Surprise - downloading doesn't mean nada to sales

mannybolone

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070212-8813.htmlStudy: P2P effect on legal music sales "not statistically distinguishable from zero"By Ken Fisher | Published: February 12, 2007 - 08:49AM CTA new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.Entitled "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis," the study matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe. The study compared the logs of two OpenNAP P2P servers with sales data from Nielsen SoundScan, tracking the effects of 1.75 million songs downloads on 680 different albums sold during that same period. The study then took a surprising twist. Popular music will often have both high downloads and high sales figures, so what the researchers wanted was a way to test for effects on albums sales when file-sharing activity was increased on account of something other than US song popularity. Does the occasionally increased availability of music from Germany affect US sales?The study looked at time periods when German students were on holiday after demonstrating that P2P use increases at these times. German users collectively are the #2 P2P suppliers, providing "about one out of every six U.S. downloads," according to the study. Yet the effects on American sales were not large enough to be statistically significant. Using this and several other methods, the study's authors could find no meaningful causality. The availability and even increased downloads of music on P2P networks did not correlate to a negative effect on music sales."Using detailed records of transfers of digital music files, we find that file sharing has had no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample," the study reports. "Even our most negative point estimate implies that a one-standard-deviation increase in file sharing reduces an album's weekly sales by a mere 368 copies, an effect that is too small to be statistically distinguishable from zero."The study reports that 803 million CDs were sold in 2002, which was a decrease of about 80 million from the previous year. The RIAA has blamed the majority of the decrease on piracy, and has maintained that argument in recent years as music sales have faltered. Yet according to the study, the impact from file sharing could not have been more than 6 million albums total in 2002, leaving 74 million unsold CDs without an excuse for sitting on shelves.So what's the problem with music? The study echoes many of the observations you've read here at Ars. First, because the recording industry focuses on units shipped rather than sold, the decline can be attributed in part to reduced inventory. Gone are the days when Best Buy and others wanted a ton of unsold stock sitting around, so they order less CDs. The study also highlighted the growth in DVD sales during that same period as a possible explanation for why customers weren't opening their wallets: they were busy buying DVDs.

Young_Phonics

So the reason why the major labels dudes shit really ain't selling because the majority of it really is disposable? Now, don't you feel a little foolish for ridin' for this shit 24/7 and turning your back on your O-zone/sandbox review dayz?
































(yeah that just happend)






seriously though, on that article.

mannybolone

YP,

Could be two different issues here...one is why is the music industry OVERALL in decline. The other is why rap albums don't seem to be selling. This study obviously only addresses the former not the latter and it could be that for the hip-hop industry, there's slightly different forces at play.

However, I think the general argument is that the empirical data, so far, isn't finding conclusive proof that CD sales are down b/c people are downloading more. At the very least, sales look down b/c the industry isn't doing funny style accounting anymore.

deej

seriously though, on that article.

for real - they had a two-week test when some germans went on vacation and thats supposed to mean that kids in the states weren't like "i'll just download this later"?

Here's an article for you:

By ETHAN SMITH
March 21, 2007; Page A1

In a dramatic acceleration of the seven-year sales decline that has battered the music industry, compact-disc sales for the first three months of this year plunged 20% from a year earlier, the latest sign of the seismic shift in the way consumers acquire music.

The sharp slide in sales of CDs, which still account for more than 85% of music sold, has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads, which were supposed to have been the industry's salvation.



The slide stems from the confluence of long-simmering factors that are now feeding off each other, including the demise of specialty music retailers like longtime music mecca Tower Records. About 800 music stores, including Tower's 89 locations, closed in 2006 alone.

Apple Inc.'s sale of around 100 million iPods shows that music remains a powerful force in the lives of consumers. But because of the Internet, those consumers have more ways to obtain music now than they did a decade ago, when walking into a store and buying it was the only option.

Today, popular songs and albums -- and countless lesser-known works -- can be easily found online, in either legal or pirated forms. While the music industry hopes that those songs will be purchased through legal services like Apple's iTunes Store, consumers can often listen to them on MySpace pages or download them free from other sources, such as so-called MP3 blogs.

Jeff Rabhan, who manages artists and music producers including Jermaine Dupri, Kelis and Elliott Yamin, says CDs have become little more than advertisements for more-lucrative goods like concert tickets and T-shirts. "Sales are so down and so off that, as a manager, I look at a CD as part of the marketing of an artist, more than as an income stream," says Mr. Rabhan. "It's the vehicle that drives the tour, the merchandise, building the brand, and that's it. There's no money."

