For All That Downloading, Album Sales Are Up In The UK
from the well,-look-at-that... dept
There was lots of hype last week about how ringtones might outsell music singles in the UK this year. The music industry, while happy about the ringtone sales, used it as an example to show how music downloading was killing the singles market (if you hadn't noticed, the music industry is willing to take anything and blame downloading on the death of the music industry - I'm almost surprised we haven't yet heard of a connection between last week's blackout and music downloads, and the resulting death of the music industry). However, lost in the commotion was one interesting tidbit: album sales in the UK are up. While the music industry insists this is not possible, it seems that two things have happened: more people are downloading music and discovering new artists and the price of CDs have fallen. That combination means that many more CDs are being bought (though, at lower prices). Of course, the music industry will still whine that dollar amounts are lower, or that this is a temporary blip - but once again, it shows that they're so set in their beliefs that they're unwilling to look at the actual data and realize there are opportunities in music sharing, rather than threats.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
