Been a bit busy for the past few days but (unfortunately for you lot) I've now had a bit of spare time.
So:
Seriously, if downloading is hurting the industry, explain why digital music sales are up by over 17%.
Because digital distribution is slowly taking over from physical media in terms of popularity.. quite simple, physical sales will most definitely be down.. oh and they are!! However your statement is misleading outside the bigger picture.... Its a FACT that UK music had declined in sales for the seventh successive year at the start of this year... [Link] - your article says digital music sales are up.. but it actually states that
overall album sales are still down.. so again.. its looking like an eight successive year for a decline in the music industry... and everyone knows illegal downloading is on the rise... prehaps you could explain the reason if illegal downloading is having a positive effect (instead of a negative one) - why are sales dropping every year ??
Yes digital media has taken over, exactly as services such as Spotify and Youtube are having an effect. They gain revenue from advertisng but are both having an adverse effect on sales, as are other ways in which people access music legally, but it is downloading that takes 100% of the blame.
Music sales have not fallen solely because of downloading. Singles (and album) sales have fallen in the past, long before the advent of the internet. To get a gold record for a single used to require a million sales. It has dropped to something like 25000. That fall took place over a long period of time.
Then there is the effect the economic downturn has had on the sales of many so called luxury items. The economic situation has been worsening for the past few years. This has lead to people seeking different sources for their music, the use of sites such as spotify. The effect on sales will need to be re-assessed once the world economy has picked up but if they haven't stopped ripping people off with over-inflated prices they will never recover their audience. Just as people discover they can live without Sky TV, people
will discover they can live without owning a physical copy of many items and listen to music on Spotify.
The same newspaper, the Guardian, having reported in your link that music sales have declined for seven successive years, reported in 2010 that 2009 saw an upturn in sales but they still primarily target illegal downloads as the main reason. They are burying their heads in the sand over the problems caused by their own greed over time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/26/uk-recorded-music-sales-riseMusic sales in the UK also don't take into account music purchased online from overseas sites where users can purchase it cheaply. A large chunk of music bought is purchased on sites such as e-bay, second hand, or through the likes of WowHD and Play.com who are outside of British pricing and therefore V.A.T can be avoided.
The fall in music sales is not down to downloading but the government and the industry would have you believe it is. The reason for this is plain and simply that the supposed illegal downloading is what has enabled the consumer to gain a win with regard to a decrease in prices.If downloading is stopped and people no longer have the option, watch prices start to rise again. They are ripping us off, not the other way round.
Blu-ray sales themselves continue to rise as do the sales of online delivery of media, a trend that is expected to continue.
Film piracy mostly effects profits prior to an after market even existing for a film, and with cinemas hiking their prices up to deal with the loss in attendances, this problem will only get worse.... Blu-Ray, DVD & CD will all go the same way anyway.. die out slowly as streaming platforms take over.... this can be seen with the growth of firms such as Netflix... combined sales of (physical) dvd and blu-ray in a year dont even equate to the sales of movies watched online.... but why do you think streaming is emerging as the winning platform for pretty much any kind of media.. because its QUICK and EASY... just like illegal downloading.. with the invention of products such as AppleTV, GoogleTV and consoles which allow you stream all kinds of media such as the 360 and PS3.. its easy to see where the future is going... and its not physical media.
Taking a look at the issue of newly released films. Again, the industry is their own worst enemy here. It has been proven that when cinematic release is simultaneous in countries across the world instead of leaving some countries lagging behind, piracy of newly released films is reduced.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/02/piracy-has-negligible-influence-on-u-s-box-office-study/One of their stupid ideas to cut piracy of newly released DVDs was to rlease films in countries with high rates of piracy first, particularly Russia. Thereby giving them a nice source of material to pirate and distribute around the globe for download (or in the physical markets through places such as China). A lot of the early releases of pirate films are all R5.
For example: R5 release of the Hunger Games: 30th June. R1 Release August 18th. R2 release: 3rd September.
So long before it gets released here, a ripped copy from an R5 release will be available for download. Real smart of the movie industry.
As for streaming and such like replacing physical media, it will never happen completely. At least not in my music and dvd buying lifetime. There will remain people who still want physical copies of media, such as me.
For the same reason you can still buy vinyl copies of a lot of music releases. But even so, you have just supported what I have been saying about the decrease in sales of physical media not being illegal downloading, but the availability of cheaper legal alternatives.
So basically the evidence that downloading is hurting music sales is clearly an absolute and utter lie and, similarly, the claims that it is downloading hurting DVD/blu-ray sales is also plainly false when there are multiple causes for this and evidence against (it in the form of increased blu-ray sales and rising digital media sales compensating for losses in physical media sales).
Not really, you have failed to convince me with any of your argument!!
Well we're never going to agree on this but, as I've already stated, there have been many studies into the effects of downloading. Respected universities in America, as well as other institutions, have found downloading to have no significant statistical effect on sales.
http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/02/8813/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_music_piracyTo quote a Harvard University Study:
Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates. Moreover, these estimates are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales.
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdfOne significant piece of information in the conclusion to the Harvard report is also mentioned in the Wiki page. While sales of music may have fallen, the amount of CDs released has also reduced dramatically.
As well as:
It is also important to note that a similar drop in record sales occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that record sales in the 1990s may have been abnormally high as individuals replaced older formats with CDs (Liebowitz, 2003).
While there are studies that contradict this, they have primarily been carried out by organisations and institutions with a vested interest, paid for by the media companies themselves, and are not independent studies, therefore their provenance is questionable.
Other studies question the media industry's business model and claim they really need to alter their strategy. Legal strategies for counteracting downloading are welcomed by the industry because they have shown a tendency to increase stock values in the companies coinciding with the advent of each new law because investors believe their claims that downloading is what is hurting the industry, so they will continue to try to continue to blame illegal downloading because it pays huge dividends on stock for them when new laws are introduced to counter the "problem".
