{"id":241,"date":"2003-11-05T20:17:28","date_gmt":"2003-11-06T00:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tradermike.net\/movethecrowd\/2003\/11\/future_of_digital_music_downloading\/"},"modified":"2003-11-05T20:17:28","modified_gmt":"2003-11-06T00:17:28","slug":"future_of_digital_music_downloading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/11\/05\/future_of_digital_music_downloading\/","title":{"rendered":"Future of Digital Music Downloading"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Economist has an article exploring whether the threat of online piracy is receding<\/a>. From what I can tell the music industry still has a long way to go to win the fight:<\/p>\n

\nBut the fact that more people are willing to buy music online than seemed likely does not mean that the industry’s problems are anywhere near over. In the next five years, says Informa Media Group, a media information publisher, digital sales of à la carte downloads and subscription services will grow 20-fold. But they will account for only $1.8 billion, or under 6%, of the global music market. Peer-to-peer file sharing will deprive the industry of $4.7 billion of revenues in 2008.<\/p>\n

For impecunious teenagers and students, the fact that peer-to-peer sharing is free will always be compelling. Paying 99 cents for a song on iTunes, says one British teen, is unappealing because at that price she may as well buy the CD in a shop. Nor do the new services yet come close to matching the libraries of nearly all music ever recorded that the peer-to-peers boast. <\/p>\n

To glimpse the future, big music companies should look not at iTunes’ encouraging numbers but at September’s price cut by Universal Music Group, the biggest record company of all, which reduced CD prices for consumers by nearly a quarter. One reason for slumping music sales is that customers believe that CDs cost too much. Now, other firms will have to lower prices to compete with Universal. Discount stores such as Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Best Buy will drive them down more.<\/p>\n

The success of iTunes has made clear to the music industry an uncomfortable truth: many people want to buy single tracks, not albums. Apple’s data show that its customers bought 12 singles for every one album at iTunes. That compares with 0.02 singles per album in American stores, according to research by Sanford Bernstein. The best artists may tempt people to buy a whole album. But the industry can no longer rely on getting the price of an album as a reward for backing a band.<\/p>\n

In the end, says Moby, an influential musician, the record industry will have to throw out its current business model. It will no longer be able to make huge profit margins on CDs that cost next to nothing to manufacture. To compensate for lower prices, he says, the industry needs to cut its marketing for artists by as much as four-fifths. Once the record companies have less marketing clout, and with internet distribution, says Moby, artists will be in a powerful position. “Why”, he asks, “is a record company any more qualified to send an MP3 to iTunes than I am?” [read the entire article<\/a>]\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One thing’s for sure: this is gonna be a very interesting space to watch. Funny how Apple does the innovation then others come in to capitalize on Apple’s work. Now I’m hearing that MTV<\/a> and Wal-Mart are looking to start their own music downloading services<\/a>. Hopefully Apple can hold them off.<\/p>\n

(via The Big Picture<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Economist has an article exploring whether the threat of online piracy is receding. From what I can tell the music industry still has a long way to go to win the fight: But the fact that more people are willing to buy music online than seemed likely does not mean that the industry’s problems… Continue reading Future of Digital Music Downloading<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":242,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/11\/06\/you_want_fries_with_that_download\/","url_meta":{"origin":241,"position":0},"title":"You Want Fries with that Download?","date":"November 6, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Looks like there's another battle going on over music downloading. Both Pepsi and McDonald's are offering free music downloads to their customers: Less than a month after Pepsi announced a blockbuster deal to give away 100 million downloads from Apple's iTunes music service to its customers, McDonald's is close to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":56,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/07\/07\/how_innovation_can_save_entertainment\/","url_meta":{"origin":241,"position":1},"title":"How Innovation Can Save Entertainment","date":"July 7, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a topic that I often write about: the state of the music industry, especially with regard to file sharing. How to Save the World has a good article examining how the entertainment industry can adapt to the wild world of P2P file sharing. Here's a snippet: At the same\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":299,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/03\/31\/baby_im_a_star_again\/","url_meta":{"origin":241,"position":2},"title":"Baby, I’m a Star, Again","date":"March 31, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The Wall Street Journal has an article about Prince's return to the spotlight. (link via Anil of course) I'm glad that Prince is once again receiving the accolades that he deserves, even if he did lose me for the last few albums. I like what I've heard so far of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/12\/04\/lyor_cohen_the_real_slim_shady\/","url_meta":{"origin":241,"position":3},"title":"Lyor Cohen, the Real Slim Shady?","date":"December 4, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Industry Rule number 4080 -- record company people are shady! Who knew Q-Tip could have been talking about Lyor Cohen when he wrote that lyric? Here's a revealing look at Lyor Cohen, who the judge at his recent trial called 'morally reprehensible'. I would have liked to have seen more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","img":{"alt_text":"Shop at Amazon.com","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rcm-images.amazon.com\/images\/G\/01\/rcm\/468x240.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":333,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/05\/26\/frontline_the_way_the_music_died\/","url_meta":{"origin":241,"position":4},"title":"FrontLine: The Way the Music Died","date":"May 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Set your TiVos for FrontLine's special report on the music industry, 'The Way the Music Died'. Here's what the show is about: The modern music scene was created in 1969, at Woodstock. Half a million fans, dozens of artists, and the politics of the times came together as a big\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Business"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":396,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/23\/sony_pulls_its_head_out_of_its_a_over_mp3s\/","url_meta":{"origin":241,"position":5},"title":"Sony Pulls Its Head Out of Its A$$ Over MP3s","date":"September 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"It looks like Sony has finally gotten a clue about media formats. I couldn't believe that their portable media players didn't support Mp3 files. You'd think that the folks at Sony, of all people, would understand the importance of supporting what's popular with people. Well they now say that their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}