always believed that the economy is the main factor in CD sale-loss, and believe that any increase could be the easing of the recession. At the very least, it's a logical factor that has been supressed by media and the RIAA cronies.

          In 2001, our company had to fire 100's of people after huge sale dropoffs. We were simply unable to blame it on pirates, and not big enough to make a national political campaign out of it.

      • by Fred IV ( 587429 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:34AM (#8608264)
        The opposite is also true, For years I've been hearing that P2P wasn't responsible for declining sales, and crappy music was. Now that the trend has reversed, I'm expected to believe that P2P is responsible for the increase?
    • Re:I hate to say it (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Xugumad ( 39311 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:06AM (#8608179)
      In particular, I remember /. screaming that just because CD sales went down while sharing went up, didn't mean that the sharing was causing it. I believe the argument was that quality of music was dropping, and that was why sales had gone down.

      Maybe music quality has improved? Or at least, more people like the music being created...
      • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @08:27AM (#8608418) Homepage Journal
        I believe the argument was that quality of music was dropping, and that was why sales had gone down.

        You can't argue over taste.

        I think a better way to express this is that the normal ways of marketing music don't promote enough product diversity. This is especially so here in the good ole USA, where unless you are lucky enough to live in a town with a plethora of college stations, the radio stations are own by a tiny handful of companies and have virtually the same format.

        If most people aren't particularly interested in what is played on those stations, then most people aren't going to go out and buy music.

        So, how are we, the silent majority, going to find music we like, and more importantly from the industry's point of view, are willing to shell out money for?

        The problem for the recording industry is that they don't know how to market to the vast majority of people. Probably if you segmented their business, they make a tiny bit of money out of a fair number of songs, and a huge amount of money out of a small number of hits. They're focused on the hits, but the long term growth potential is in expanding the customer base for music. That's a lot harder.

        P2p is a double edged sword. It really increases the market for music, but it undermines the revenues. Most importantly it kills the hit revenue model that's the industry cash cow. If I were to put together a solution for the industry to survive and grow, I'd get it out of the business of attacking its customers and do something like this: promote convenient online retail models like iTunes, and promote a healthy webcasting environment with a low cost of entry for webcasters. In other words, you want some college student in his dorm to be able create a hit webcasting service that will promote tons of your music, then you want his listeners to be able to buy that music easily.

        This would be an overall win-win. Prices would drop, but volumes would increas so there was a lot more money entering the system.
      • Of course, if this piece of information does get used in a court of law, the RIAA is going to say that the sales went up because the steps they have been taking against piracy. I would imagine that they'd never admit to a variable quality level; it'd challenge the validity of their previous arguments.
    • by Vellmont ( 569020 )
      There isn't even a correlation. The submitter picks file sharing out of his ass as a cause for increased sales. Maybe it was the Iraq war that caused the big increase in CD sales? There's just as much evidence for that.
  • by evenprime ( 324363 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:51AM (#8608127) Homepage Journal
    that each download is a loss of a "potential sale". That's why they always talk to congress about "loss of potential sales dollars".

    The fact they won't admit that there are millions of casual listeners who may like a piece of music, but not like it enough to buy it.
    • by nattt ( 568106 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:15AM (#8608210)
      Every time a song gets played on the radio, that's the loss of a potential sale. Why on earth would I buy a popular album when I hear all the best songs from it every morning on the radio on the way into work.

      As long as I can listen to the radio for free (cost to end user) I'll just assume that music is free - after all - they give it away over the airwaves!

      P2P is the new radio - it's advertising - get used to it! Adapt to it - make money off concerts perhaps, or writing music for films, or TV? Or why not be a true artist and not make a dime off your music, but work for a living to pay for your expensive hobby and idulgence.

      There's more than enough recorded music created so that you could listent to new stuff all you life and not hear something repeated. Why should we pay for something "new" which is just old and recycled?
        • But the music is still free to the end user - you and I who listen to the radio. And also, the artists pay to get their music promoted on the radio - perhaps that's where most of the money that goes to Ascap comes from - the artists themselves?

