Category music
According ot a report that came out of Norway in the past few months, those who use P2P file sharing applications to illegaly download music are more likely to buy music than those who do not use file sharing applications. Researchers at the BI Norwegian School of Management took a sampling of almost 2,000 internet users over the age of 15, and examined their downloading habits to come to this conclusion.
First they stated that users between the ages of 15 and 20 will most likely buy downloadable music over physical CDs, which should come as no big surprise. And of those users, the ones that participated in free trading of copyrighted music were 10 times more likely to go into online services like iTunes or Amazon.com and buy music as opposed to those who did not use P2P.
The lables aren't buying into it, though. They say that music consumption has gone up, but revenues have gone down. The only way to explain this is piracy over purchasing.
What the lables are not taking into consideration by making this statement is the rules of the game have changed. The model they are used to no longer exists. When people were purchasing physical media they were purchasing the entire CD at $15 a pop. But now, people don't buy entire albums - they buy individual tracks. And the albums being produced the past few years reflect that. They try to produce a mass amount of single worthy material as opposed to an album experience. Led Zeppelin never released a single from any of their albums in the UK (their own country) and have still sold 300 million albums worldwide. But sales like that will never happen again. When you go to iTunes what are you looking for? The majority of people consume music on a song by song basis and not entire albums. Its no wonder the sales figures look different.
Another reason that the lables will never admit to as being a decline in record sales is that they are just putting out crap after crap that no one wants to hear, or are tired of hearing. How many bands can you get to dress the same and play the same sound before people just get tired of it?
These findings just support something I have always fealt. Case in point: a few years ago a friend of mine's little brother had never heard older Metallica (stuff before the Black Album). I burned him an MP3 CD of older stuff so he could check it out - equally as illegal as P2P in most cases. But this interesting thing happened afterwards... HE BOUGHT THE CDS! He liked it so much he went out and bought them. some might se this as a wash because he was just buying what I had alreay given him for free. But I didn't give him everything - only a few songs. So he liked it so much from the sample I gave him he went out and bought more.
The same ecosystem has existed for decades with fans. As a matter of fact, if Metallica's No Life Til Leather demo hadn't gotten copied a thousand times and eventually landed in the hands of some record exec they might never have gotten signed. How is THAT for irony? Fans have traded bootlegs and copies since tape recorders were invented. The bigger issue now is that we are all so connected with the internet that its easy for you to find something hosted on a machine in Turkey from your house in Van Nuys.
In the end, I think sales would go up if they stopped feeding us the same crap with every new artist that gets a record deal. And making more compelling ALBUMS instead of singles.
According ot a report that came out of Norway in the past few months, those who use P2P file sharing applications to illegaly download music are more likely to buy music than those who do not use file sharing applications. Researchers at the BI Norwegian School of Management took a sampling of almost 2,000 internet users over the age of 15, and examined their downloading habits to come to this conclusion.
First they stated that users between the ages of 15 and 20 will most likely buy downloadable music over physical CDs, which should come as no big surprise. And of those users, the ones that participated in free trading of copyrighted music were 10 times more likely to go into online services like iTunes or Amazon.com and buy music as opposed to those who did not use P2P.
The lables aren't buying into it, though. They say that music consumption has gone up, but revenues have gone down. The only way to explain this is piracy over purchasing.
What the lables are not taking into consideration by making this statement is the rules of the game have changed. The model they are used to no longer exists. When people were purchasing physical media they were purchasing the entire CD at $15 a pop. But now, people don't buy entire albums - they buy individual tracks. And the albums being produced the past few years reflect that. They try to produce a mass amount of single worthy material as opposed to an album experience. Led Zeppelin never released a single from any of their albums in the UK (their own country) and have still sold 300 million albums worldwide. But sales like that will never happen again. When you go to iTunes what are you looking for? The majority of people consume music on a song by song basis and not entire albums. Its no wonder the sales figures look different.
Another reason that the lables will never admit to as being a decline in record sales is that they are just putting out crap after crap that no one wants to hear, or are tired of hearing. How many bands can you get to dress the same and play the same sound before people just get tired of it?
These findings just support something I have always fealt. Case in point: a few years ago a friend of mine's little brother had never heard older Metallica (stuff before the Black Album). I burned him an MP3 CD of older stuff so he could check it out - equally as illegal as P2P in most cases. But this interesting thing happened afterwards... HE BOUGHT THE CDS! He liked it so much he went out and bought them. some might se this as a wash because he was just buying what I had alreay given him for free. But I didn't give him everything - only a few songs. So he liked it so much from the sample I gave him he went out and bought more.
The same ecosystem has existed for decades with fans. As a matter of fact, if Metallica's No Life Til Leather demo hadn't gotten copied a thousand times and eventually landed in the hands of some record exec they might never have gotten signed. How is THAT for irony? Fans have traded bootlegs and copies since tape recorders were invented. The bigger issue now is that we are all so connected with the internet that its easy for you to find something hosted on a machine in Turkey from your house in Van Nuys.
In the end, I think sales would go up if they stopped feeding us the same crap with every new artist that gets a record deal. And making more compelling ALBUMS instead of singles.