Game, DVD Sales Hurting Music Industry More Than Downloads 223
Aguazul writes with this excerpt from the Guardian:
"The music industry likes to insist that filesharing — aka illegal downloading — is killing the industry; that every one of the millions of music files downloaded each day counts as a 'lost' sale, which if only it could somehow have been prevented would put stunning amounts of money into impoverished artists' hands. ... If you even think about it, it can't be true. People — even downloaders — only have a finite amount of money. In times gone by, sure, they would have been buying vinyl albums. But if you stopped them downloading, would they troop out to the shops and buy those songs? I don't think so. I suspect they're doing something different. I think they're spending the money on something else. What else, I mused, might they be buying? The first clue of where all those downloaders are really spending their money came in searching for games statistics: year after year ELSPA had hailed 'a record year.' In fact ... games spending has risen dramatically — from £1.18bn in 1999 to £4.03bn in 2008. Meanwhile music spending has gone from £1.94bn to £1.31bn."
Who would have thought? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who would win in a fight? (Score:3, Insightful)
no one
Re:Who would win in a fight? (Score:3, Insightful)
ah you're wrong...
One of them would win, some times one, some times the other...
but the loser will always be the consumer.
the interesting part is that in a proper market, the consumer would be the winner when there's increased competition.
flawed logic (Score:5, Insightful)
The article claims:
1- consumers buy games/DVDs over the latest music album
2- consumers don't have enough money for music
3- consumers download music
Based on their evidence, though, you could also conclude:
1- consumers download music
2- consumers still have money
3- consumers buy games/DVDs with saved money
Don't get me wrong. I don't think that downloading a song==lost sale, but I don't think the evidence stated necessarily means that people are choosing games/DVDs over music.
One thing that is not really debatable is that the music industry business model is outdated, overgrown with middlemen, and on it's way out. And the end won't come soon enough.
Don't forget Disney... (Score:4, Insightful)
The rise of zero personality manufacturer bands (The Jonas Brothers... like the Monkees but with out the hard cutting edge) and their cult of multiple product selling surely also has to be responsible. Its not just Games and DVDs its the fact that for a given "star" you can get pens, pencils, school bags, DVDs, 3D Movies and all manner of other crap. Their objective almost isn't to sell the music its just to sell the image and then have people buy lots of things with that image.
Dora the Explorer has as much credibility as these bands and is focused on a similar financial plan.
Meanwhile good bands seem to be going into the live tour set up more and more and being less worried about CDs. So what is killing CDs is that at the crap end people are flogging pens and school bags and at the good end its about the live gigs. Meaning that if you want entertainment at home you go for DVDs (because the Cinema is a rip-off) or Games (where you get to do more of what you want).
The music industry has killed the CD by focusing on bag sales and forcing decent artists to focus (thank god) on live gigs.
Re:The magic of Blu-Ray! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yay, get your favorite artists entire catalog at 96kHz on a single disk.
Except that's not what they'll do. They'll put the same recordings as on the CD, and then fill the rest of the disk with ads.
As much as I would like to believe this (Score:4, Insightful)
As much as I would like to believe this, the mantra still applies:
correlation != causation. (and I'm not even sure there's enough data to establish for the former)
No more expensive singles or album sales (Score:3, Insightful)
because you can get the one song you like off of iTunes/amazon/whatever. Why always start from the assumption that it must be illegal activity that is adversely affecting sales.
The legal marketplace has changed to benefit the consumer economically, by not gouging them for $6/15 for a single/album respectively, now they can get what they wanted for around a $1. Some will buy more music but many others will move that savings to other avenues of entertainment.
