New report out last week stating that global sales of digital music are continuing to rise, generating revenues of $1.1 billion. ( and on a more negative tone the global value of the recorded music business worldwide is down 3% ). The article goes on to state this revenue was generated by "record labels". As any TuneCore artist / user can attest , I think they screwed up. I am guessing this figure lumps together all sales, not just record label sales. Hate it when they do that. Note also that this article states "sales" - by definition this does not take into account revenue generated from interactive streaming of music from services like Napster, MusicNet, Yahoo, Rhapsody and more.
What's most amazing about the internet is that it's global - i.e. anyone on the planet with net access can download just about any song from anywhere ( minus those countries with oppressive governments that shut off access to sites they deem subversive) - and the sheer volume that can occur.
Think of it this way, in the old days, selling 1,000,000 albums was considered a huge success. Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette went on to sell over 14 million copies in just the United States. That's a lot of CDs by any measure. But it 'aint nothing compared to the volume that can happen on-line. Take something people want - i.e. porn - and look at the volume of downloads of just the Paris Hilton video. I have no idea what it actually has downloaded but I can guess it's well over 75 million copies ( without me it would have only been 74,999,999 but I only looked at it for the articles).
The point is selling 100 million copies of something on-line is very real and very doable. Selling 100 million copies of something in the physical world is just not going to happen ( Garth Brooks and The Beatles aside). So volume can allow for lower pricing which in turn can create the volume. Assume you were selling your music for $.05 a song and it was made available to purchase on the worlds 250 million cell phones with the charge coming at the end of the month on their statement.
I know, you still need to surface and be found, but it's still cool to imaging a day where selling 50,000,000 copies of something is easily possible.
Other really cool thing about music sold on-line - it is not returnable. A sale is a sale. In the current record industry, every CD you see sitting in any retail store can be returned for a full refund at just about any time ( we call these "returns"). You used to expect about 20 - 25% of the CDs shipped to be returned. These days the rate is getting higher. In the physical model, you never know what you sold, only what you shipped.
In the on-line world, no wasted manufacturing and you always know what you sold - not to mention you save a lot of money and resources.
On the other hand, I still love my vinyl...
I was thinking of releasing an analogue recording on Vinyl that Pete Sears produced for me last year, when I was able to return to music. I think we are going to see a huge return of kids wanting Santa to bring turntables for the holidays in the next two years. I was wondering, Jeff, what you thought about this idea?
OH, OH... my CD "After the Silence" is Pick of the Week at the Readers Digest Store. Very cool! www.rdstore.com
Thank you for this great site. Have a wonderful day.
Kathryn Keats
Posted by: Kathryn keats | August 10, 2007 at 04:36 AM
I was thinking of releasing an analogue recording on Vinyl that Pete Sears produced for me last year, when I was able to return to music. I think we are going to see a huge return of kids wanting Santa to bring turntables for the holidays in the next two years. I was wondering, Jeff, what you thought about this idea?
OH, OH... my CD "After the Silence" is Pick of the Week at the Readers Digest Store. Very cool! www.rdstore.com
Thank you for this great site. Have a wonderful day.
Kathryn Keats
Posted by: Kathryn keats | August 10, 2007 at 04:34 AM