The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #122620   Message #2691937
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
01-Aug-09 - 08:59 PM
Thread Name: $675,000 Award in Downloading Case
Subject: RE: $675,000 Award in Downloading Case
CD sales have been damaged according to figures I can find.

Sales of CDs and music DVDs in Canada fell in the first quarter of 2007 to $68.7 million from $105.6 million in the same period in 2006. Unit sales for the same period were down 30 per cent.
Sales of CDs and music DVDs in the U. S. during the first quarter of 2007 have fallen by about 20 per cent.
Canadian Record Industry Association.
"Based on research conducted last year, conservative estimates are that 1.3 billion unauthorized downloads occur in this country (Canada) each year. It's estimated that there were 20 million legitimate downloads in 2006."
"That's bad news for the Canadian record Industry. And it comes after an almost unbroken string of declines since the popular spread in this country of unauthorized file-swapping technology, and the proliferation in recent years of CD and music DVD counterfeiting."

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/207826.

Worldwide music sales have tumbled to their lowest level since 1985. "The main cause of the decline continues to be collapsing CD sales, hurt by illegal copying, that are not being offset by growth in download sales. Record company revenues tumbled 8 percent last year to $19.4 billion, after CD sales fell 13 per cent- more than offsetting the 34 per cent growth in the smaller digital business.
Dan Sabbaght, The Times (London), June 18, 2008, "Music Sales Fall to their Lowest Level in over Twenty Years"
"In Britain alone, revenues tumbled 13 per cent to 1.02 billion pounds, with Amy Winehouse's Back to Black as the top-selling album." [ugh] "Industry revenues from CD sales plunged 16 percent to 871 million pounds, while digital sales in the world's third-biggest music market increased 28 per cent to 132.2 million pounds."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article4160553.ece

John Kennedy, chairman of the IFPI, mentions 30 billion illegal downloads in 2007, and physical and digial piracy cost the U. S. music industry alone $5.3 billion.

The music industry is moving into the download scene, countering the loss of hard goods sales, but the move is accompanied by a regrettable loss in production of more classical or intellectual forms of music.
A strong warning to those who want other than pop and mass-market music- e. g., opera, classical, baroque, medieval, ethnic and other small category sellers (like 'folk'?).
The popular stuff, by far the largest part of sales, subsidizes more intellectual or off-beat material, and recording companies will pare their catalogues, making many desirable works impossible to get. Some very fine albums issued 1999-2005 have been dropped and can only be found at specialists for very high premiums. In the past, these albums would stay in catalogues for much longer periods.