      • by zokum ( 650994 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @08:43AM (#8608478) Homepage
        Not quite. Radio stations pay for the music they send. I run a radio station, and we got about 20.000 potential listeners. For sending music we pay roughly a $2 per hour of music. If everyone who listened to p2p aquired music would pay something like this, i have no doubt they'd run napster themselves... 2 dollar might not sound much, but this is a small town, and if we were to send 24/7, we'd pay roughly $17.600 in royalties. Think about how many radio stations there are, and you will see how much money they earn on us :-)

        For that reason, we've been toying with the idea of sending non-riaa'ed music on air. Letting "indie" musicians have their music braodcast for free, and we don't pay them either. Mutually beneficient. The local norwegian "riaa" was extremely sceptical when i asked them about this, and they didn't really beleive me that there are in fact musicians out there that don't register their music to RIAA etc for royalties. I've had a couple of dealings with these people as it's part of my job, and to be honest, they scare me a bit when it comes to their views on copyright.
        • I didn't say that the radio station doesn't pay - just that the end user - you and I who listen to the radio don't pay!

          And of course, as you point out, if I could buy music as cheaply as your radio station can, there'd be no need for downloading music for free! Turning your figures around the other way, if 20,000 people can listen to a CD (lasts about an hour) for $2, could one person listen to a CD 20,000 times for $2? No - a CD costs $10 -$15 - $20 dollars to buy for as many listens as you want, but I be
        • Heheh, interesting story. Your norwegian RIAA is acting that way probably for 2 reasons. 1) It's in their interest to make everyone think that the only music in the world is RIAA-copyrighted music. 2) They're full of themselves.

          You may find that you have to play 100% independent music to become ASCAP free (or whatever the norwegian alternative is for the royalty collection). I am pretty sure that is the case with online-radio streaming (which has it's own rules, I know... so may not apply with air-waves at

    • That doesn't quite make up for it though. I see plenty of things I'd like, but not enough to buy them. Taking them anyway, regardless of whether or not I would hypothetically have paid for them, were I required to do so (that is, were theft not so easy,) is still theft, as far as law is concerned. The difference here is that we -see- that they can make unlimited copies of an item, "at no cost." However, increasing the number of copies reduces the value of each copy; they have an interest in keeping the numb
      • Taking them anyway, regardless of whether or not I would hypothetically have paid for them, were I required to do so (that is, were theft not so easy,) is still theft, as far as law is concerned.
        I agree entirely. My discussion was of flaws in the RIAA logic, and not a justification of violating copyright. My solution: support indie musicians who willingly allow live shows to be taped and distributed online.
  • To be honest (Score:5, Interesting)

    by boogy nightmare ( 207669 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:51AM (#8608128) Homepage
    Yes i Download songs, usually individual songs, if i really like what i hear i go out an buy the album... but and this is the thing, i only buy vinyl. I stopped bying cd's about 2 years ago when they all started coming with crap on (wtf is multimedia enhanced) half of them stopped working in at least one of the players that i own. If i cant get get it on Vinyl (if you are under 25 or a not DJ try it sometime, to my ears it gives a richer more comfortable sound) then i will either rip a CD or dl it.

    The point is that until they make cd's a reasonable price compared to their production and distribution costs (please start your rant engines now ladies and gentlemen) and stop trying to make them more attractive with all sorts of cr@p on them that stops them working in most players then the invitation is not there to buy CD's in the numbers that i used to (maybe 30 vinyl ablums and maybe 20 cd's a month)

    I know that this sounds like a rant but its what i feel ;P
    • by pjt33 ( 739471 )
      Surely those copy-protection pseudo-CDs work in more CD players than any of the vinyl records you've bought?
      • If I want a copy of the record I (see I do do it) can actually record them to the hard drive if i want to and them split the album into individual songs.

