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Piracy outweighs online music sales

30 July 2003 2:51 by Jari Ketola | 12 comments

Despite the increasing popularity of legal music download services, such as iTunes, the online sales won't make up for the losses generated by piracy, according to a study by Jupiter Media.

The research firm estimates online music sales will be $800M this year in the United States. Earlier estimates of $5.1B revenues by 2007 have now been reduced to $3.3B by 2008.

"The industry is suffering from competition for entertainment dollars, changing demographics, the end of the CD upgrade cycle and piracy" said Lee Black, analyst for Jupiter Research.

According to the research, digital sales will account for 7% of the US market this year.

Source:
Guardian

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tinfoil (Junior Member) 30 July 2003 5:12
Piracy will never go away and it's time that the entertainment industry realises this. The software industry figured it out long ago. The best they can do is to stem the tide and these online services will certainly help.. Unless they all suck as bad as BuyMusic does. Digital Media and Music News http://music.tinfoil.net [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 30 July 2003 5:41
Well, what can I say? Of course piracy will never go away, IF there is a way to pirate stuff, which there always is.... ;) When you are on your deathbed, you will wonder, "Did I waste my life? Was it worth spending all that time on that?" Do not despair, no one has wasted their life. After all, you can only waste something if you throw it away. And you can't throw life away. [ + quote]
Ketola (Admin) 30 July 2003 10:17
I wonder what sort of a figures you'd end up with if you added up all the album (CD and LP) and video (VHS and DVD) sales from both 1995 and 2000. I'm pretty sure the total sales were quite a bit larger in 2000. Atleast I put CDs and DVDs in the same category -- if I buy CDS, I'm not going to buy DVDs for a while, and vice versa. Jari Ketola Administrator http://www.AfterDawn.com [ + quote]
GrayArea (Member) 30 July 2003 10:57
Okay, I may be dating myself here. I used to put a lot of other people's albums (vinyl) onto cassette tape. A lot. I may have purchased a few of those records if not for the tapes, but only a few. These "losses" of CD sales seem to be based on estimates of the TOTAL number of files being shared. There's no way people would have purchased all that music even if P2P did not exist at all. Combine that with game sales (through the roof), increased CD prices in a bad economy, & crappy offerings from the major labels and I feel like P2P's impact on music sales is being extremely exaggerated. We mustn't lower ourselves to the level of those we loathe, lest we become loathsome ourselves. [ + quote]
rpeckhoff (Newbie) 30 July 2003 14:46
I agree with Gray Area, people pirate much more than they would ever buy. Heck people pirate more than the would ever use. Check out the people with 500 CDS of MP3's. Thats a heck of a lot of music. And I doubt they listen to half of it. Much less they would have bought 10% of it if they were forced to. [ + quote]
nato1200 (Junior Member) 31 July 2003 20:58
i think Grey Area and rpeckhoff got it exactly right. i have so much stuff that i would never buy if i couldn't have gotten it free from one source or another. [ + quote]
Shegax (Junior Member) 3 August 2003 4:59
Grea area is perfectly rightm well see what happens to the Riaa in the future Shega (adrenaline Is the closest Total freedom) [ + quote]
lamp23 (Newbie) 4 August 2003 0:15
Why are we kidding ourselves? Music SHOULD be free. And we all know why. If everybody had unlimited access to music the world would be a happier place for everyone. Funny thing is, it's not that hard to do and only extremely rich people would be losing money. [ + quote]
stangr (Inactive) 15 March 2004 6:22
y'all are full of sh*t. any one who takes free music is robbing hard working people out of money [ + quote]
djscoop (AfterDawn Addict) 16 March 2004 10:42
this is still news to people? that piracy outweighs legal sales? I can't beleive that this is still headline news. Piracy will never go away. Hackers and programmers are way more computer savy than those damn RIAA and MPAA. [ + quote]
brian100 (Inactive) 16 March 2004 11:02
Its strange that the people who pirate music & dvd's are treated with disgust, whereas the hi tech companies who produce hardware copying appliances never seem to take any of the blame. If the recording or dvd industry were serious about piracy surely they should sue these hi tech companies. Oh of course but that would be silly as theres so many conflicts of interest out there. ie SONY. (What hypocrits they are!!) I personally think that p2p sharing is a good idea in general. It introduces more music to more people, therefore the potential for music sales surely must be higher?? Its basically free advertising I may also add that i do not share files via p2p. Hence my knowledge of todays bands and artists are limited to say the least. This may turn into a worrying trend for the recording industry if all p2p sharing was deemed illegal [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 16 March 2004 11:06
foneman (Newbie) 20 March 2004 9:16
i think brian is onto something...the same industry that is persecuting us for "stealing" will allow a company to make a ripoff of a new product. for example sony is now coming out with a new dvd writer 2.4x. do you think bose, and samsung aren't going to use that same exact idea with their name on it...these people just want money, end of story. it's your choice whether or not you want to support them. [ + quote]