Music Industry Is Killing Piracy

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U.S. album sales rose more than three percent last year thanks in large part to the increase in digital music sales. How can that be? I thought piracy was killing the industry?

The uptick to 458 million album sales was helped by the hugely popular sophomore album "21" from British singer Adele, which sold 5.8 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Huge interest in Adele also led to the sales of 856,000 copies of "19," her debut album from 2008.
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TPB needs to sue the RIAA $25,000 per song for ruining the piracy industry.
 
How the hell do you rate digital music sales? And when the hell are they going to stop record sales altogether?

Either way, I still wanna call BS on this... There seriously was less album releases of interest to me last year than in a loooooooooooooooooooong time.
 
Amazing... A CD comes out that has more than one good song on it, people buy it instead of pirating it? How can this be?! :rolleyes:
 
I don't like purchasing the songs online... I prefer good old fashioned CD, with all the fluff in it like booklet with lyrics, lots of pictures and stuff.
 
Who would have thought that increasing availability in consumer-demanded formats and decreasing prices for singles would boost sales?!
 
I bought more music last year than I have in a long time.

I have hundreds of CDs (close to 500). At one point, I stopped buying them because I didn't want to pay $15ish for a couple of good songs.

Fast forward today: I buy all of my music from Amazon.com so I can have it anywhere I want it. I think of a song I want to hear for whatever reason and a couple clicks later I'm streaming it to my radio from my phone and I only dropped a buck or two.

Amazon also has awesome sales that have convinced me to buy whole albums that I normally wouldn't have. Instead of buying 2 songs at $1.50, I grab the whole album for $5.

The music I buy automatically appears in my "cloud" and I can do what I want with it.

I'm buying more and I'm paying less...
 
"Musicians" are still bitter about not being able to put two or three good songs on an album, fill the rest of it up with garbage, and sell it for $20.
 
MorgothPl said:
I don't like purchasing the songs online... I prefer good old fashioned CD, with all the fluff in it like booklet with lyrics, lots of pictures and stuff.
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I don't mind either or. As long as it's not iTunes at least. It's a lot easier and quicker to create playlists with digital songs since you don't have to go through the effort of ripping and sorting.
 
Cyraxx said:
How the hell do you rate digital music sales? And when the hell are they going to stop record sales altogether?

Either way, I still wanna call BS on this... There seriously was less album releases of interest to me last year than in a loooooooooooooooooooong time.
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Yes because everyone has the same music taste you do so this must be BS... :rolleyes:
 
SilverSliver said:
"Musicians" are still bitter about not being able to put two or three good songs on an album, fill the rest of it up with garbage, and sell it for $20.
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By "Musicians" im assuming you mean "Record Companies"
 
I never buy music anymore. I just use pandora or something similar for everything including in the car. Just plug in the phone, fire up pandora, and I'm done.
 
Inu said:
By "Musicians" im assuming you mean "Record Companies"
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Yup. I was under the impression that musicians made most of their money from live shows / side gigs. Not the actual sale of their records.
 
As much as I love the feel of a retail packaged CD, DVD, Blu-ray or any new item I buy, I simply can not avoid the insane convenience offered by Amazon's MP3 store. In previous years, before I started college and had my own job, almost all of my music was pirated (No need to lie, who hasn't). Once I began school and had several jobs in order to pay for things, I had the opportunity to buy entertainment. And the best way for me was the simplest. And by that I would goto Movie Stop and buy used DVDs and eventually Blu-rays. This kept the cost low, I got the nice box with any art, etc. included and I felt like I was doing the right thing not pirating, now that I could afford my media.

However the last push for me was buying Music. I would goto FYE or BestBuy and look for a CD I wanted. Sometimes when I actually found the CD I was outraged by the price. For 10 to 15$ I could buy a used Blu-ray, or a new CD with 30 minutes of music. This prevented me from really getting the music I liked because I felt like I was missing having the lyrics booklet and the CD to backup if I bought digital music. Also at the time digital music was streamed using 128kbps mp3, which just didn't cut it when the price for an album was the same as the physical CD.

So now fast forward to 2011 and I have bought more music that year than ever before. Why? Because Amazon has crazy sales on daily album deals with many top notch records for 4.99. And the best part? Every song I have purchased is at least encoded at 256kbps with many near 300kbps VBR encoding. Also albums now come with a PDF of the insert you would get with a CD and embedded album art. On top of this awesome deal, Amazon has backed up all my music to their cloud for free. Normally I hate using the word cloud, but in this case I only store music there, so no problem, and I resist streaming music using the cloud as I can re-download my DRM free music at any time to any device I own. Right now I keep around 10GB on my phone and delete and download another album when I want to play that. I also have every purchased backed-up to my work computer, around 17GB right now. So if my phone breaks or gets stolen I can add the music back with no hassle.