        I dont use a car so there is no need for it to go out of the house really, all other tunes are stored on the computer. And trust me when I play my music you can hear it all through the house :)
        • > If I want a copy of the record I (see I do do it) can actually record them to the hard drive if i want to and them split the album into individual songs.

          Isn't that technically illegal to make MP3s of albums you already own? Or is that just CDs? Or maybe I could just notice that you have a .uk address. So, anyone know American law well enough to tell me?
    • Re:To be honest (Score:3, Informative)

      by ajs318 ( 655362 )
      Vinyl LPs are made from the same master tapes/discs as CDs. CD has a fixed sample rate of 44.1kHz, a fixed sample size of 16 bits/sample {which is not as poor as you think; Brownian motion of air molecules against a microphone shows up in the 14th-16th bits} and a fixed number of channels {2, one for each ear}. There is no good reason to use any other parameters for mastering, and a very good reason not to: digital distortion {caused by bodging one sample rate or bit length into another; not a trivia
      • Re:To be honest (Score:3, Informative)

        by nattt ( 568106 )
        LPs are not always made from the same master as CD. Digital music is also not recorded at 44.1 16bit or mastered in such a format. Mostly a 88.2khz or 96khz (or even higher) is used at 24 bits to give a lot of head room for manipulating the sound before it gets dithered down to 16 bit for a CD. Sample rates are not "bodged" down, and although not trivial, will not produce digital distortion that is worse than analogue distortion - it will be ver small in magnitude if done properly.

        However, some modern reco
  • Better music (Score:5, Insightful)

    by frs_rbl ( 615298 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:55AM (#8608137) Journal
    maybe the explanation is as simple as that: artists creating better music

    Consumers are not just mindless fools who dumbly follow economic up and downturns: they are downloading more AND buying more CDs
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:56AM (#8608138)
    I have purchased more CD's because of file sharing. I get to preview artists I have not heard, and dont get much airplay. With the high prices of disks in the UK its the only way to go!

    The other reason for more sales would be online music shops that keep prices low. However as soon as you go into a high street shop the prices are rediculous for none chart stuff! You looking at 16GBP - 18GBP for a single studio album - this is the record industrys problem else where in the world OTT prices!
    • by Trillan ( 597339 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:11AM (#8608195) Homepage Journal

      I do the same thing, and prices on CDs are actually very low in Canada.

      I don't like to get a CD and find only one song I like. If I do, I won't buy another CD for months.

      With Kazaa or Limewire, I can download a few songs and see what I think of the band. This is why I've been willing to buy Offspring, Collective Soul, Dr. Hook, Huey Lewis, Matchbox 20's new album, Otis Redding, Rush... and why I'm currently looking for The Odds (they were out of stock here, because their lead singer toured recently) and The Traveling Wilburys (out of stock since the 1990s).

      Go ahead and make fun of some of the bands I like. It's certainly a weird mix! The point is that I know I like these bands, because I've heard enough songs by them.

    • I have purchased more CD's because of file sharing. I get to preview artists I have not heard, and dont get much airplay. With the high prices of disks in the UK its the only way to go!

      The other reason for more sales would be online music shops that keep prices low. However as soon as you go into a high street shop the prices are rediculous for none chart stuff! You looking at 16GBP - 18GBP for a single studio album - this is the record industrys problem else where in the world OTT prices!

      The price here really is the issue. Not only the fact that it's GBP15+ per album, it's the fact that within 6-12 months it's often dipped to just below the GPB10 mark.
      I don't think the companies realise quite how much the high prices are hated. The post-Christmas sales bring prices down to what most people are generally prepared to pay. if this wasn't true, the places wouldn't be quite so damn packed at the time.