People need to recognize what business they're in (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems so obvious it amazes me how many higher ups in these industries fail to recognize that they're not in the record business, or the video game business, or the film business. They're in the entertainment business. If you're going to make it a pain in the ass to purchase your music or to watch your movie, I'm just as happy to spend my time reading a book, or surfing the Internet, or playing a video game. 99% of the time I'm not even going to bother trying to hunt down a pirated copy, because quite frankly I'd rather just spend that time being entertained by one of the other numerous options I have available to me. You're not competing for my money, you're competing for my time, and you're competing against everything else I can possibly find to fill it with. The sooner these businesses learn this the easier they'll find it to get my money.
Re:The magic of Blu-Ray! (Score:4, Insightful)
Blu-Ray == fail. Anybody who buys Blu-Ray media will go the way of the schmucks who blew thousands of dollars on Laserdiscs. Every game I've ever bought has either been on cassette tape, 5.25" or 3.5" floppies, downloaded, CD-ROM, or DVD, and every movie I've ever bought has been on VHS tape or DVD. When Blu-Ray drives cost $19.95, can be made by anybody, and the Blu-Ray disc section is bigger than the DVD section, then let's talk.
BluRay is penetrating at double the rate DVD did. [highdefdigest.com]
So.... how's that HD-DVD player working out for you?
Could we get a "duh" tag? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is the main target audience for popular music (i.e. the staple of the music industry)? Teenagers. Now, teenagers have a bit more pocket money today than they did in the 80s and 90s, inflation sure took care of that, but they also have a lot more to spend it on.
I was a teenager in the 80s and 90s. What was there for us to spend our pocket money on? Music. Fashion. Junk food. Umm... Arcades, maybe. Besides that... umm... I'm open for suggestions, but that's what my friends spent their dough on (for me it was computer games, but that was me...).
Today, you have cell phones (and the various services that come with it, from ringtones to games), you have computer games, MMOs with their recurring subscriptions, Trading Card games, you have all sorts of markets geared either exclusively at teenagers or at least aiming heavily for them.
The music industry simply has to share the market with others.
News Flash: (Score:5, Insightful)
Business model: FAIL (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:News Flash: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hear hear.
After 20+ years of Rap & Hip Hop who else is ready for something with a bit of tune to it?
Yeah, I said it.
No, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've said this for a while.
People only have a finite amount of money. What the music industry has failed to grasp is that it no longer has a near monopoly on entertainment that it shared with the likes of the movie industry for the decades before the internet. It now has to compete with a bigger set of movies than ever before, it has to compete with the games industry and really for teenagers it even has to compete with things like text message costs and so on.
The music industry isn't in competition with piracy, it's in competition with every other form of entertainment expenditure out there. The only way to win that battle is how you would win a single industry battle - provide the most attractive product.
When people can buy their computer games, say, Rock Band, and get their music as part of that, they'll be less inclined to buy the music alone.
The same goes for those developers complaining about people pirating their games but if people can only afford one game, they'll buy the best game, that doesn't stop them wanting to play the other game though, they simply don't have money for both, so they'll buy the better one and pirate the not so good one.
It's simple business competition through and through - again, make a good product and you'll get your fair share of sales from people who think your product is the one worth paying for. Try and sell people crap, or try and sell people the same thing multiple times in multiple formats and don't be suprised when it's not your product they choose to spend their money on.
I'm sure some people will try to argue it's immoral that people do this and that's a fair enough argument, but arguing the morality of it doesn't change the reality of it and anyone with any business sense would realise that and make sure their business factors it in and produces a product good enough to get their share of the finite pool of consumer cash out there.
Re:News Flash: (Score:5, Insightful)
Give me a break. If you're listening solely to the radio, yes, you're going to be disappointed (and even disgusted) at what's there. But if you actually spend a bit of time looking, you can find some really great artists. Music is always going to be alive... just because the nostalgia you feel makes you just a teensy bit unopen to newer, different stuff doesn't mean the music is bad.
There are a ton of indie bands who write really good, smart, catchy music. I tend to like things that are a bit more experimental (TV on the Radio, Menomena, Modest Mouse, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), but if that's not your cup of tea you can always try Andrew Bird, MGMT, Cut Copy, anything that Danger Mouse is involved in, The National, Elbow, Fleet Foxes... the list goes on.