It's simply amazing what is being provided today that simply didn't exist years ago. I never would of thought about buying music online using dial-up when It was cheaper to drive to a store and get an album, but now thanks to DRM free music and remote backups I can enjoy my collection at anytime. And these reasons are why I now buy music.

Keep it free, simple, and easy to use, and I will continue to buy it. Go back to DRM laden music and hardware and I will pirate it again and send a check to the artist.
 
Demon10000 said:
I bought more music last year than I have in a long time.

I have hundreds of CDs (close to 500). At one point, I stopped buying them because I didn't want to pay $15ish for a couple of good songs.

Fast forward today: I buy all of my music from Amazon.com so I can have it anywhere I want it. I think of a song I want to hear for whatever reason and a couple clicks later I'm streaming it to my radio from my phone and I only dropped a buck or two.

Amazon also has awesome sales that have convinced me to buy whole albums that I normally wouldn't have. Instead of buying 2 songs at $1.50, I grab the whole album for $5.

The music I buy automatically appears in my "cloud" and I can do what I want with it.

I'm buying more and I'm paying less...
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I actually didn't read you post before posting mine, and wow they are about the same. Great minds think alike??
 
MorgothPl said:
I don't like purchasing the songs online... I prefer good old fashioned CD, with all the fluff in it like booklet with lyrics, lots of pictures and stuff.
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These are also my biggest gripes with digital downloads, that and the fact that all downloads should be lossless quality.

Maybe slightly OT, but I'd also prefer an option to download full dynamic range versions, even at a price premium, but I doubt that'll ever happen because they want them all compressed for airplay, and they'd most likely see it as a low income niche market. I'm not an all out "audiophile" by any means, but I do like to hear little things that the compression cans kill vs non-compressed recordings (in the early days of CDs, all the little things and effects the drummer I knew had weren't noticeable in a commercial release (didn't make him too happy), it may have been due to compression or perhaps some other reason). When I still drove,I was also one who preferred my sub-woofers in stereo since I found that some bands recorded their kick drums and other low range sounds in stereo, and it really changed the listening (and feeling) experience. To sum it up, I prefer to have the full range, even if I can't hear every little nuance myself I'm sure others would be able to, so they should give us what we pay/are willing to pay for.
 
mynamehere said:
These are also my biggest gripes with digital downloads, that and the fact that all downloads should be lossless quality.

Maybe slightly OT, but I'd also prefer an option to download full dynamic range versions, even at a price premium, but I doubt that'll ever happen because they want them all compressed for airplay, and they'd most likely see it as a low income niche market. I'm not an all out "audiophile" by any means, but I do like to hear little things that the compression cans kill vs non-compressed recordings (in the early days of CDs, all the little things and effects the drummer I knew had weren't noticeable in a commercial release (didn't make him too happy), it may have been due to compression or perhaps some other reason). When I still drove,I was also one who preferred my sub-woofers in stereo since I found that some bands recorded their kick drums and other low range sounds in stereo, and it really changed the listening (and feeling) experience. To sum it up, I prefer to have the full range, even if I can't hear every little nuance myself I'm sure others would be able to, so they should give us what we pay/are willing to pay for.
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Not sure what type of music you like, but if you're into NIN, Trent offers up his latest music in full uncompressed 24-bit 96Khz in PCM wave and FLAC formats. The download for "The Slip" was a little over 1GB when I got it. I really wish more musicians were like him and had the balls to go solo with their own record label after striking it big. The man is a true business genius.
 
JosiahBradley said:
Not sure what type of music you like, but if you're into NIN, Trent offers up his latest music in full uncompressed 24-bit 96Khz in PCM wave and FLAC formats. The download for "The Slip" was a little over 1GB when I got it. I really wish more musicians were like him and had the balls to go solo with their own record label after striking it big. The man is a true business genius.
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I like some NIN, metal (especially old underground/pre-mainstream bands), progressive, and a fairly wide variety of genres (hate most "radio" bands that try to emulate what radio rejected years ago), so full uncompressed PCM would definitley be a nice way to offer content, and I definitely agree that more artists should go either indie, use studios of established artists or roll their own if they can afford to. Any way you look at it, they would have more freedom with their music as well as be more profitable than signing with the big labels. I hope more artists realize these things soon.
 
What this proves is simply what has been stated multiple times for the last decade or so...The internet is retail musics future.

I had to do a Quantitative Research Paper for my Bach Degree in school, and as my subject I chose the Internet and its Effect on Retail Music Sales(you can read it if you like), and during the course of the paper it becomes patently clear that the music industry missed the boat with the internet. When Napster started getting press, the music industry heads tried to stomp it out instead of getting on the bandwagon and trying to figure out a way to make a profit from the new technology.