      With prices that high, the only way you're going to buy the album is either if you're a die-hard fan of the band or artist, or if you've already heard the album. 'Cos there's no way I'm spending over a tenner on a blind music purchase.
      And currently the only cheap way of previewing music is by downloading from the internet. Certianly it's the only way to find out if a band's non-radio-played tracks are any good.

      And even then, so many times I've held off on buying an album (whether I have it on MP3 or not...) until the price has dropped. if the price doesn't go down, I spend my money on a different artist instead.

      Tiggs
  • Peer to Peer Economy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:57AM (#8608145)
    I've long had a theory that the RIAA/MPAA aren't really against piracy, but they are really against a peer-to-peer economy that is coming up. I believe that they are threatened, not by illegal piracy activities, but by the market becoming splintered, and people listenening to a larger variety of music. People on the Internet might stop listening to a few Pop stars, and start listening to a larger variety of music, possibly each other's music.

    If my theory holds good, this news item will not prevent them from using legal strong-arm tactics - they will fight to retain their market share.
    • by TiggsPanther ( 611974 ) <{ku.oc.diov-m} {ta} {sggit}> on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:49AM (#8608307) Journal

      You're probably right here. Whether legal or illegal, downloads of music can enable you to cut out the middle-man - at least to an extent anyway.

      This is great news for musicians and also for music-lovers.

      However, understandably, the companies whose strength and profits come from a business model built around being the middle-man owing to lack of infrastructure to do without one are less than enthusiastic about the prospect.

      They want their market-share. Fair enough.
      They work for their market-share. Fair enough. But the work they're doing is based on an old paradigm that's fast becoming irrelevant - or in trying to keep the status quo based on an increasingly-obsolete tech-level.

      But their market-share is based on being a middle-man in a world where the middle-man is seen as less relevant. The Internet makes it easier to do things with less (visible) intermediate assistance.

      Tiggs
      • I don't think most of us have the time to go round listening to the 90%+ of crap out there. We do need middle-men, though they might not be commercial - they may just be friends who know a music scene better than us. A lot of dot-coms spouted about disintermediation when what they really wanted was to replace the existing middle-men with themselves. Few succeeded. I think the record companies may be worried that it could really happen to them because they do such a poor job as middle-men.
    • I've long had a theory that the RIAA/MPAA aren't really against piracy, but they are really against a peer-to-peer economy that is coming up.

      Courtney Love agrees with you. The fear of the gate-keepers is that someone will knock down the back wall: that physical reproduction costs will become (have become) so cheap that artists can communicate directly with audiance, without a cost-of-entry prohibition dictated by physical manufacturing and distribution costs. This will remove the need for Capex-rich gat

  • Slashdot spin (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 19, 2004 @06:58AM (#8608149)
    The Slashdot spin on this through the years has been quite outrageous.

    First we have situation (a), where the total CD sales increase, as in this article. Slashdot routinely cliams this as very strong evidence that copying of music actually helps sales. (References: [1] [slashdot.org], [2] [slashdot.org], [3]). [slashdot.org]

    But in situation (b), when CD sales fall, [slashdot.org] the Slashdot editors suddenly forget the strong casual link that they'd earlier claimed, and declare that this must be due to a poor economy or other non-file-sharing factors.

    My question is: how can you rely on a poor economy to explain case (b), while blatantly ignoring the positive effects of a booming economy on case (a)?

    Don't get me wrong... I download mp3s all the time, and quite a few of them are not legit. I think copyright is royally screwed up.

