iTunes Sales Ban Does Increase CD Sales 185
Guinnessy writes "According to the New York Times, some music labels have deliberately stopped selling some new singles on online stories such as iTunes or Rhapsody while promoting songs on the radio, so that listeners will rush out to buy the CD album instead. The album appears in itunes at a later date. Not everyone seems to think this is a good idea. From the article: 'The labels are shooting themselves in the foot,' says Rhapsody's Tim Quirk. However, Ne-Yo's CD In My Own Words sold 301,000 copies using this method. Chris Brown's Run It, that was in the itunes store, sold 154,000 copies in its first week. Ne-Yo's So Sick was downloaded approximately 3.4 million times on the peer to peer networks during the week of his album release while the album Run It!"was downloaded approximately 5.3 million times in the same release period."
Overheard at the RIAA (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Overheard at the RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Do I have a "right" to pass up on the newest lump of turd to come out of Britany Spears's ass at the CD store and buy it from iTunes instead?
Is it my "right" to not have to wait a few weeks to download it from an on-line music store?
I don't get it.
Re:Overheard at the RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Overheard at the RIAA (Score:2)
Theres no price fixing scheme here. Should it be illegeal for Lucas to release his movies on video in such a way that you end up buying Star Wars "Jeff Portkins shot first edition." Its a free market, and there is no agreement to do this, just studies that show it works. Maybe we should outlaw studies?!
Re:Overheard at the RIAA (Score:2)
Do you have an intention to purchase feces? Surely those aren't the best two places to look.
Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:5, Insightful)
So one can reasonably conclude that iTunes, at least in an indirect way, is forcing labels to sell their music cheaper in order to secure more sales!
I don't think iTunes is going anywhere, but if it's presence causes labels to actually price aggresively the way it should be, then I think it's a good thing.
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only if. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you're on to something, but I'm not convinced the logic works.
Print publishing has been around for a long time, and they have had a chance to perfect the pricing model. There are two questions, why are hardcover books more expensive than paperback, and why do hardcover come out first? The answer to the first is that hardcover books are a bit more expensive to produce. The answer to the second is a little more i
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:2)
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course they wouldn't. With the hardcover book, you pay more money, but there is a perceived higher value. The customer knows that t
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:2)
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:5, Insightful)
Also not mentioned here is that the Brown album was available for download ONLY for over three months before they released the physical album. '
so what I see being 'proved' is that:
Bare statistics can be misleading.
((mumbles something about hanging by the toenails and being beaten by an organic carrot))
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:3, Informative)
What the RIAA is all about is controling what choices you have in music. If you can only get the CD's that they distribute, they can force anything down your throat. If you can download any artist's music, the artist has much more power, and the labels much less. The RIAA would love to end all downloading of music -- because right now Ap
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:4, Interesting)
"They did that deliberately to get numbers like that so that they can use these misinterpreted numbers in their propaganda machine."
There, fixed that for ya
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:2)
It's almost like they're helping to promote this guy as a shill, just so they can have some numbers that defy iTunes' undeniable success.
A jewish rapper in Holly[RIAA]wood? Who would've thunk it?
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:3, Insightful)
But you can't just compare revenue or profit anyway. Song X frequently makes more money than song Y. That doesn't mean that X's marketing strategy is better - it may have just been a better song, or appealed more to the masses.
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:2)
which "they" do you mean? the record labels or apple/rhapsody? ultimately it comes down to margin for the content producing agency which is probably higher on a CD sale than on a ESD sale
Re:Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians (Score:2)
Now, I don't think either statement is correct. If the songs weren't available online, yah, in-store sales would be higher, for people who'll buy in whatever format is most convenient. I also think there ARE people who wouldn't bother to go to the
The iTunes first track outsold the CD first track. (Score:2, Insightful)
CD First:
iTMS first:
Re:The iTunes first track outsold the CD first tra (Score:2)
Slashdot posts stories to discuss. They don't write their own stories. The point of slashdot is comments like yours -- that's why people read slashdot. If you're just here for some tech articles, you're in the wrong place. (Check out digg.)
