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Napster May Be Dying, But The Music Business Is Getting Killed

Studies

from the well,-that's-interesting dept

Thu, Jul 19th 2001 12:55am — Mike Masnick
So, last year the music industry is blaming Napster for its potential demise, and yet they have their best year ever. This year, they effectively kill Napster, and CD sales are dropping. No one seems to have an explanation. The obvious choice is to blame the economy downturn - but that hasn't affected music sales much in the past. Maybe people are just sick of plastic over produced acts that churn out crappy pop? Of course, you can't trust me. Most people look at the CDs in my collection with a complete blank stare and wonder what planet I bought them on.
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  1. identicon
    Duffman, 19 Jul 2001 @ 6:26am

    Consumer fighting back, inadvertently

    I think that consumers, many of whom used Napster and slowed their CD sales, now just go to the store and think to themselves, "Is this really worth $15-20?" Napster isn't there anymore, but the mindset is. Also, look at the fact that the price has increased since Napster first came out - the cost of a CD has been slowly increasing over the past 8 years or so, by $0.50 one year or a dollar the next. CDs that used to be $16 are now $20 (sorry, Cdn $). A lot of the music I listen to isn't that common, so I get charged another $4-6 over that now. Do I really want to pay $20-26 for a CD now? I know for myself, the answer is often no. I think that Napster has achieved more in the mindset than all the "Buy Nothing Days" and "Buy No Gasoline Days" and whatever else have ever achieved, by causing people to question the value of what they are really getting at the music store.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Ed, 19 Jul 2001 @ 1:16pm

    I predict...

    ...that eventually the recording industry will see that having access to a wide variety of downloadable music stimulates CD sales. So they'll sponsor some kind of Napster-like service, except it will be waist-deep in copyright control measures: limited bit rates, expiring songs, transfer volume limits, serial copy management, watermarking, you name it.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]


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