The music industry has found itself almost powerless in the face of this shift. Its struggles are hardly unique in the media world. The film, TV and publishing industries are also finding it hard to adapt to the digital age. Though consumers are exposed to more media in more ways than ever before, the challenge for media companies is finding a way to make money from all that exposure. Newspaper publishers, for example, are finding that their Internet advertising isn't growing fast enough to replace the loss of traditional print ads.

In recent weeks, the music industry has posted some of the weakest sales it has ever recorded. This year has already seen the two lowest-selling No. 1 albums since Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales, was launched in 1991.

One week, "American Idol" runner-up Chris Daughtry's rock band sold just 65,000 copies of its chart-topping album; another week, the "Dreamgirls" movie soundtrack sold a mere 60,000. As recently as 2005, there were many weeks when such tallies wouldn't have been enough to crack the top 30 sellers. In prior years, it wasn't uncommon for a No. 1 record to sell 500,000 or 600,000 copies a week.

In general, even today's big titles are stalling out far earlier than they did a few years ago.

The music industry has been banking on the rise of digital music to compensate for inevitable drops in sales of CDs. Apple's 2003 launch of its iTunes Store was greeted as a new day in music retailing, one that would allow fans to conveniently and quickly snap up large amounts of music from limitless virtual shelves.

It hasn't worked out that way -- at least so far. Digital sales of individual songs this year have risen 54% from a year earlier to 173.4 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But that's nowhere near enough to offset the 20% decline from a year ago in CD sales to 81.5 million units. Overall, sales of all music -- digital and physical -- are down 10% this year. And even including sales of ringtones, subscription services and other "ancillary" goods, sales are still down 9%, according to one estimate; some recording executives have privately questioned that figure, which was included in a recent report by Pali Research.

Meanwhile, one billion songs a month are traded on illegal file-sharing networks, according to BigChampagne LLC.

Adding to the music industry's misery, CD prices have fallen amid pressure for cheaper prices from big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and others. That pressure is feeding through to record labels' bottom lines. As the market has deteriorated, Warner Music Group Corp., which reported a 74% drop in profits for the fourth quarter of 2006, is expected to report little relief in the first quarter of this year.

Looking at unit sales alone "flatters the situation," says Simon Wright, chief executive of Virgin Entertainment Group International, which runs 14 Virgin Megastores locations in North America and 250 world-wide. "In value terms, the market's down 25%, probably." Virgin's music sales have increased slightly this year, he says, thanks to the demise of chief competitor Tower, and to a mix of fashion and "lifestyle" products designed to attract customers.

Perhaps the biggest factor in the latest chapter of the music industry's struggle is the shakeout among music retailers. As recently as a decade ago, specialty stores like Tower Records were must-shop destinations for fans looking for both big hits and older catalog titles. But retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Best Buy Co. took away the hits business by undercutting the chains on price. Today such megaretailers represent about 65% of the retail market, up from 20% a decade ago, music-distribution executives estimate. And digital-music piracy, which has been rife since the rise of the original Napster file-sharing service, has allowed many would-be music buyers to fill their CD racks or digital-music players without ever venturing into a store.

Late last year, Tower Records closed its doors, after filing for bankruptcy-court protection in August. Earlier in 2006, following a bankruptcy filing, Musicland Holding Corp., which owned the Sam Goody chain, closed 500 of its 900 locations. And recently, Trans World Entertainment Corp., which operates the FYE and Coconuts chains, among others, began closing 134 of its 1,087 locations.

But even at the outlets that are still open, business has suffered. Executives at Trans World, based in Albany, N.Y., told analysts earlier this month that sales of music at its stores declined 14% in the last quarter of 2006. For the year, music represented just 44% of the company's sales, down from 54% in 2005. For the final quarter of the year, music represented just 38% of its sales.

Joe Nardone Jr., who owns the independent 10-store Gallery of Sound chain in Pennsylvania, says he is trying to make up for declining sales of new music by emphasizing used CDs, which he calls "a more consistent business." For now, though, he says used discs represent less than 10% of his business -- not nearly enough to offset the declines.

Retailers and others say record labels have failed to deliver big sellers. And even the hits aren't what they used to be. Norah Jones's "Not Too Late" has sold just shy of 1.1 million copies since it was released six weeks ago. Her previous album, "Feels Like Home," sold more than 2.2. million copies in the same period after its 2004 release.

