Music industry in trouble

Good article except for one glaring mistake.
Every iPod can play MP3s
 
I'd be interested to see if any of the labels bottom lines had suffered. Are these guys headed for bankruptcy because the last I heard there was little correlation between music downloaded and the loss of a genuine sale.
The lack of interoperability between the hugely popular but rival digital devices of Apple Computer's iPod and the universally compatible MP3 players is one.
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Dont sell heavily drm'ed music and it wont be a problem.
 
The other is the on-going battle throughout the digital, consumer electronics and music worlds about whether music should be made available without any DRM coding that prevents illegal copying but stops consumers from running downloaded music on rival technologies.
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One thing these idiots don't seem to understand is that if you make it impossible for some markets to buy selected music legally then these same markets will seek other avenues to get this material i.e. even the illegal ones.

The key difference between itunes, zune and other "russian" music sites is accessibility. Itunes / Zune, ... restrict (DRM) who can buy and the "russian" guys allow anyone. Yes although admittedly the "russian" guys are illegal, but what choice does a consumer "in a country rejected by itunes / zune, ..." that wants to buy a single song from a CD "that as a whole is crap" have?

Also what's with the delay in releasing DVD and CDs in SA at the same time as European and USA. If you delay the release of material to a country then you allow the pirates to get there first; do you really think us "3rd world-ers" want to wait an extra 6 months or more? Again you present us with a dilemma, to be legal and wait or go on the Internet and watch it now?

And by the way not everyone likes going to the cinemas; I would much rather sit at home with my big screen TV and watch a high quality version of the movie. Surely your revenues earned through DVD are more substantial, so why delay? Consider the gaming markets, generally content matching the movie hits our shores way before the actual movie, and guess what the gaming industry is performing much better than the movie and music industries; why? Simple don't make the customer wait; remember that no-one likes old goods or old news...

Surely these idiots can also see that any controls / restrictions on who can buy and when certain markets can buy is not good for business i.e. revenues.

So my advice to this industry is to stop wingeing and fix the problem; make your product more accessible + affordable and don't differentiate between any market i.e. business is business or money is money, no matter where it comes from...
 
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Fdor some reason I can't even bedgin to feel sorry for them. Mayb they should start looking at the podssibiity that people don't actually attach such a great value on dmusic, as it used to be. There are so many alternative forms of entertainment out there, and obviously a limited cash flow to buy what you want. Choices need to be made, gratifdication from playing the latest video game with your friends, getting that classic DVD, or getting the latest CD...
 
I, personally, stopped downloading illegal music. At one point I was so saturated with music, that it lost all relevance.

Now I only buy CD's and the music that I download are all under the creative commons license. It's music I want to listen to, and it doesn't have DRM slapped onto it.
 
no matter what people will still want it for free!
 
I walked into a CD store on Saturday, with every intention of buying something.

However, nothing I wanted was under R160 (and I'm talking about regular single CD's). I was just too sickened to actually lay out the cash. Sorry - they're going to have to come down to planet earth before I become their customer again.

Edit: I would just like to add that I am pretty much a music enthusiast, and have an *extensive* purchased CD collection. However, it's not going to be growing until the prices become viable again. I WILL find alternative sources of entertainment if needs be. Digital downloads don't interest me unless they are compressed using lossless codecs.
 
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The fact that iTunes shopping is not available in SA could have more to do with SARS than with Apple. Government wants it's tax share. But I may be wrong.

Pirate music really hurts our local musicians (and I hope all here buy legal music produced by our local artists/bands) - but somehow I don't feel anything for the big international record companies that have milked consumers dry for decades. A new dispensation is long overdue.
 
The cynic in me wonders if the industry isn't actually doing darned well, and if these carefully compiled reports aren't excuses to push through some truly nasty legislation (in the interests of enhancing their bloodsucking weaponry).
 
Downloads not responsible for shrinking revenue

Both independent research and my own personal experience have shown that illegal downloads are not the reason for shrinking music sales. What the music industry does not take into account is that DVD sales have risen sharply. This is money people used to spend on cds.

But the other reason people do not fork out money on cds is that they are too expensive. There is just no value for money in cds. Also, most music today is throw away crap. A cd will contain, perhaps, two good singles and the rest of it you just don't care to listen to.

I only by DVD audio or super audio cds because of the surround sound and heigtened clarity they offer, but I no longer spend money on ordinary cds. They just are not worth it.

Of course, dont expect the RIAA to admit to that anytime soon.
 
hexagon said:
The cynic in me wonders if the industry isn't actually doing darned well, and if these carefully compiled reports aren't excuses to push through some truly nasty legislation (in the interests of enhancing their bloodsucking weaponry).
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WMD in Iraq???
 
Yes I think they are overplaying the stats. They blame it on piracy, but they are steering clear of a very impending disaster. What is preventing an artist from selling a track directly on Itunes? The moment that happens, the money makers in the music industry crashes.

The other fact is that the music industry is being outcompeted by the other media. I find myself not using my MP3 enabled phone to listen to music, but use it to listen to podcasts, read email newsletters and RSS feeds. Video and text is replacing audio as a preferred medium for entertainment.

I have got a extensive 500CD+ collection of music. 90% of it bought from the R10/20 bins. That is the problem with CD's, too expensive.

The other problem with all the traditional providers is that the internet is revolutionizing content distribution. With Bittorrent you can distribute almost any file of any size at almost zero infrastructure costs, anywhere in the world instantly. Why did the MP3 bite into the CD market, not because it was free, because it was so convenient Anyone with an extensive CD collection at some stage converted it to mp3 for convenience. Clicking on any of your 15000 tracks in winamp is so much easier than having to swap CD's every 15min's. All my CD's are now pack away in boxes, never to be used again.

Catch up with the technology, before google/apple/youtube/WoW/"joe public" out innovates you.
 
Sapphiron said:
Catch up with the technology, before google/apple/youtube/WoW/"joe public" out innovates you.
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Naaaah... the RIAA is too stuck in their old ways... they won't because if they do, then they'll lose most of their income.

Very well - let them be... after all, if the artists wake up and smell the coffee, then what will be left for them to take?

Relics of a bygone era, they will soon be extinct like the dinosaurs of old.

First there was Jurassic Park.

Then Boerassic Park.

Now RIAAsic Park... :D



Refer to this thread for some information on the RIAA's sneaky tactics.
 
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