    But I'm not going to play with the facts to try to claim that my downloading activities actually help the recording industry. That's just bullshit.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      But I'm not going to play with the facts to try to claim that my downloading activities actually help the recording industry

      I am.
    • Re:Slashdot spin (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aoty ( 533561 )
      File sharing helps CD sales of good music.
      File sharing can help or hurt CD sales of mediocre music.
      File sharing hurts CD sales of bad music.
    • When CD sales go up, it's because file-sharing helps. When CD sales drop, it's because there is not enough file-sharing going on to offset other negative factors. Satisfied? :)

      I've only bought 10 casettes in my life (last time around 1990, all of them pirated anyway) and no music CDs/DVDs. I've bought some movies on VHS (mostly pirated) or CDs (all pirated) and I go to movie theatres sometimes (rarely). Other than that, I turn to P2P for all my movie needs. But frankly, I don't care about movie or music in
  • Just heard on NPR... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by James4765 ( 761196 )
    About Austin, TX's South by Southwest musician's convention, where the attendees were saying about the same thing - that the Internet is the least of the industry's problems. That big-box retailers and cowardly radio conglomerate execs are much bigger problems. IMHO, suck-ass music by canned pop thuglings and diva princesses are the reason people aren't buying overpriced major-label CD's - but the local and underground music scenes are doing fine. My brother works in a record store, and he said that thei
  • Maybe.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by masterv ( 173870 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:03AM (#8608169) Journal
    Maybe the quality of music got better!
  • by Mjlner ( 609829 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:12AM (#8608197) Journal
    Some years ago, I accidentally heard about an Irish band called The Wolfe Tones. I live in a country where they are totally unknown, so their records can't be bought in the store. P2P made it possible for me to download samples of their music. I was sold, and so was my girlfriend. We made a trip to Ireland just to attend their concert and, of course, buy their records. Turned out be a wonderful trip and a wonderful concert. Also turned out I spent a whole lot of money on that trip.

    After getting a credit card, I regularly buy their records over the net. Their music has also made me interested in other Irish music, which I buy (Dubliners, Clancy brothers, Christy Moore, etc. etc), most of which is unavailable in my country.

    The bottom line is that i have spent a whole lot more money *because* of p2p, than had I bought all the songs I've downloaded, which I wouldn't have anyhow, because most of it isn't good enough to be worth my money.

  • No news for Kazaa! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `drawocsuomynorieh'> on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:13AM (#8608201) Journal
    The argument that p2p influences music sales either way misses the point. Consumers spend their money, one way or another. When times are hard, they spend less. When times are good, they spend more. If albums represent a good deal they will buy them. When music all feels shit, they won't.

    The anti-piracy argument assumes that consumers have elastic wallets but this is simply wrong, and trying to say that p2p increases appetite for music is just entering into a falacious discussion.

    The music industry should take an example from the movie industry, which is making record profits from DVD sales. Product, product, product. Make it amazing. Make it collectible. Make it rich. People _will_ buy it, when they can't.

    Australia is a boom market for music most probably because the boom in house prices makes everyone feel afluent. Wait until the house market collapses, and wow! the music market will follow.

    No news for Kazaa! at all, I'd say.
    • ... and trying to say that p2p increases appetite for music is just entering into a falacious discussion.

      Of course it doesn't increase the appetite for music. however, it does (or at least can) increase one's chances of finding stuff that actually interests you.

      I don't like more music than I did before finding P2P, but I have found more of the kind of music that I already did (or would) like. And that's the key here.

      If albums represent a good deal they will buy them. When music all feels shit, they

  • I mainly listen to game soundtracks (I particularly like Half Life's track 11), which probably counts as me buying the music. I downloaded the UT2004 demo, and I've got the music from that in my playlist. So yeah, I guess that makes filesharing a good thing - it makes me buy more game music!
  • by b06r011 ( 763282 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:20AM (#8608228)
    is this not the way to go? i mean responsible downloading would be downloading unavailable tracks (like some live stuff or remixes)or downloading a couple of tracks off the album, and then buying it if you liked it, and wanted more.

    in fact, i have 'discovered' several bands by simply typing their name into KaZaA and subsequently bought their cds.

    if the BPI/RIAA/whoever get upset at people downloading whole albums, i an understand it, particularly if they would have bought the album. and that is the problem, they need to work out who is stealing by downloading an album they would otherwise be prepared to buy, and those exploring music by downloading something random they have never heard of before.