If you're here for discussion, that's what slashdot is about. You're in the right place
Yep, not only that, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
If one takes the difference in downloads (1.9 million) and divides it by a typical CD cost ($15), one gets ~127,000. That's almost enough to make up for the difference in actual CD sales (it leaves a delta of ~20K CDs), with no marginal cost of goods for the record labels to bear.
It all seems like a wash to me, and of course only has any hint of significance
From one sample to conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
There are SO many variables to be taken into account that could influence that. Do they target the same audience? To give a very drastic example, if you compare CD sales to download of a Techno song and a Country song, it does NOT matter when it comes out on which medium to predict almost flawlessly which one has a higher download and which one has a higher CD count.
Were they released at the same time? If it is released around Xmas, that would boost CD sales compared to downloads (it IS after all easier to wrap a CD in gift paper than a bunch of bits). What's the weather like on release day? Bad weather and I'd rather download it instead of going out in the pouring rain.
Do the CDs offer the same "goodies" that come with the CD? Do they both offer the lyrics in the booklet, for example, or some pictures of the artist? How about the CD cover?
So please, before drawing conclusion from ONE SINGLE sample, at least make absolutely sure that the results are comparable. Or, better, get a few 100 samples before jumping to a conclusion!
Aaaaaand, let's not forget: If it's not available from legal download... especially if the CD is DRMed into uselessness.
Re:From one sample to conclusion (Score:5, Informative)
Re:From one sample to conclusion (Score:2, Interesting)
RIAA's study methodology... (Score:2)
Re:From one sample to conclusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Sample OK, Conclusion NOT (Score:3, Insightful)
What they're obviously missing is that denying iTunes sales increases CD sales which translate into more piracy.
Good plan.
Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's the CD rip that eventually gets on the networks or the iTunes. If they had a simple watermark at the end of the song that would show up in the resulting encodings and be detected they could track which method is actually contributing to piracy. If people who are more likely to purchase a CD and rip it to serve on the file sharing networks or if it's the iTunes users that serve it up. With a couple hundred songs marked and tracked that'd be compelling data either way.
In any case all it takes is one person to borrow/buy/steal/download a track and serve it up.
It makes a lot more sense to make it cheap enough and easy enough to get a song that illegally downloading it is not benificial. Not threatening them with vague lawsuites that people really don't care about. And not DRM crap that makes it better to download it illegally to use on the multitude of products out there being marketed by the same companies that restrict the customers ability to use them (cough-sony-cough).
If there were a service that let people pay a small price for music by the track in a high quality standardized format and allowed them to do whatever they wanted with it without any draconian DRM restrictions, it would be an alternative that would capture the majority of the market share overnight. And at the same time would make the p2p networks that much less attractive.
(didn't hear it from me, allofmp3)
It's not something new, but needs to be said again to these execs: Basic economics 101, if you offer an easier product at a cheaper price without a significant quality drop you will make more money in volume than your competitors.
The competitors in this case are virus ridden, illegal, spotty selection, gun to the head, can go away at any time, P2P networks.
You hear that RIAA? You could make millions happy, rake in billions of dollars in sales, have more volume with significantly less overhead and 3rd party costs. All you have to do is look at the market and act like business people and fulfill the obvious need.
Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT (Score:2)
A good businessman would then weigh those results with the rest of the reliably collected demographic, technical, and marketing data so as to make a competitive, profitable decisions.
Ah, who am
Re:Sample OK, Conclusion NOT (Score:2)
Re:From one sample to conclusion (Score:2, Informative)
Tell a lie often enough. (Score:2)
Oh...sure..don't believe them... (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
They are simply applying Vesilind's laws of experimentation:
Jedidiah.
