Changing Face Of The Music Industry

[Unklescott]

The local Nashville paper, The Tennessean, ran a special section in todays paper on the changing face of the music industry.
www.tennessean.com | Nashville Changing Face of Music | The Tennessean

The heavy metal group Metallica shocked its fans in 2000 when it sued Napster, claiming the illegal file-sharing software violated not just federal copyright laws, but also racketeering statutes usually reserved for the prosecution of mobsters and drug dealers.

Fast forward eight years and Metallica is among the groups that are eyeing the successful Internet album releases by groups like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead.

New artists, too, have sparked a boom in the growth of do-it-yourself online services like Amazon Marketplace, TuneCore and Iota that allow musicians to take their product directly to fans. MORE

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The numbers are stark: CD sales in the U.S. have declined 29 percent from their peak of $14.6 billion in 2000. That number was punctuated by the bankruptcy in late 2006 of Tower Records, whose giant lime-green "Going Out of Business" signs scattered across the U.S. served as a warning for those brick-and-mortar record stores still in business.

Tim DuBois, a former Nashville music executive and now a professor at Vanderbilt's Owen School of Management, said of the problems in the industry, "It's not going back like it was. It's a change, and it's permanent." MORE

Jupiter Research estimates that digital music stands poised to capture more than a third of all music sales by 2012, about $3.4 billion in the U.S., according to its figures.

But that number sheds light only on what retail services such as iTunes, Amazon.com and even WalMart.com will bring in. What's harder to quantify is the potential market for new-media companies that have — either by accident or design — sprung up in recent years offering digital music services to a wide range of clients.
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MySpace, for example, emerged unexpectedly as a default service catering to the music crowd, growing so quickly that, in July 2005, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch bought the service for $580 million, a valuation premised on the lure of selling advertising to young consumers. MORE

How many of you download versus buying CD's? I guess I'm still old school as I buy CD's. I don't own an iPod or MP3 and have never downloaded a song.

[karna68]

I download, I'd be lost without my iPod. Once in awhile I will buy a CD, but mostly I don't really want all the songs that are on a cd.

[Leo]

The "downloading" option doesn't exist here - not legally, anyway - but even if it did, I'd still buy CDs. Why? The audio quality of online music is awful compared to a CD. I buy the CD, rip it in iTunes in lossless format, put it on my iPod. I like good quality sound, and online music is just not a player in that category.

[razorbacker]

I neither buy CD's not download singles. XM Radio has made those options extinct for me. Too much good stuff on Satellite Radio, all music all the time.

[Mantenna]

I've downloaded quite a few albums from the Amazon mp3 store, but I have mixed feelings about it. Though I love the convenience and instant gratification of buying albums in mp3 format (I put them on my player immediately, anyway), the whole package and idea of an "album" is somewhat losing its charm. I like having a physical CD or LP with liner notes and art.

For example, I just heard a 1992 live album of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, called Live Seeds. Not a great album name, I know. However, it's fantastic, and of course I would like to have it in my collection as quickly as possible. However, I'd much rather get the original issue of the CD, which comes with a tour documentary picture booklet--that's something you can "treasure." It will be pricier and take longer than getting it in mp3 format, but it seems worth it.

[Blues Songstres]

Like Mantenna, I have downloaded some albums, but generally, I prefer having the actual CD. I generally load them on my computer (don't own an ipod or MP3 player) and listen when I have the time. In the car I'm usually listening to satellite radio, but that's mostly because ( believe it or not) my darned car doesn't have a CD player and I haven't taken the time to get one. Once I do get one, however, I'll be listening primarily to CD's.

[Unklescott]

I neither buy CD's not download singles. XM Radio has made those options extinct for me.

I would be willing to bet that you have a couple of Carrie Underwood's CD's though don't you?

[razorbacker]

I would be willing to bet that you have a couple of Carrie Underwood's CD's though don't you?

In the past 3 yrs. I have bought 3 cd's. Both of Carries & Eric Church's Sinners Like Me.

[razorbacker]

You know what is making a comback with sales showing some really good increases in the face of declining CD'S? Vinyl...yep, the old 33rpm. More new releases are coming out on vinyl all the time & most artists & producers are stating how the sound is so much better than the compressed digital sound the other formats give them.

[ClosetRTWatcher]

Over the last few years I have started buying pretty much all of my music online. Mostly thru iTunes, but I have gone to other distributors when iTunes did not have what I was looking for.

I also have Sirius satellite radio and I cannot say enough positive things about it. However, it has not reduced the number of music purchases I make. If anything it has increased the amount of music I buy because I discover so much great music on Sirius that I probably never would have heard otherwise (IMO, I live in a terrible market for traditional radio).