"Even when you have a good release like Norah Jones, maybe the environment is so bad you can't turn it around," says Richar d Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Research.

Meanwhile, with music sales sliding for the first time even at some big-box chains, Best Buy has been quietly reducing the floor space it dedicates to music, according to music-distribution executives.

Whether Wal-Mart and others will follow suit isn't clear, but if they do it could spell more trouble for the record companies. The big-box chains already stocked far fewer titles than did the fading specialty retailers. As a result, it is harder for consumers to find and purchase older titles in stores.

Write to Ethan Smith at [email]ethan.smith@wsj.com1

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DOR

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/professional-pirate-p2p-is-killing-piracy-245352.php

DOR

http://consumerist.com/consumer/drm/how-i-became-a-music-pirate-245644.php



How I Became A Music Pirate

"I thought I was the music industry's dream consumer.

As a 40 year old male with a long-standing passion for "all things music," I've spent a bundle on my collection. In college most of my waking hours were spent wandering around record stores, swap meets and record conventions, much to the dismay of the women I was ostensibly dating. Then again, the fact that I also worked as a DJ at the radio station and hung out with obsessive record collector types probably didn't help matters in the romance department.

Then while in grad school in the 1990s, I became busy replacing many of my vinyl releases with CD's. At the same time, entrepreneurial music industry types began to exploit the market for out-of-print recordings by reissuing long out-of-print records on CD formats, which of course I instantly snapped up.

So here I sit circa 2007 with a house filled with over 1000 vinyl records and around 800 CD's. If you figure about $12 per recording as an accurate average, that's somewhere around $20,000. Not a bad chunk of change for the music business, I say.

Last week while I was busy importing my CD's into iTunes so I could listen to them on my iPod (a most tedious task), I hopped on the internet. iTunes was busy importing a Luna CD, one of my favorite bands, so I decided to see what they were up to since they disbanded a few years back. After a few clicks in Google, I found a blog site describing a posthumous, internet-only release of a collection of covers the band had recorded throughout their career. While I already had many of the songs (they were often featured on b-sides and imported singles, etc.), I couldn't resist tracking down this compilation. As I read further on the blog site I encountered a link to a .zip file containing the entire collection ripped as 128kbps mp3's.

While I must admit being tempted to simply click away and download the collection, I though to myself, "Well, if I buy the music it's only $10, and this way I will get high quality .WAV files. Besides, it's not like Luna were getting rich off of their careers, they could use the money..."

So I headed to Rhino's online store, purchased the music, and downloaded the files.

A little later that evening, I tried to move the .WMA files into iTunes, when I received an error message telling me that iTunes could not import them because they were copy protected. I downloaded the files again (which took another 12 minutes) and again, the same message.

So I called Rhino customer support and after an 8 minute wait spoke with a representative. She informed me that the files were indeed copy protected so that I could only play them on specific music players, most notably not iTunes.

"You don't understand," I said, "These files were not copied or pirated, I actually purchased them."

"Well" she responded, "You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to."

Now I was baffled. "Records never came with any such restrictions," I said.

She replied, "Well they were supposed to, but we weren't able to enforce those licenses back then, and now we can"

She later went on to explain that I could burn the songs to a CD and listen to them in a regular CD player, but I would need an additional Windows based music player to listen to them on my computer. But either way, she suggested there was no way the files could be played on my iPod.

Frustrated, I hung up and began my search for a Windows application to allow me to burn the music to a CD. After downloading Nero and firing it up, imagine my frustration when I receive another error message telling me it cannot locate the licenses for the music I purchased.

I call Rhino again, and this time speak to a young male CSR. He explains that I need updated licenses in order to burn the music and often the problem is that many firewalls will allow the music to pass through the firewall, but not the licenses because of their encryption schemes. Lest you think I am exaggerating, I included below the following text from their website (apparently this is a big enough problem that it warrants mentioning in their FAQ):

1. Temporarily disable all firewall and pop-up blocker software you may be running on your computer.

2. Attempt the download again

If the Licensing portion of the download is still hanging, please update the Digital Rights Management (DRM) component on your computer via the following URL: http://drmlicense.one.microsoft.com/Indivsite/indivit2.htm

The friendly CSR representative then suggests that I try once more to download the files and licenses and if I still have no luck to try accessing the internet from other providers such as a local coffee shop, library, or work computer.