Re:Oh, yeah... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, yeah... (Score:4, Insightful)
finally the truth (Score:5, Funny)
Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo? (Score:4, Insightful)
They should have taken the blue pill.... (Score:2, Funny)
I predict Ne-Yo's successors will a group named "Tri-Nitee" and some chick with a large wardrobe named "Morph-Eus"
Re:Who the fuck are Chris Brown and Ne-Yo? (Score:2)
so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales? (Score:5, Insightful)
selling CDs promotes ripping without any content copy-limiting software system. if the pinheads in Big Music had their schytte together, they'd stop shipping physical media, and sell it all online through iTunes and the like.
but all they have together is their off-key whining....
Re:so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales (Score:2, Insightful)
With online distributors, they lose
Re:so what does iTunes to to Edison cylinder sales (Score:2)
You know, I have a problem with this.... (Score:4, Insightful)
First you are taking one individual CD's sales through a store and comparing them to another CD's sales through an online distribution. While this test is almost impossible to perform (release the song at the same time through both channels and see the online distribution win and people would say that it simply hurt the CD sales, or alternatively, vice versa), it might have been a better comparison to simply take one popular artist's newer album, release it exclusively online and compare it with previous releases. Even this is not an indestructable argument, but at least you would be comparing Granny Smiths to Red Delicious, and not fruits to vegetables.
Now I am by no means a scientific person (having a greater interest in history) but it astounds me (through every century) when one side tries to sound scientific by saying, look! ho! this way works better and one can see it conclusively because the stars are in the sky and not in the ocean! This was pretty much a complete red herring of an article.
Interesting quote... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a weird analogy... if I buy a single song... that's not like buying the upper right hand corner of a Picasso (though with some of Picasso's work I might enjoy it more). It's just like buying a single painting... you select the one you prefer and purchase it. You don't need to buy the whole body of work that an artist produces to appreciate the artist... a song I would equate to a single painting... meanwhile an album is just multiple paintings by the same artist.
At a buck a download... wouldn't they make more off of the album than at the 8 dollars they are selling the thing at Target for? How much does it cost to produce and distribute these CD's to each of the retail chains? How many of those CD's that are produced are in fact sold? So how many just sit on the shelves forever? Or... if you don't produce enough to meet demand... how much money have you lost opportunity costs?
Digital just seems so much more efficient... and this robbing peter to pay paul is silly... yes if you only sell a track in a single medium... of course the volume will rise for that medium... but in the end are you making more money or less? (Say you sold 300,000 tracks on iTunes... cost/benefit?)
Digital uptake is just ramping... if they start doing silly things like this to make it harder for consumers to get their content... either they'll go back to piracy... or it'll stop the whole legal digital distribution before it's even had a chance to become mainstream.
Re:Interesting quote... (Score:2)
Not if there is really only one song worth purchasing on the whole album. I've purchased several albums like that.
Re:Interesting quote... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Interesting quote... (Score:2)
"Money" would stand alone quite well, if it didn't segue directly into the next track.
Re:Interesting quote... (Score:2)
When there is no correlation between the songs, especially when the song order was chosen by a record company executive, and some songs are just used as filler to make the collection CD length, then this argument is not valid.
Artists know how to create larger contig
Re:Interesting quote... (Score:2)
agreed that this analogy breaks down in a big way
however:
At a buck a download... wouldn't they make more off of the album than at the 8 dollars they are selling the thing at Target for? How much does
Re:Interesting quote... (Score:2)
Still not there, because a page in a comic book has some relationship to the page before and page after, which is not true of 99% of the cd's.