    last year, i downloaded some Fountains of Wayne tracks, because one of my mates was wearing an FoW t-shirt, and i liked their name. i liked the music. so did my girlfriend, and some of my housemates. i bought a couple of their albums, as did a house mate, and we saw them on tour.

    we would never have done any of this if i hadn't downloaded the original tracks.

    can someone please explain how (at least in the long-run) i/we damaged the music industry by this horrific infringement of copyright?
    • by trezor ( 555230 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @09:13AM (#8608593) Homepage
      • can someone please explain how (at least in the long-run) i/we damaged the music industry by this horrific infringement of copyright?

      Yes. But you have to follow RIAA-logic on this one (kinda like the equivalent of 420 cd-burners...). The explanation is easy, you just need to read any RIAA-statement with fine print.

      Okey, here goes. You caused a potential sales-loss. When you downloaded the music (instead just of buying in the first place), you could have disliked the music and left it at that.

      Had you bought the cd in the first place, and then disliked it, the RIAA would still make money. P2P prevents this collosal source of revenue.

      All new pop-releases seems based on this ingenious system. And any downloading of (especcialy crappy) music causes a potential sales-loss.

      Repeat after me, potential sales loss. This is a "real" thing, btw.

      Now you got it?

  • Well... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fakesky ( 728512 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:21AM (#8608230)
    The problem is not however piracy is in the end good or bad for the legimate buisiness of IP sales.. The problem is the almost complete disregard for IP in the first place.. How many really respect the IP-holders enough not to copy their stuff? I can fire my anecdotes on how my path of piracy could possible be linked to the fact that my dvd-purchases has skyrocked during roughly the same period of time. But its not out of a growing respect for IP, but rather because I happend to enjoy the added value of having a Futurama boxset instead of a dvd-r with all the episodes.. So the only way to combat piracy, is to gain (back?) that respect of IP, (or call it even by fear of retribution) or by enhancing the value of the bought product. I think this is the reason why dvd's are less threatened than cd's; a cd is just an archaic version of a >100mb folder with mp3's, where dvds offer higher quality, extras, audio commentary etc etc DVDs will face the same faith once the treshold of piracy reaches the same ease as with CDs. By that time, I guess they'd like worldwide respect(fear) or at least increased value enough to save their sales.
  • by Stopmotioncleaverman ( 628352 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:22AM (#8608233)
    ...that makes people instantly fear it?

    It seems that the instant reaction by so many, including the music industry, is to make an enemy of something which could so easily be a potential friend.

    The music industry instantly took a dislike to the filesharing apps and p2p networks - why? Because they were causing lost sales...certainly. But so often in this day and age, music (and other) companies fail to see the bigger picture. Loss of sales isn't the only thing that p2p networks cause.

    Why don't they also look at p2p networks as massive, global advertising? And not only that, massive, global free advertising. Why does the thing that could help you so much instantly have to be rejected?

    One could hark back to the days of the first submarine - another invention widely regarded as counter-productive as an example. You can almost hear them saying "A boat that's designed to sink? You're insane!" The fact that these "sinking boats" would become massively useful, widely used, and fulfil their great potential (albeit a potential to blow people up) was largely ignored.