Some of the popular music may be crap (though don't make the mistake of allowing that to be your representation of different genres like rap), but if you look even for a bit you can find some good stuff.
Re:You could also argue (Score:3, Insightful)
people buy games and DVDs these days instead of music because most of the music available now simply sucks
IMO the value of a $50 game is far greater than a value of a $15 60 min. audio CD or a 90 min. movie DVD. Music feels dirt cheap compared to games where every single object in a huge GTA map had been created and placed by hand, and when you can do all kinds of things and expect reasonable game response to them. I feel comfortable with paying for a game because I see what's there on the DVD and I'm amazed at complexity and labor that went into making that game. But I am minimally awed by someone singing (even if that) for three minutes - definitely not to the tune of $1 per song (or $10 per song that you like.) I understand that there is some labor in composing, rehearsing, recording and publishing the song, and I may be willing to pay $1 per CD, but not much more than that.
You can't play with your music, you can't introduce new elements (or your character) to a movie - they are static; because of that their replay value is low (especially movies.) But a game can be played several times - not just on different levels, but using different tactics, with different goals. A $50 Resistance can result in many hours of play - which is a creative activity, since you have to invent your own ways to get around or through those Chimera. But watch a movie of someone's playing, be interested for a few minutes at key scenes ("Does he quickly run into that end room in Cathedral, or just retreats within the main hall?") but be bored otherwise. Add multiplayer, and the movie can't be even compared - you can play multiplayer for weeks and each time get a different result; but the movie, of course, ends the same way each time you watch it.
Re:People need to recognize what business they're (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is to say, they are competing against the internet itself. Email, facebook, youtube, slashdot, wiki, flashgames. All of the free legal entertainments and timekillers online effectively chew into paid entertainment sales aswell.
Not just that (Score:3, Insightful)
But his opening idea, that people who download illegally often download a LOT more than they could possibly buy, should seriously be taken account when thinking about this issue.
An excellent point about how the music industry is cooking the books. Here's another point they refuse to discuss: You can illegally download games too, and it doesn't seem to be hurting the games industry one single bit.
No, really! You can. And yet the games industry is booming and the music industry is not.
I wonder what the difference could be.
Could it be that suing your customer base is a bad idea? Could it be that the games industry is putting out a more appealing product? Could it be that music and games both compete in the entertainment arena and people only have so much money to spend on luxury items in a recession?
Nah, couldn't be any of that. Clearly it's P2P that's killing the music industry.
Re:The magic of Blu-Ray! (Score:2, Insightful)
Meanwhile my circles outside of work are composed equally of techies and Luddites and still only two Blu-Ray owners among them. These people ALL owned DVD players by 1999-2000. That means it took 2-3 years for everyone I know to own a DVD player, whereas here we are almost exactly at year 3 of Blu-Ray and I know 4 people in my since expanded circle that own a Blu-Ray player (and all of those are PS3s.) If you exclude Playstation 3 sales from the figures on Blu-Ray penetration I imagine that it looks a whole lot worse than DVD ever did.
Blu-Ray isn't losing to HD-DVD, (duh) it's losing to the established tech and the internet.
Re:News Flash: (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't kid yourself. Mainstream music did not suddenly become poor when piracy started. Music variety declined well before napster. The difference is, people had no alternatives before piracy. They settled for the bland stuff they heard on the radio. Now, piracy opens ears. People can listen to music that they could never find in record shops, and they are demanding more.
If you can't sell ice to eskimos, maybe you'd better stop selling ice. We all forget that before the phonograph, musicians made a living off live performances. Even current bands with albums make more money with their tours anyway. Isn't it possible to make a living on concerts alone, and give away recorded music to promote your live shows? Today's music scene breeds lazy artists, too passive to playout. Chumps who would rather churn out a few good albums and live off their success until their 90.