Maybe it's like buying a $20 Picasso poster instead of the $120 monograph
HEY, it makes sense to do that
Course, I've been saying that we're back to the days of the 45 and hit songs, as we were in the 50s and 60s. You want to sell cd's, write a Sergeant Pepper's. Or put a lot of hits in the album. Or, release a single and flip side not in an album, release a single a
Need broader statistics to be meaningful (Score:3, Interesting)
It therefore seems hard to argue that file sharing and digital distribution has a negative affect on music sales.
amazing, headline news (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, that's so Statistical! (Score:5, Insightful)
This fails so many statistical tests for process control and would never even be eligible for something like an Annova (test for statistical difference) tukey-kramer test. They find one demographic of people, internet buyers. Split them in two. Offer the download to 33% of the group, deny the download to 33% of the group, and let the other 33% have the choice to steal/buy online/buy the cd ect. All the while exposing them to the exact same marketing, radio singles, and ensuring their purchasing habbits are the same. Only then can you even begin to test which group is statistically more likely to alter their purchasing habbits.
In other words, doing all of the above is hard and takes time and just coming up with bogus conclusions is so much easier.
I can't wait until the RIAA gets so much control over the music industry that they legally charge each user every time they listen to the song. Hell, they'll charge the user 1 cent per second the song is played. It wouldn't be fair to pay the same price for a 2 minute song and a 4 minute song would it?
When that day happens, and it looks like it might, the RIAA will finally implode and independant music will return in a blaze of glory. Or be outlawed as a potential communication medium for terrorists. One of the two anyway.
Won't happen. At least not at a cent per listening (Score:2)
Additionally to the billion times you hear it on the radio so you actually think this song might be good, 'cause they play it like a billion times.
Not only what I said before but... (Score:3, Insightful)
try this (Score:5, Informative)
Message to the music industry:
The horse and buggy distro system of funny plastic disks has been superceded by an Internet. Tune in or drop out.
Re:try this (Score:2)
Correction. The horse and buggy distro system of people paying for a CD with liner notes has been superseded by people leeching MP3s off torrent sites for free. There's no way any label or artist can compete with that.
Re:try this (Score:2)
Indeed. What they can do, however, is adapt to it by getting out of the business of selling copies of bits, and stick to the core business of actually writing and performing music, by insisting on getting paid for the time they put into it, rather than getting a little tiny payment for each copy sold. New
Shocker (Score:5, Insightful)
The real story here is not "Itunes hurts cd sales" its "Itunes promotes better music". The a-la-carte style of music downloading that itunes offers punishes crappy cds for sucking and rewards good ones for being good.
Likely outcome (Score:2)
The big question is, which would maximize profits more? Selling the digital download first, or the CD first? I suspect it would depend on the audience for the given artist. For pop music with a young audience, I would not be at all surprised to find
So, where should I buy music? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So, where should I buy music? (Score:2)
I'm in the same boat. Well, I used to be in the same boat.
The last time that Slashdot ran a story like this, I activated a free trial of eMusic. I strongly suspect that when the trial is over, eMusic will not get a cancellation notice, that eMusic will get ~$190 to pay for 90 mp3s/month for 12 months, and that I
The Real News Here... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why dont they have this now??? It is because iTunes is about selling
I don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get it...
advertising with "piracy" (Score:2)
now "piracy estimates" are used to push business models... is this madness never going to end? let's all just agree that the collective conscience owes the music industry 1 quintillion dollars and be done with it.
"stealing" copyrighted material is wrong, pushing people into "law-circumvention" is too, suing them for ridiculous amounts of money certainly is. let's all just switch to legal (mostly not well produced) music and hope it'l
Not a good idea to follow the movie industry (Score:4, Interesting)
If my family wants to see Harry Potter [insert episode here] at the movie theater, we'll go see it so we can have a blast sitting in the dark listening to the overly-amped up sound and get a fun thrill from the big screen.
However, if the DVD were available at the same time, we'd still go to the theater to do the family thing, then buy the DVD if we liked it.
Means this: we go to the theaters to see the things in which we are interested - irrespective of DVD availability. We then wait with anticipation for the DVD for a release (and generally buy it on the day it is released) if we really liked the film. What I'm trying to say is, if we like it enough to patronize the film, we'll see it several times.
Enter the music industry: The industry is trying to figure out how to stay in business, and along the way, they're forgetting something critical: the fans. If the fans like it, the ones who pay for music will buy it (and some of us will buy the CD if we want to support the musician(s)). Those that don't buy music probably won't buy the downloads or the CDs.
