The ancient ones...
Paul Thurrott comments on Koleman Strumpf's recent article on file sharing and music sales:
I have my own theories about faltering music sales, most of which are based
around the notion that most music sold today simply stinks.
While I largely share his opinion, I also humbly remember my parent's comments on my music in the late seventies and early eighties, and can't escape the alternative hypothesis - I'm becoming an old fart.
I've talked to Koleman a couple of times, and while I find his methods sound his results are so unbelievable that it's hard for me to fathom. While I agree that a vast majority of piracy doesn't represent lost sales, it's hard to imagine piracy doesn't affect sales at all.
I'd suggest that his research in part shows that there is a vast amount of piracy going on outside of OpenNAP p2p services (cd burning, campus computer networks, portable USB hard drives...) that "swamps" the temporal effects of those services.
11 Comments:
This is a great observation. I wonder if one other explanation is that there is a lot more competition for entertainment out there today. People now can listen to podcasts, play video games, or watch movies, or surf the net. When you come down to it there is only so much time in the day.
*laugh* it's funny when we turn into our parents.
I have four cousins in the 13 to 18 demographic and they seem to disagree about current music "stinking", regardless of what others say. In fact we regularly trade mix CD's (damn, that's "pirating" isn't it?) and honestly I'm lucky when I can recognize more than one or two artists and I'm known for being on the edge, at least pretty close to the edge, of the music scene.
Or you can simply look at the economics of the music industry which had similarly stalled prior to the CD and then experienced great growth for more than a decade because music collections were being repurchased, because the product was more expensive to the consumer (than cassettes or LPs), and because the cost of the medium was cheaper.
In other words, they had a generation of growth that has now ceased and/or is beginning to erode.
i.e. This is an ordinary industry cycle that doesn't require a "solution."
Moreover, the industry likes to keep their numbers fuzzy and looking bad: some studies show similar, if not better, total sales and/or revenue and/or profit.
Why is it that when I made mixed tapes in high school, no one in the recording industry screamed priracy, but now that you burn tracks to a cd, ARRRGG! I am prirate?
Oh, they used to scream about mix tapes. But that was during a time when the business was growing, so it wasn't as noticable.
also, you'd make a mix tape and share it with your 3 friends. The problem now isn't cd burning, it's p2p where you share it with your 1,000,000 closest friends....
I thought you just said "that there is a vast amount of piracy going on outside of OpenNAP p2p services (cd burning, campus computer networks, portable USB hard drives...) that "swamps" the temporal effects of those services."
Now you're saying "the problem now isn't cd burning, it's p2p where you share it with your 1,000,000 closest friends....
Whatever suits your argument...
When are we getting a damn Firmware?
I can't say nothin' bout birthin' no firmwares. Not yet.
Some good ideas here on how fix the music biz.
http://www.spin.com/features/magazine/2007/02/0702_fixmusicbiz/
David said that the real problem is the vast network of "super pirates" (not those words but thats what I'm sure he meant) that sell millions of illegitimate copies of music and movies around the world. His comment regarding p2p was related to the reason why "mix tapes" did not seem to raise as big of alarm as p2p has with the industry and does not contradict his statement about illigitimate cd's being the real problem. p2p gains bigger publicity because its easy for the record industry to point to its big numbers and its new scarey technology.
The vast network of "Super Pirates" may affect global music sales but their affect on US sales aren't that significant.
Stinky music and P2P all combine to create a market in which the current music model will fail.
No one wants stinky music and no one wants to pay $15 for one song - P2P is successful. True, people may download the whole CD. However, they often go after that initial hit-song. Legal à la carte downloads are all that will save music and the industry must adapt.
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