RIAA - This is going too far

[Las Naranjas]

Funnily enough, in Australia, CD prices have gone down, largely thanks to the ACCC, and their crackdowns on uncompetitive practice.

The local industry rallies against piracy by claiming CD sales are down. Whilst the figure in dollar terms has gone down, the overall number of albums sold has risen. I suppose the kazaa boogieman is good to keep shareholders at bay.

[Robert Eric]

Soon, new developments like Super Audio CDs, which are made using DVD discs, and DVD-Audio discs, which likewise use DVD discs but consist of audio tracks instead of video data, will be the new wave along with various others in an attempt to stop people from ripping music.Ã,  But, so far, people have been able to hack and rip any form of multimedia that they can get their hands on so I don't believe they can stop it unless they stop people from having free will.

Edit: Actually, DVD-Audio discs have video data on it as well, but it mainly constists of audio tracks.Ã,  You can find more information about these on Afterdawn and Disctronics.

[DGMacphee]

One reason companies might not be making enough money on music is because people are buying more second-hand stuff.

I did a news story on music piracy for our uni radio show. One of the people I spoke to was a music lecturer who said he rarely bought a lot of new music. He mainly bought stuff from secondhand stores.

It's also a little interesting that music companies in Australia are complaining. Earlier this year, they released a media statement on their sales for 2003. They reported that their single sales for the year was at their lowest ever. What they didn't mention (and was fairly obvious from the figures) was that they recorded their highest CD music sales.

Here's that radio story I did (2.6 Mb):
http://www.sylpher.com/DGMacphee/Photoshop/Music%20Rebels2.mp3

I submitted it for assessment and it scored 19 out of 20. I lost 1 mark because the audio with the founding chairman of AMRA was sucky (He was on his mobile).

[shbaz]

I downloaded that MP3 from the internet. NO ROYALTIES FOR YOU!

[DGMacphee]

I was waiting for someone to say that. And in under half an hour too.

[shbaz]

I was wating for someone to say that. And in under half an hour too.

Barely more than a minute, actually.

[Timosity]

They reported that their single sales for the year was at their lowest ever.

what they probably also failed to mention was that they released the fewest singles in a long time.

the trend of selling singles is becoming much less popular these days but albums are selling much better.

there's a few ways to look at this, but here's one: maybe a lot of singles are being d/l and not so much albums as most people still only have dial-up internet. this would reduce the demand for singles therefore they would release less singles.

this would also dramatically effect the singles charts, and the record co's would have much more control of which 'artists' (models that can't sing) will be up the top. which makes it also cheaper for them to promote, so they still rake it in.

I have no idea who's in the charts these days anyway.

singles are just a way to get more album sales anyway, so if they freely let people d/l music, it's proven that more people will hear their music and buy the album.

so I have no idea what they're complaining about

[DGMacphee]

Record comapnies say the main argument against Kazaa etc is that declining single sales means emerging artists don't get the enough royalties from the music.

However, you can also use the flipside argument that record companies don't properly finance emerging artists.

To my understanding, the way the industry usually works (and correct me if I'm wrong) is the artist fills out a contract that states the company will pay for production, promotion, distribution, etc but these amounts need to be paid back on the single and albums sales.

So, if an emerging artist makes an album that hits low on the charts, he or she makes nothing.

In my opinion, the music industry is ruthless and exploitive with emerging talent. Case in point: Australian pop icon Vanessa Amorosi scored a number one album called 'The Power'. Now she builds fences, plays the odd smallish concert, but hardly anyone remembers her.

Occasionally, you get a Madonna or a Kylie or a Britney, but these are rare considering the amount of singers out there.

And even Kylie had to struggle during the 90s.


Also, here's the news article (the top one) that I based my radio story: http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2004-04-29

[Ishmael]

My policy in buying CD's is that if the pricetags has four numbers on it, and the first one is bigger then one, I don't buy it, unless I really want it. None of those come up yet... I buy singles rarely (as well as albums, actually) and I'm not ready to pay more then the 'usual' two and a half or so euros for one or two songs.

One way to make a little profit is to do what these guys do; make your music freely downloadable, and sell the albums separately as self-produced. I've bought two of those albums, the ones that still had covers left for.

[InCreator]

Maybe it's just me getting old, but music is turning into total bullshit. There's nothing good to pay for, anyway. Just an ear ache.

[Las Naranjas]

An increasing number, sometimes even the majority, of songs on the charts are not released as singles [charts are based on radio airplay]. With that in mind, a decrease in singles sales is not incredibly surprising.

[DGMacphee]

It depends because there are a number of different charts.

There's a chart for albums sales, a chart for single sales, and a chart for airplay.

The charts for albums and single get the most press in newspapers and are recorded by ARIA, whereas charts on airplay at determined by requests on a radio station.