    And we have the same today. In the form of global, user-viewable, massively-multi-user (to coin a phrase) free advertising. I never understand why knee-jerk reactions such as "it's losing us sales, it's bad, kill kill kill, sue sue sue", having been shown to be so often counter-productive in the past, can't be avoided, and the full potential realised.
    • History, my friend, just history. The new is generally unfavorable to the old, so naturally it is feared. The key difference, in this case, is that this particular industry wasn't content to adapt to changing conditions (as every other entrenched monopoly in history has done, or face extinction), and instead enlisted the power of the Federal Government (here in the U.S.) by buying Federal law to bolster their position. My complaint with them is not that they want to continue forcing fourth-rate music upo
  • All this article does is try to legitimise unauthorised copyright infringement. Stop it now, it isnt good for the public front. The only way you can legitimise it is by getting the copyright owners permission, not the fact that it just happens to increase sales (which isnt even proven, its simply a cross corrolation of data).
  • Anyway, seriously, I find it disgusting that *they* can project sales and then complain when 50 Cents new CD doesn't sell 500,000 copies in half a year without *any* agency either government run or consumer run etc being able to find out if it was remotely possible that 500k copies of said example album would sell. On another topic, it really is ridiculous to pretend that if they project 500,000 people would be *interested* in *owning* a copy, to claim that if only 383,666 people buy the other 116,334 guys
  • And in other news... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stickerboy ( 61554 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @07:43AM (#8608292) Homepage
    ...culling humankind of the genetically weak and infirm will probably strengthen the species as a whole.

    But that doesn't make murder any more right or palatable, does it?

    The ends do not justify copyright violation - although it may make the recording industry think twice about cracking down too hard on it.

    Nah, that would mean they'd be thinking intelligently.
  • by pcause ( 209643 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @08:03AM (#8608348)
    The RIAA will say that the increase in slaes is due to their lawsuits and the publicity that they have generated. RIAA will tell you that these suits have led to a decrease in use of P2P and they have some studies that show this. They are partially correct.

    But one other thing has changed - $1 song downloads. The rise of iTunes and other $1 per song services demonstrate what everyone knew and the RIAA kept denying. If users have choice and can buy songs they want at a reasonable price and conveniently, they will buy and not steal. The record industry finally listened to the customers and adopted new business models and surprise, customrs responded by buying more music.

    We also have to consider that the record industry is a cyclical business. There are years with little new and interesting music. In years where the new product is crap, people don't buy. Record companies, like TV channels, see some trend and then try to find 1000 ways to clone it, because cloning is easier than creating. Nora Jones is selling a lot of albums. She is original. Yet another gangster rap guy wearing baggy pants and spewing profanity and hate is just boring! We buy new and interesting not boring.
  • As much as I would love to believe otherwise, this is nothing but a classical example of non causa pro causa informal fallacy, namely: post hoc ergo propter hoc. I am sure everyone who is even remotely familiar with logic (id est a great majority of Slashdotters) will agree that we cannot disprove one post hoc ergo propter hoc argument (RIAA: CD sales dropped after Napster, so they must have dropped because of Napster; Slashdot: No, they dropped indeed, but because of the overall economy trends [economical
  • Originally, radio broadcasters were not supposed to play records, because record companies thought that if people could hear the songs over the air for free, they wouldn't buy records. It's a stupid argument, and it's the same thing with file sharing. RIAA is upset because they can't drive up sales just by marketing, etc... the music actually has to be good now.
    • Not exactly. When broadcast radio first came into being, it was hella expensive. The arguement WAS put forth that listeners getting it for free would not buy records, BUT there is one glaring difference.

      If I listened to radio in the 20's I would really have had no way to record the broadcast unless I was hella rich, and very technically astute (very few people had the ability to actually make recordings back then).

      But now, I can take that mp3 and hand it off to millions of other people.

      The only way tha
  • Acronyms (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jonboy X ( 319895 ) <jonathan.oexner@ ... u ['i.e' in gap]> on Friday March 19, 2004 @08:19AM (#8608397) Journal
    Hey, how come the Aussies get the cool names for the gov't agencies? ARIA, music (as in opera), get it? Both the American and Australian versions are the Recording Industry Associaciation of <some country that starts with 'A'>, but noooOOOoo, we (Americans) had to go for the non-humorous name...
  • Bad news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by retards ( 320893 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @08:30AM (#8608433) Journal
    I don't care if this helps Kazaa in court, common sense should be enough.

    Why would rising sales of obsolete technology and non-biodegradable plastic discs be good news for anyone?