"Basically, just keep downloading the music until you find a gateway that let's your licenses through without problems"

While I would like to say I responded with something witty, I must admit to being completely flummoxed. There I sat, a loyal music fan who has shelled out actual money to a business that is supposed to be having financial problems, and the best they can do is tell me to wander the streets of Seattle looking for different internet providers who might allow me to download the music that I have already paid for, music that I have spent the better part of three house trying to listen to, and which is still unusable?

How on earth have things come to this?!?!?!

Honestly, if this is the best you can do, you're business is in really, really serious trouble.

I mean, could you imagine the consumer response if Coke could only be consumed from specific Coke-approved equipment, and then only in the specific ways that the folks at Coke wanted the product to be consumed. "drinking Coke with fast food is no problem, but we must warn you that your license forbids the mixing of Coke with any alcoholic beverages..."

In the end, I never was able to get the music to play on anything--my computer, on a CD or on my iPod. I invested $10, several hours of my time, and my reward was, well, nothing.

I'd like to say I was outraged, but in the end I must admit to feeling remarkably sad and deflated over the whole process. See, the thing is, I was raised on music. I was saved by music. I (used to) live for music. Lester Bangs wasn't my idol, he was my soul mate (in a matter of speaking).

I've devoted a not-inconsequential chunk of my life to collecting music; to tracking down obscure records, cassettes, 8-Tracks and CD's of all genres and styles. And now apparently that is all but over. Music has somehow evolved from tangible things into amorphous collections of 1's and 0's guarded over by interested parties as if they were gold bullion. How so very sad.

I would like to think that someone at a place like Rhino would care enough to not let these kinds of things happen. But alas, my suspicion is that anyone who would have been cool enough to work at Rhino in their heyday some twenty years ago would never be so callous, foolish or shallow to allow these kind of absurdities to occur.

Since I've resigned myself not to waste any more time with the music business, I suppose I'll have to resort to purchasing used CD's & records, or having my friends occasionally make me a copy of one of their newer CD's.

Call it piracy. Call it whatever you want. But at least I tried. I gave you several chances and y ou failed miserably at every level."

Jarrett

kicks79

That article touches really well on whats wrong with the music industry today total contempt for the customer. I think the other main reason sales are down is the people are tired of being served up crap dressed up as music. If it was classic and timeless product people are still going to cop the cd or record. However so much of the new music these days is stright up garbage that has no shelf life at all. If the majors addressed the calibure of the so called talent that they have signed to them then they might actually start selling some records again.

twoply

I've read a couple of studies from around 2002-2004 which say the same thing: file-sharing is not a grave threat to the music industry. If you go to the RIAA website, you can download .pdf files of CD sales (in "units shipped") and compare by year. Sales began to go down after 2000-2001, at the same time the entire economy began to slump. Meanwhile, retail CD prices have been creeping up, offsetting much of the lost revenue.

The one area where there might be more of a realistic argument against file-sharing is the CD singles market. From what I remember, CD singles were hit fairly hard after Napster, Kazaa, AudioGalaxy, et al showed up on the scene.

JLR

AudioGalaxy

How I loved that little batch. It even worked at work.

twoply

AudioGalaxy

How I loved that little batch. It even worked at work.

I couldn't remember the name of it for a long time, but it was definitely one of my favorites. I used Grokster too for a little while. There was another gnutella p2p that started with an "M," but I can't remember the name. Was it Morpheus? Something like that.

canonical

I'd be more interested in seeing the impact downloading had on indy/small labels.

Brian

I'd be more interested in seeing the impact downloading had on indy/small labels.

i would not be suprised if i saw less sales but bigger turnout for tours

DOR

The eMusic Story

"eMusic is the world???s largest retailer of independent music and the world???s second-largest digital music retailer overall,[/b] offering more than 2 million tracks from more than 13,000 independent labels spanning every genre of music. A subscription-based service that allows consumers to own, not rent their music,[/b] eMusic is the largest service to sell tracks in the popular MP3 format ??? the only digital music format that is compatible with all digital music devices, including the iPod??. eMusic targets and successfully direct-markets to consumers who are interested in music outside the commercial mainstream, dramatically expanding the sale of catalogue typically known as "the long tail." Since Dimensional Associates acquired eMusic in 2003, the company has more than tripled its subscriber base."

davesrecords

I'd be more interested in seeing the impact downloading had on mix tapes/compilations

DOR

Interesting read on the digital singles effect.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/200...les-effect.html


"The music industry quaked yesterday as reports surfaced indicating that CD sales have plummeted 20 percent compared to the same period last year. This is just the latest a string of bad news for music sales going back several years. The question is, what's to blame?

