The music sales conundrum

By Matt Rosoff on 24 September 2007

Tags: music | sales | album | 80s | spend | myspace | download | million | sell | song

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User name: pixolut

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Comments: I could not agree more with your perspective on this. Fragmentation is the key - record companies blame piracy when really the entire landscape of popular culture has changed and these guys just have no idea.

With the internet comes access. People are curious and adventurous and the lack of this access to music is what drove the record label culture monopoly for fifty years. All of a suden the whole thing changed - this fragmentation of the audience was introduced by a sudden VAST increase in CHOICE. Monopoly gone.

Of course piracy will be the first target of the record labels as this is something that they have control over. Record labels will attempt to recoup losses through these legal means but ultimately the legal bills will outstrip the moneys which they recoup.

The money they spend on legals would be better spent on diverging their portfolios in to the broader entertainment business. Universal Vivendi is a good example... whilst they still follow the standard litigious practises of other labels they are broadening in to the massive games market (average price of a computer game has quintupled in 15 years whilst the average price of an album has remained stagnant and actually decreased in line with CPI inflation) and online entertainment.

Film is facing similar pressures to music but the costs involved in production will always reduce the playing field and therefore reduce culturally driven fragmentation to some extent.

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