Not until Apple and iTunes started becoming successful did the actual music business get truly interested...and they are just now reaping real benefits...so much money was left on the table it is mind-boggling. Not only are the large companies making money again, but the actual artists are seeing the benefits and financial rewards as well. Bands can now totally skip a record label and release music on their own and reap all the money...not just a paltry $1-$3 per CD sale for a $13 CD...bands are seeing digital downloads as %100 clear profit, especially if they did all the recording on their own using laptops and Pro Tools in their garage/studio...

Personally, I dont ever see me buying a physical format for music again...I`m all digital and plan on staying that way...its more cost effective as well as takeing up less space in my home/car...win/win for me.
 
BodyBagz said:
Personally, I dont ever see me buying a physical format for music again...I`m all digital and plan on staying that way...its more cost effective as well as takeing up less space in my home/car...win/win for me.
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Not exactly the collector's approach, but savvy nonetheless.

The main advantage to physical media over downloads is having the jewel case/digipak and the inlays to the album. But then again, having that added stuff from the album really depends in your taste of music. If you're geared towards the mainstream and see music as more of a social connection, then most of the time you'll be better off with the downloads.
 
//[T.0.P]//;1038231822 said:
Not exactly the collector's approach, but savvy nonetheless.

The main advantage to physical media over downloads is having the jewel case/digipak and the inlays to the album. But then again, having that added stuff from the album really depends in your taste of music. If you're geared towards the mainstream and see music as more of a social connection, then most of the time you'll be better off with the downloads.
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Hahaha, no, not the collectors mindset in the usual sense...I will give ya that.

But, that is not to say that I am not somewhat OCD when it comes to my digital music collection...I do have 7 different "genre" folders that I break all my albums down into by artist, then album. Each "artist" folder has a .jpg image file as the folder icon, as well as each album having a .jpg file for the folder icon as well...thats all I really want and.or need as far as what came with the retail packaging.

I long ago grew out of the need for the media inserts...especially after the internet came along where I could get the song lyrics in 2-3 clicks of my mouse...and now my phone does this for me if its a song I dont even know the title/artist, I just fire up SoundHound and wait 5-10 seconds...:D

Below is a snapshot of my Main Music Folder and another showing an "artist" folder....

iJ0E9LN5vySvG.JPG
j5Z6USBetHSzZ.JPG
iGo9qd36gHR75.JPG
 
MorgothPl said:
I don't like purchasing the songs online... I prefer good old fashioned CD, with all the fluff in it like booklet with lyrics, lots of pictures and stuff.
Click to expand...

not to mention CDs are uncompressed audio, shit on iTunes is priced as a CD but in mp3 quality
 
I may be crazy, but I actually pay for a subscription and stream whatever I want (which saves me a considerable amount of money over the cash my kids would otherwise be dropping on music).
 
Step 1. Migrate industry away from albums to singles.
Step 2. Claim piracy is ruining album sales.
Step 3. Profit.
 
One of the main reasons things get pirated is because the companies don't make them easily available.

You keep your TV shows and movies locked up in a vault and never release them in a specific country or only offer shitty SD versions for sell...guess what happens. People find them anyway.
 
Steve said:
U.S. album sales rose more than three percent last year thanks in large part to the increase in digital music sales. How can that be? I thought piracy was killing the industry?
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2010 12.8% fall
2011 rise 3% (mostly because of one or 2 albums)

Let's due the math

If the industry made 100 dollars in 2009 they made $87.20 2010
If the industry made $87.20 in 2010, they made no more than $90.24 (assumes sales increased by 3.49%).

Never mind that sales are down almost 70% from 2000. That's not all because of piracy (there was a downward trend back in the 80's that was reversed by the CD and stalled again in the late 90's when boy bands and Britney were all the rage), but anyone that doesn't think illegal downloads hurt sales ain't talking to people under 40. They want the songs/albums. They just don't want to pay for them....and many the people I talk make 60k+ and have no kids. They could afford it. They just don't see a reason to buy what they can get for free.
 
JosiahBradley said:
Not sure what type of music you like, but if you're into NIN, Trent offers up his latest music in full uncompressed 24-bit 96Khz in PCM wave and FLAC formats. The download for "The Slip" was a little over 1GB when I got it. I really wish more musicians were like him and had the balls to go solo with their own record label after striking it big. The man is a true business genius.
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This. Been getting more and more music direct from the artists, though this is likely easier with electronic music than, say, classical.
 
I pay for Pandora One. No reason to buy music anymore. By not picking the next song, I don't get burned out on songs anyways. Win/win.
 
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