Copyright Police Want Truck Drivers To Have Licensed Cab Music

[txradioguy]

JB to answer your question. I can't find the report I cited anymore. To be quite honest it was part of some show prep I used when I was a PD for Clear Channel.

I did find this interesting tidbit from a 2008 article.

Interestingly, an examination of the RIAA’s marketing and sales charts shows that the real decrease in CD sales actually began in earnest after Napster ceased operating. In fact, during the 2 1/2 years that Napster was operating, CD sales increased by over $500 million dollars from what they were in 1998. Since 2001, CD sales have continued to decrease steadily.

That seems to back up what I said about people downloading a song then going and buying the album.

However, most of the RIAA’s problems and frustrations arose from poor business decisions on the part of the music industry and not from the loss of revenue due to illegal downloads. Lost sales resulting from illegal downloads is not as great as the RIAA would have the public believe. The music industry is making money. While its profits might not be a large as they would like, the problem is not so much that illegal downloading is causing a decrease in sales but rather the fact that the number of new releases greatly exceeds the number of releases that are played on the radio. In other words, only an extremely small percentage of music gets airplay today. People are simply not being exposed to the same amount of new music they were years ago when music directors and DJs created the playlists and gave more new artists airplay. Today, radio station playlists are formatted by the marketing and advertising departments of large corporations. The majority of music played on today’s airwaves is the same generic sound that has been recycled time after time.

http://www.besttechie.net/2008/04/14...-at-the-facts/


The RIAA also left out one little tidbit in the chart you cite from them. Sales are down compared to previous years because not as much content is being shipped from the labels.

[fettpett]

Instead of looking at sales records of CD's and hardcopy media, we should look at sales records of online media distribution, like Itunes and Netflix.

The biggest difference between the Hardcopy media age (from Records to CD's) is the HUGE profit margins that companies could rake in. the cost of a blank CD and imprinting that CD with the music cost a company less than a dollar, add to that the marketing costs and it was maybe $3 tops. They turned around and sold CD's for anywhere from $7-$30 depending on the artist, if it was a special edition and other factors. they were making a KILLING off of these sales because there were very few ways of getting the music any other way. Until Napster came along. Digital music is MUCH less profitable (typical song costing $.99, >$10 for an entire album) and they have to deal with a much more competitive market.

RIAA and MPAA both could have come in at the start, worked with companies to start media distribution early on and set the price points much higher and people would have paid it. but because they didn't they screwed themselves AND made it much easier for new artist to get started without singing contracts with the big companies.