    In other news:

    Bio-energy research increases fossil fuel consumption! Everybody wins!!

    The sooner CD:s, DVD:s and all other tangible intangibles fall into the Eternal Pit Of Ridicule and Oblivion, the better. ... or what are YOU planning to do with all those no-longer-so-high-tech VHS-cassettes? Floppy disks? Most are going to the landfill, probably, the same will happen with those $20 CDs and DVDs...
  • is that people will listen to more than the "hits" that are pushed and finding out all but 1-3 songs on the CD are crap... I dont know about you, but if I find out 75%+ of something is crap I dont waste my money...

    unless Im buying fertilizer...
  • The radio plays high-cost artists like Madonna and Britney Spears and keeps their record sales high. But they also pay 'play-fees' to the industry. They tried to get away with paying these fees based on the same causation principle the author mentions, but the judges didn't buy it and set up a fee to play songs.
    This doesn't necessarily help Kazaa because the legal precedent is there with radio play that the artists and their agents MUST be reimbursed. Using the argument of 'piracy helps sales' offers no
  • by azaris ( 699901 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @08:37AM (#8608457) Journal

    When the economy is good, fileswapping increases the sale of CDs.

    When the economy is bad, fileswapping decreases the sale of CDs.

    Of course, you could substitute "herding unicorns" for "fileswapping" in the two sentences above and still arrive at the same conclusion.

  • The thing is that you can't prove a causal relationship between file sharing and record sales. Your local franchise of the RIAA will be inclined to state that actually a 12% increase was expected and the hence file sharing harms business.

    I vaguely recollect:
    The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
    Ernest (1st Baron) Rutherford (1871-1937)
  • Suing your customers increases CD sales.
  • by adzoox ( 615327 ) * on Friday March 19, 2004 @09:12AM (#8608580) Journal
    ... won't be successful until there is the same search capability as Kazaa has and as Napster had.

    From 1999, until approximately summer 2003, the sole way I searched for new music was by using LimeWire (a java client for Kazaa and others).

    The only way I could information (quickly) about a song was to do such a search.

    For example: Music from Mitsubishi Commercials. You type "mitsubishi commercial" into LimeWire - comes right up - you type "mitsubishi commercial" into iTunes - you get "The iTunes Music Store contains 0 records for your search, please try again."

    Now, this relates to CD sales in that, if I found the song, and liked it, I went out and bought it, sometimes getting them from iTunes (at least within the past year).

    So file sharing DOES translate into physical sales - I'm SURE I'm not the only one or even in the minority of users who do this.

  • oh great. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @09:43AM (#8608831)
    Now this will strengthen their argument to slap more "theft taxes" on blank media.

    Some of us don't steal software and music and why should those few of us that don't engage in theft have to pay for the sins of the many.

    Collective punishment is WRONG..

  • ...because we sure as hell know it's not from the quality of music these days!
  • Whatever you want (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shadewind ( 735217 )
    I don't believe record companies are afraid of decreased sales. I think they're afraid of us listening to what we really want to. I can think of many bands that i would've never heard of if i hadn't downloaded some of their music. I can definately not find any of it in the record stores i know. If record companies cannot make us listen to what they want us to listen to, their market planning won't work and they won't earn as much money.
  • CD returns have tripled ;)
  • is it just me, (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bob dobalina ( 40544 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @10:44AM (#8609419)
    ...or is this storying suffering from a classic logical fallacy [datanation.com]?

    I mean, I don't believe the RIAA either when they say that file sharing is the reason sales are down. But then again, I thought most slashdotters felt the same way. Why is the RIAA (rightfully) chastised for false cause in that argument, yet slashdot publishes a story with the same logical error and people lap it up?

    Simply because filesharing is out there now, and record sales are up in Australia, doesn't mean filesharing caused the increase. What will they say a year from now, if sales suddenly slump? Certainly not "filesharing killed Australian music sales".

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas Edison

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