The Wall Street Journal, which brought news of the decline, correctly notes that the demise of the boutique music store has certainly played a role in this. 800 stores closed in 2006, according to the Journal. Of course, those stores closed for a reason: they weren't selling enough music to stay profitable. Still, the effect on total sales would be hard to dismiss.

All the while, legal downloads continued to grow, but so far the focus from analysts and the press has been on how legal downloads have failed to "fill the revenue gap" created by the shortfall in traditional CD sales. What deserves further examination, however, is whether legal downloads are causing that shortfall. We do believe that they play a significant role in the music industry's current situation.

This quarter, 81.5 million CDs will be sold. While that's down 20 percent from the same period last year, digital singles sold by the likes of Apple's iTunes store grew 54 percent, to account for 175 million songs sold. In other words, the quantity of downloaded songs far outweighs the quantity of CDs sold as a whole. How many of those purchases are "singles," as opposed to digital album sales conducted online or subscription downloads?

Last year the industry saw about $2 billion in revenues from online music sales, and nearly $800 million of that stemmed from single-track sales, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's report. That leads me to estimate that at least 40 percent of sales are singles, which means that this quarter we could see something in the range of 70 million "singles" sold digitally.

The question is: how often does a consumer opt to buy just one or two songs off an album rather than buy the whole thing? This phenomenon must affect the top of the music charts quite viciously. I know I'm reluctant to buy an album, especially anything approaching a "hit album," unless I know that there's more than 2 to 3 songs on it that I like. Otherwise, I don't want to take the "risk."

But to answer the question of how often, let's just estimate based on what limited information we have. Given the estimate of 70 million digital singles, we could say that the ratio between consumers buying digital songs and entire CDs is approximately 1:1.22. That's quite a leveling. If my estimates have been conservative, the balance may be tipped even more in favor of digital singles.

Whereas years ago most consumers would drop their hard-earned cash on a whole album just to get "Tom's Diner," that same song can now be had for a buck. In other words, the business is changing. Legal downloads are on the rise, physical CD sales are on the decline, and consumers appear eager to purchase digital singles. Even if they're not just buying one or two songs off an album, that prudence can be devastating to CD album sales. Generally speaking, it takes 10 songs to reach the cost of an "album" (if generalized to $10), so even someone buying a handful of songs off an album leaves a "revenue gap" compared to a whole album sale.

There are certainly more factors involved in this than just the sale of digital singles. Competition with other forms of entertainment, such as the Internet, is also eating into both music and television. Many of our readers also cite a declining quality in music from the major labels.

But it goes without saying that the industry will blame much of this decline on P2P file sharing. Studies have thrown considerable doubt on the actual effects of music piracy, though, with one recent study arguing that its effects are "not statistically distinguishable from zero." It's worth considering other causes for this decline."

Flomotion

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070212-8813.html

Study: P2P effect on legal music sales "not statistically distinguishable from zero"

By Ken Fisher | Published: February 12, 2007 - 08:49AM CT

A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.

Nothing new here, it's just the majors that have been crying crocodile tears. Look at unit sales and rights monies accrued over the last five years - consistently up year on year in a big way.

Reynaldo

Aha!

volumen

Recording companies have themselves to blame. For years the executives have been saying "I don't here the hit single" to artists. Now consumers are saying "I don't here an album worth buying" to the executives.

Bsides

right, yall can make excuses so you can feel better about downloading everything. but the fact remains that shit is killing the music industry. I do it too, so im not pointing any fingers, but lets stop bullshitting.

HAZ

right, yall can make excuses so you can feel better about downloading everything. but the fact remains that shit is killing the music industry. I do it too, so im not pointing any fingers, but lets stop bullshitting.

ariel_calmer

right, yall can make excuses so you can feel better about downloading everything. but the fact remains that shit is killing the music industry. I do it too, so im not pointing any fingers, but lets stop bullshitting.

This isn't really about "making excuses" - the connection between music downloaders and music sales is tenuous. If a finger should be pointed, it should be at the industry, suing fans, putting stock in faulty DRMs, setting price points too high, and generally being dinosaurs in the business world.

