broadwayblue

from audiorevolution.com

"You tell me there is no correlation between the music sales and the gangland execution of the illegal file sharing phenomenon Napster? Reports in the Financial Times say Merrill Lynch is predicting that 2001 will be the worst in ever for the music industry with profits off 10 percent across the board. The losses are despite having a pretty strong Q1 and Q2 2001 says one LA-based music industry executive close to AudioRevolution.com."

Aghama

I bet the shutting down of Napster is also responsible for the sagging economy. Free music!

Myster X

Serves them right.

Jepthah

(putting on punditry cap)

I don't think you can prove an absolute correlation, but it may be a major factor. What the RIAA idiots didn't believe or realize is that many people who were file-swapping through Napster were BIG music buyers and were totally practicing what some preached, which was buying music legit after finding it online.

If other industries were managed like the RIAA does music, we'd be in the dark ages--imagine being forced by Oil Companies to file reports on where you drive your car after tanking up (analagous to what they want to do with digital watermarking, etc). The RIAA is the problem, not kids swapping digital music files. Their subscriber fee-based models of Napster are going to tank bigtime as well, no doubt about it.

tygloalex

Napster is like a demo. You download it, and if you like it, you buy it. I'm sure that at least half the people downloading were doing it to get music free, but those are the same people who probably don't buy cd's anyway.

mikehunt

I did buy albums after randomly downloading stuff if it turned out to be a really good song
now i just download out of spite
and napster is bigger than ever, the illegitimate servers have more files than the legit ones used to

jfoobar

Forgive me for naysaying but:

I firmly believe that an overwhelming majority of those that download(ed) copyrighted material via Napster or the other gnutella-based file sharing services were not doing so as a precursor or potential precursor to actually purchasing the material.

As such, assertions that Napster and the like actually help the recording industry make more money seem a bit foolish to me.

Just my $.02.

El Scorcho

JustinS:

However, many of those who were leeching-without-buying-later probably weren't going to buy the music anyway. Most of the people using napster were broke college kids.

CitizenKaneRBud

Last year. as a heavy Napster user I purchased about 30 CDs through the whole year. This year, with no Napster I only bought 3. Buying a CD now is hit or miss if your new to the band. You might hear the radio hit and think all their songs are like that. Then when you buy it the rest are fillers.

Napster really helps aquant people with bands better (and higher quality music than the radio)

jfoobar

And many of them weren't. Oh, and "broke college kids" still tended to spend a fair amount of money in record stores. At least the ones that I went to school with did.

mikehunt

that's probably true, but if you really like a band you'll buy their stuff
like "Beautiful Garbage"
I downloaded the whole thing a week before it got released, but I still bought it. (actually I had it preordered a few months before I downloaded it)

Alyoshka

JustinS:

You have to ask yourself this. Who was it that was using napster? It was pretty much college kids. First off when napster got started most people didn't know what the hell an mp3 was. I remember in early 98 I was one of the only people on my campus who knew what mp3s were. I was the first person on my campus to have a server shut down by the RIAA back when they still cared about individual servers.

Anyhow, to the point. If it was college kids that were the largest thrust of Napster. Then in my experience it was helping sales. I'd hear residents all the time talking about what songs they had heard from napster. "Yeah, did you hear the new ____, I went out and bought it today...it's great"

Stuff like that was everywhere. Now it seems like people are extremely bitter with the music industry.

einTier

I personally used to buy 60+ CDs a year. After Napster, my CD buying actually INCREASED. However, since the heavy handed tactics of the RIAA in alienating their biggest customers, I haven't bought a CD in over a year. NOT ONE. I have to make a consious effort to do so, but I'm so mad at inflated prices, copy protection schemes, wanting to limit how and where I listen to my music, not to mention formats I can listen to it in, I'm willing to make the effort.

Now, if I could keep the RIAA from getting a subsidy on all the CD-Rs I buy and DON'T use for audio.

Heat

I am still new to the CD-R scene (actually, I plan on buying a new computer in January with a CD-R drive).

What is this about RIAA getting subsidies from blank disks? How much? And is there a way to get a refund for disks that aren't used to record music? (they never got cuts off of cassettes, did they?)

How much do blank CDs cost?

broadwayblue

i don't believe they get royalties from the pc cdr's. only the music only ones meant for standalone cd burners.

and you can get a 50 pack of excellent 80 minute cdr's (i use fujifilm) for about $10 to $15 after rebate.

Illinois Enema Bandit

I believe CD-Rs sold as "audio" CD-Rs or "music" CD-Rs have a royalty surcharge

hotaru_san

I buy 90% of my CDs used. The record companies didn't make much money off of me before, during, or after napster.

As for the correlation between the end of napster and the sagging profits for the record industry-- I'm sure the two have some form of connection but there are a lot of over factors.

Alyoshka

maybe that there haven't been many amazing releases so far this year.

einTier

I'm not sure if there is a royalty paid on data CD-Rs, but there is a royalty paid on audio CD-Rs, and a royalty paid on any digital audio recording equipment. Computer equipment is exempt (which could mean that data CD-Rs are as well), because it's primary function is not to record digital audio -- though the RIAA certainly lobbied for it to be included. The logic is that the digital audio equipment will always be used to pirate, and thus, the royalties must be paid -- though these royalties don't go to the artist and they don't absolve you from proscecution for piracy. Nice trade off. We're paying money to the RIAA that they don't deserve and getting nothing in return.

jfoobar

Not really directed at you hotaru:

Is it not true that the phenomenal, albeit relatively short-lived (thanks to the lawsuit), popularity of Napster also increased by a hundredfold the number of would-be consumers who became aware that .mp3s of copyrighted material could be downloaded off the Internet?

Isn't it also true that there are still many locations that copyrighted material can be downloaded from and that a great number of former Napster users now utilize one of these alternate locations?

Would it then be unreasonable to theorize that possibly this is a major factor (along with, of course, the economy) in the overall reduction of record sales?

einTier

Yes, that's true, but this seems to have more credible data than the data that showed Napster hurting record sales. I'm sure the RIAA would attribute this drop in sales to Morpheus, Gnutella and Kaaza.

mikehunt

could their sales be down due to the whole economy being down for the last 3-4 months?

Applejack

I think that the problem is the bad music coming out right now rather than a backlash against the Napster ruling.

I know that is why I have only bought 1 CD in the last year.

DodgingCars

I don't know what the majority of people did/do. But I download music to preview it before I buy it. There are only a few ways I get exposed to new music: radio (hardly), friends, sampler cd's, shows, and downloading. I think friends and downloading expose me to music than any other way.

And I have a fairly large CD collection (probably over 150 and growing). Usually.. the stuff I don't buy, I delete. Because, its either good enough for me to buy.. or not good enough to listen to.

kvrdave

I don't buy a lot of cds, but I do know that I buy less now after Napster going away. I agree with the "preview" idea. Personally, most of the quality of the MP3s were not up to snuff of a store bought CD. Also, I buy the CD so I can mix my own, and while there are many players that now play MP3s, most car players, etc do not.

I do believe that those who stole, weren't buying anyway, and most people increased their buying after using Napster.

And those that wish to circumvent the law will still do so.