The indie scene is doing fine, as am I, but I know several great indie bands that won't or can't take that next step thanks to piracy.
What is the next step? Getting on a major label? Becoming a house hold name? Being a "rock star"? That idea needs to die, and it needs to die quick. As recording becomes less and less profitable, the industry won't be able to support that kind of thing for long. The indie bands you speak of should be happy that they can do what they love and make a decent living, and give up any dreams of becoming rock icons in the age of the famous-to-15-people youtube celebrity.
Re:The magic of Blu-Ray! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You could also argue (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't play with your music, you can't introduce new elements (or your character) to a movie...
I'm sorry, but that's pretty narrow-minded - if you think music always sounds the same and that therefore you have no reason to listen to it more than once, you either have truly horrific taste in music or you don't pay much attention to it. I've listened to some albums hundreds of times and I keep hearing new things, making new connections, realizing new influences and learning from them. Video games might be more expansive, but they are ultimately finite in scope - a good album breathes and grows depending on the other stuff you listen to, on what you bring to the table. Video games are like stale bubblegum from a supermarket vending machine in comparison.
I could take an axe to my game systems tomorrow and not shed a tear, but the thought of living without music scares the piss outta me.
Re:Don't forget Disney... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is actually really insightful. Here's the UK chart [bbc.co.uk]. Don't recognise anything from it? Here's all the number 1s from the Seventies [theofficialcharts.com]. Ah, music was so much better then, when we had the genius of Pink Floyd and *cough* Showaddywaddy.
This is kind of a no-brainer (Score:4, Insightful)
I wrote a letter to "Wired" stating essentially this... two or three years ago, in response to some article or another discussing music piracy.
When I was a kid (back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, of course), home entertainment media was pretty much your choice of LP, 45-single, cassette, or 8-track. In short, all products of the Recording Industry. Today, you have CDs, LPs (rarely) and downloads from those guys. But that same entertainment dollar is now also split between electronic gadgets, videos (DVD, Blu-Ray, that one guy still buying VHS), and gaming (console, pocket, online).
Then add in the fact that digital downloads re-introduced the single, and the whole industry plan that removed the single back in the 70s in favor of the whole album is gone... only now, they've grown dependent on selling whole albums. Then add in discounts on digital downloads... I've bought direct form the artist, from eMusic.com, and from Amazon.com. I only buy full albums, but if the digital version is near the CD price, I'll just buy the CD. When I can get an album for $2.00-$4.00, I probably buy the download.
And that's perhaps a good thing in the long run for the music industry. They'll have to adjust, and stop paying their relatively worthless executives so much. The new point of stability has a CD selling for under $10, so that it's seen as competitive with DVDs at $15 or video games at $30-$60.
They also need to acknowledge the actual role of record companies in the 21rst century, and price accordingly. There was a time when these guys were responsible for all sorts of artist development... they hired the backing band, they owned the studios, etc. It was very much the same artist management model use in Hollywood of the 40's and 50's. But today, you don't get a recording contract with a major label until you have a fully produced CD to show them... they're not even remotely part of any creative process at that level (they may get involved pushing established artists... after huge cuts to their rosters, due to cost reductions and mergers, they're more dependent than ever on a few big hits every year, despite the fact you can't really depend on that).
So the Big Label really has a purpose only as a publisher and distributer... the same thing book publishers do. Only, when I buy a Stephen King book, I see his copyright on the backside of the title page. When you buy most CDs, you'll see the record company claiming copyright. That's a projection of just how important they think they are, and when that starts to change, you'll know that there's maybe some hope for the industry. The big labels, or their replacements, will catch onto this... the only question is whether or not a record label still makes any sense, or generates any money, by the time they do. It's easy to see folks like Apple, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Best-Buy, and Starbucks replacing Sony, Warner Bros, EMI, etc. if things keep on their current path.