January 23, 2012 by A.S. Van Dorston

I’ve been beating this drum for over a decade, but apparently the point still needs to be hammered home. The issue isn’t that people only want certain songs on an album. The point is that people know there is no reason they should have to pay $15 for a digital album when they’re not paying for manufacture, distribution and resale of physical product. Price the albums reasonably ($5 to $8), make them available in lossless and not just via the iTunes/Amazon monopoly, market properly and they’d see a big increase in sales. Not that the industry is hurting any.

The article below got one thing wrong in that according to the Nielsen/Billboard Industry, 2011 was the highest grossing year for overall music sales EVER at 1.6 billion. I’m not sure where he got the figures that it’s at $6.3 billion down from $14.4 billion in 1999.

“More damaging is the control the major labels lost over the marketing process. A look at Amazon’s top albums in sales is instructive, if anecdotal — as of this writing, the best-selling album in Amazon’s MP3 Store is Ben Folds Five’s “Whatever and Ever Amen,” which came out nearly fifteen years ago. Number five, “Sigh No More” by Mumford and Sons, has been on the Top 100 for nearly two years. Equally instructive: the price. Want to get on the Top 100 on Amazon? Keep it under $10. $5 and lower and you’re golden.”

Pop Didn’t Eat Itself: Why Piracy Didn’t Destroy the Music Industry

It’s a jolting figure: the US music industry is making less than half of what it made at its 1999 peak of $14.4 billion. It currently makes about $6.3 billion. Why did it drop so fast? Piracy, right?
Wrong. First of all, a fun little fact: that $6.3 billion figure is only album sales. Not ringtones, not licensing rights, not merchandise sales, none of that is included. Why don’t they include that? Because then you’d know they’re still making between $9 and $10 billion. Read more: http://www.uproxx.com/technology/2011/10/pop-didnt-eat-itself-why-piracy-didnt-destroy-the-music-industry/#ixzz21wRWhcbg

Posted in: Rants, Reposts