PS the author says the article is "new." Not really - It's been an influential (oft-cited) but unpublished study for several years.

Fatback

This isn't really about "making excuses" - the connection between music downloaders and music sales is tenuous. If a finger should be pointed, it should be at the industry, suing fans, putting stock in faulty DRMs, setting price points too high, and generally being dinosaurs in the business world.

AMEN.

Jonny_Paycheck

I disagree that there is more crap on the market than ever. One look through some old radio and sales charts from the past 30 years will tell you, there has been a ton of crap at the top of the chart for pretty much as long as any of us have been alive.

sticky_dojah

I disagree that there is more crap on the market than ever. One look through some old radio and sales charts from the past 30 years will tell you, there has been a ton of crap at the top of the chart for pretty much as long as any of us have been alive.

Good point, with emphasis on the chart(s). Nowadays every tommyrapalot and their myspacepage is bombing you with bulletins, invitations and "new tracks on my page, please leave feedback". Not that this is related to sales or why sales suffer, there is just much more music out there and although in the vinyl market, sales have been rather steady with a slight increase over the last years, there are more and more labels with more and more artists pressing up vinyl. Which leaves fewer sales per release. It's just too much. But agreed, the crap is not neccessarily on the market, i.e. charts, it is just out there. Everywhere. Everyone is an entity now and "taking over the game" and about "to make moves". I don't even have the time to listen to all these mixtapes if I wanted to. And I don't think it is neccessary.

33thirdcom

right, yall can make excuses so you can feel better about downloading everything. but the fact remains that shit is killing the music industry. I do it too, so im not pointing any fingers, but lets stop bullshitting.

This isn't really about "making excuses" - the connection between music downloaders and music sales is tenuous. If a finger should be pointed, it should be at the industry, suing fans, putting stock in faulty DRMs, setting price points too high, and generally being dinosaurs in the business world.

PS the author says the article is "new." Not really - It's been an influential (oft-cited) but unpublished study for several years.

Exactly. Its the majors fault for giving up their format. They allowed outside Tech companies to develop their own DRM's and methods for music distribution instead of the Music Industry taking an active role in creating the system. Add to that the ability of the downloader to preview and album and decide that they only want the two radio singles off of it rather than having to buy the whole album. one 99cent track per album is obiously not going to yield even close to the same revenue that charging $8-$9 wholesale for a CD that cost $1 to make. The industry's whole business plan is ass backwards and unfortunately being the monolith that it has turned into they are going to be playing catch up for a long long time, if they ever recover.

33thirdcom

Also the retail side of music has changed as well on the retailer side and alot of the older mom and pop as well major retailers just never were able to or did not want to change their business plan to fit into the changing marketplace. But then again if you have owned a mom and pop for 20 years and were used to making x amount per day/week/month and saw that fall flat in a matter of a few years who can blame you for closing up instead of completely revamping? After a good 20 year run I don't know if I would want to make that kind of major business change.

Fatback

OK, then it must be me? Too old? Jaded? Fuck, I don't know? But I have enough music right now to last me the rest of my life. Maybe that's it?

I used to keep up with new music. Seriously. I'd read several mags and buy at least 2 CDs a week--usually more.

Sometime around 2000, I stopped buying and giving a fuck. I also started to hate CDs on sound quality issues, but also feeling very ripped the fuck off at $15+ a pop.

I have never downloaded music except occasional mixes off blogs (and here). I still buy an occasional new 12" if I am DJing in bars/clubs that require it. I have Microwave, but I hate it. Sounds like garbage.

I have complete contempt for the music industry. It's just a gut feeling and I have no "empirical" support for it. I don't belong here.

I like records.

twoply

but also feeling very ripped the fuck off at $15+ a pop.

I'm regularly seeing new CDs I want priced at $18-20 now. Sales dropped when the economy dropped, and labels responded by raising prices. If that doesn't discourage buying I don't know what will.

DOR

but also feeling very ripped the fuck off at $15+ a pop.

I'm regularly seeing new CDs I want priced at $18-20 now. Sales dropped when the economy dropped, and labels responded by raising prices. If that doesn't discourage buying I don't know what will.

Agreed.

I was in HMV awhile back looking at classic Hip Hop CD's. Since most of those are "imports" (Laughable since I live in Canada and majors have a huge presence in my country, as well as getting alot of stuff manufactured up here) they were asking 28-35 bucks a pop. Seriously... Fuck that...