And here was I thinking that I was cynical. Compared to John Dvorak I’m a starry eyed optimist. My friend Bill sent me an article from PC Magazine, The New Music Download Battle By John C. Dvorak. Have a read and you will see what I mean.
Here is the opening paragraph
“After finally discovering that money (lots of it) can be made from music downloads, the RIAA and some of its members are rethinking the entire concept, and the iTunes deal in particular. At least a few RIAA members think that Apple is double-dipping, because it makes most of its money selling the iPod and, well, that’s not fair! So the music companies are rethinkingâ€â€uh, complaining aboutâ€â€the whole downloading model.”
And why do you think that they are complaing. It’s the money? Right?
Wrong. The Retarded Luddites from The RIAA have finally woken up to the fact that there are now “independent” figures on how many songs have been sold and now we can check up on the airy fairy figures they keep quoting.
and now from Ars Technica we have
Legal music downloads soar as CD sales fall
Those music industry guys may be on to something with music downloads. The music industry group International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported (paid subscription required) that online music sales grew at a staggering rate over the past year. During the first half of 2005, legal downloads accounted for US$790 million in sales compared with US$220 million for the first half of 2004. That’s an increase of more than 350 percent in download sales, if you’re scoring at home.
On the flip side, sales of compact discs continued their slide. CD sales dropped by 3.4 percent in terms of units sold and 6.7 by value. CDs, combined with DVD music videos, accounted for US$12.4 billion in revenues. Music sales in all formats (physical and downloads) totaled US$13.2 billion during the first half of 2005, down from US$13.4 billion the previous years.
Some days it just seems to get better and better.