Key point: If the artist makes the fans happy, they'll buy whatever makes the fan happy (CD or individual download). Preventing one of the means of purchasing is not helping the artist or the label. Truthfully, (this is a personal opinion, folks) if I really like a given artist, I'll buy the CD - even if there are some tunes to which I won't listen - so I can patronize the artist. If I like one tune of a given artist - but the artist doesn't generally float my boat, then I'll download the one tune and not buy the CD.
Cutting off means of distribution is not a smart business tactic.
Re:Not a good idea to follow the movie industry (Score:2)
Nothing like... (Score:2)
Maybe they didn't consider... (Score:4, Funny)
Amazing (Score:2)
Missing numbers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ne-Yo's CD In My Own Words sold 301,000 copies using this method. Chris Brown's Run It, that was in the itunes store, sold 154,000 copies in its first week. Ne-Yo's So Sick was downloaded approximately 3.4 million times on the peer to peer networks during the week of his album release while the album Run It! was downloaded approximately 5.3 million times in the same release period.
OK, so how many downloads from "Run It" were sold in the ITunes store during that time period? If it was only about 50-100K songs, then they may have a point, but if it was something along the lines of 500K songs, then all they did was to give up some profits on CDs to make the same money on downloads. So, yeah, Duh, people are going to buy less CDs if they have the option to buy a CD or buy from iTunes than they will if they only have the choice to buy CDs.
It's like a deli that sells both ham and roast beef sandwiches complaining that they don't sell as many ham sandwiches as the deli down the street that only sells ham sandwiches. Big deal...
pop music value meals (Score:3, Interesting)
This attempt by the labels to push albums is nothing new. The last time we saw, which was only several years ago, was when they were trying to stop the sales of singles. The singles were cutting into sales of albums, and the theory was that if singles were not available, then the consumer would be more likely to buy an album.
I think the more likely aspect is the key. Wiithout singles, one might be more likley to record a song from the radio or just copy it from a freind. Even then there were albums that are so bad no one wanted anything but the same album. Not even the b-side was worht anything. With singles it was more likely all parties would be compensted for the product the consumer wants, and if we dig our heads of the artistic bigotry, when one is talking about selling a million albums, we are fundementally talking about providing a product that the student wants.
So, when singles were pulled, it was a statement that the labels would tolerate more copying in the hope they would end up with increased overall profits, even if the formula used to calculate royalties meant the perfomers and other parties recieved less. I wonder if this algebra will work out in the current climate of rampant unlicensed distribution of any hit track, not to mention much more sophiticated distribution channels for used albums. Frankly there have been way too many times lately when I have gone to iTunes hopeing to legally acquire a track, only to find it unavailable or only as an album. If it is an older album, I can get it used for much less than iTunes. If it is a new album, I soon will be able to get it used. Does this help the company bottom line?
Back to the original question. If the fast food joint only offered value meals, then a person with only a burger would cause a great deal of havok at the unfairness of the situation, disrupting bussiness. And such a person would have a point. The burger is seperate, you could sell it seperately, but you choose not to. It is simply not worth the effort, despite the clear benifits.
Dear Mr. Quirk, aka Rhapsody guy... (Score:2)
From the industry's standpoint, every single in your rental collection is available for free, because there is no downloading charge. They get the same amount of revenue if the customers download their track or not. If they delay release on your platform and force people to buy the CD instead, they have gained extra money.
Re:Dear Mr. Quirk, aka Rhapsody guy... (Score:2)
Tim Quirk, former singer for late 80s - 90s band Too Much Joy
http://www.sayhername.com/tmj.php [sayhername.com]
Great band.
Poor summary (Score:2, Insightful)
It looks to me like the record companies took a page from Microsoft's book.
