The Music Industry VS. The Internet?

Question

What do you think is going to happen? The past few years record sales have been in a decline. I'm a fan of hip-hop music and have seen sales dramatically decrease. It's not only rap, but also rock and other genres. MP3's, I-pods, Peer 2 Peer sharing programs (ex: Limewire) are killing record sales, and also limit the oppurtunity of underground artist to come up. Do you think the responsibility lies with internet users downloading music, the government for not shutting down p2p sharing programs, or a lack in publicity or promotion for the albums. What do you think we should do to fix this problem? CD's are getting old fashion, and mp3's are the new deal, but they kill the record sales, due to the fact some may just order some songs of the album and not the whole thing (legally or illegally). Are there any solutions to this problem? If not, I seriously think that the music industry it's reaching a DEAD END. What should be done??

Answer 1

thats a very good question and its hard to say with all the piracy thats going on

Answer 2

No. There has always been fee music and bootlegs. I think there is just a huge glut of music. How many recordingss can you really listen to. Let's say the average limit is 200 recordingss in ones lifetime. Let's say you gather music from 10 years old till you are 60. So You are averaging 4 recordings a year. Now let's say on average one is copied (pirated) and one is bought used/traded per year. That leave on average 2 fresh recordings a year per person. Now let's say there are 2 billion customers in a 50 year span at 2 bought recordingss a year at $15 a recording. That comes to probably $3 trillion divided among probably 1 million acts and the studios. Now with all those recordings out there, there are going to be some timeless acts and so when people die, they give away or sell their collection. Those recordings get taken away from the old crop of artists because of those recordings are of course used and new crop of artists because it takes up a percentage of the person's collection. So the next 50 years (the period we are in now) there are more used recordings in the collection. In the next 50 years, there will be even more used recordings.

That's why I think older acts are doing better than newer acts. More people would rather see the Rolling Stones at a concert than many new artists just because the new artists are being squeezed out of the recording collection. See, not only are new acts not selling as well, people are not going to see their concerts. There hasn't been a major concert of new acts in 10 years or so. You have to go back 20 and 30 years where major concerts were common. Now new acts can barely fill a room for 200 and not a stadium. That has nothing to do with piracy and even talent (even bad acts were filling stadiums 20 years ago). Even rap concerts were huge 20 years ago and now you put 50 Cents in a concert and it's back to the 200 person rooms. Worse yet for rap, I heard of a major lineup of new acts in Florida a few years ago where the promoters probably sold less than 20 tickets.

You also see this at youtube. The music is free for both old and new artists, but on average, more people at viewing the older acts than the newer acts. The kids now are getting into The Beetles, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd ect. as they listen to their dad's and mom's cassettes and cds and when they go to youtube, they are going right to those artists. Now if piracy was that big, I would think that the viewers would be less lopsided, because it takes no more effort to watch an old act as it does a new act.

I think the solution is to just put it on the internet with an attaching commercial, but free to the public. It would be pointless to pirate already free music and advertisers would have a "lock" on a potential consumer unlike with TIVO and TV or though junk mail.