How about just selling singles? (Score:3)
What it promotes is more illegal downloads... (Score:3)
Re:What it promotes is more illegal downloads... (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently had a discussion with a relative about her wanting to get some music off the net. I linked her to iTunes and Yahoo's music subscription service (ranting about DRM aside, it's what she wants; shitloads of music). She gave up in the end and just said she wanted free stuff like she used to get off Kazaa.
You cannot compete with that. If you tell most teenagers that they'd be better off paying for downloads, they'll look at you funny, laugh their asses
News Flash: Hype and delayed gratification sells! (Score:4, Informative)
Making people listen to a song on the radio without making it available for purchase means that it will hit the charts hard when it does release. Is there anyone who could possibly be surprised by this?
Correlation and Causation (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you,
Bryan
Re:Correlation and Causation (Score:2)
Apples != Oranges
You can't compare an album by one artist to another album by another artist. What if the guy who sold fewer copies just sucks more? One album by one artist is not a control group.
One Song vs Entire Album (Score:2)
Re:One Song vs Entire Album (Score:3)
The major labels pocket about 55 cents per dollar sold on iTunes, with minimal overhead. CDs have the additional costs of printing, distributing, and "breakage", as well as the reseller's cut. It looks like $1.70 [nosleep.ca] per CD is "label profit". (Though it also appears that they pocket a total of $7.00 per CD which includes money for "label overhead" and "marketing/promotion".)
Re: One Song vs Entire Album (Score:2)
What the crap? The whole point of iTunes is to get only the songs you want. Leave it to somebody to screw that up!
Heck, if they want to play that game, I'll wait for it to come out in BMG's
What about the artist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's take that arguement for a second. Ne-Yo now has around 3.7 million people with an interest in his music, while Chris Brown has around 5.4 million people interested in his music. Because artists don't make much money off cd sales, they make it on people showing up to concerts and other options they have. So who is in a more actionable position? And how much money does the artist get from an itunes album sale versus a physical sale?
I can see why the RIAA is getting upset though. The artists might actually make a buck and not need a monopoly pushing their product.
Wait, Wait (Score:3, Interesting)
Ummm bigger album sales? Digital or CD, the record companies are still selling the same damn thing. Thus it shouldn't make much of a difference if the music is sold online or otherwise.
However, if this becomes widely practiced then it begs the question of "why are cd sales preferred by the record companies?" the answer would lie in the gross profit margin. One would think that digital delivery would be cheaper as the distribution channels are "virtual" and that there are no materials involved. If cd's are preferred then cd's might have a higher margin than the downloads. Then it makes us wonder why cd's cost so much in the first place.
Hopefully this will provide more fodder for the case against the record companies and allegations of price fixing.
Think of this logic being used 10 years ago (Score:2, Insightful)
Record Artist to record label: Oh and by the way I do not want my newest album on this new format... what is it called... VD?.... LSD.... oh yea... CD... what ever it is I do not want anything to hurt my album sales.
----
iTunes is not the enemy. It is simply another delivery device to get your product to your customers. If someone buys a CD... you get money... if someone buys that same CD from iTunes.... guess what.... you get money. A
Debunk (Score:2)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EGCVK2/103-42 41130-8103063?v=glance [amazon.com]
Chris Brown
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B0WOHG/103-42 41130-8103063?v=glance [amazon.com]
Perhaps this has little to do with the low sales, but I'm sure not being on Amazon count for something.
Increased sales, but what about profits? (Score:3, Interesting)
TV Sourcemusic Songs and Opportunities Missed (Score:2)
I'd have to purchase a whole album with songs I already own (it was apparently only available on a movie soundtrack)? No thanks.
Alex.
interesting idea, WRONG TARGET AUDIENCE (Score:2)
Sick of the Song (Score:2, Insightful)
If the song is played for weeks on the radio before it is released then people are sick of it. This seems to happen with so many new singles these days, especially from the big names. They are hyped and hyped and played and played to death so much that no one wants them by the time they are released.
Too Little Data (Score:2)
Re:CD sales is not the point! (Score:2, Funny)