IFPI's Latest Report On Music Sales Shows Growth In Some Markets

from the but-piracy-is-still-to-blame dept

Wed, Apr 28th 2010 6:53pm — Mike Masnick

The IFPI has put out its latest report on the state of the music business (sent in first by Nastybutler77). There aren't too many surprises. Some of the data in the report (such as the growth in the UK and elsewhere) were already covered a few weeks ago in a presentation by Will Page, the chief economist for PRS in the UK. But there were some interesting points in the report that suggest the industry is still in quite a bit of denial. Thirteen markets saw "a return to growth" in music sales -- though, amusingly, the IFPI chooses to highlight two of them -- South Korea and Sweden -- both of which passed ridiculously draconian anti-piracy laws, mostly due to pressure from folks like the IFPI.

Not surprisingly, the IFPI credits the "improving legal environments" in those countries for the increasing sales. Similarly, it notes that sales declines happened in Spain and Canada -- two of the countries most regularly singled out by the entertainment industry for having consumer friendly copyright laws. Of course, that's not how the industry describes it. They talk about how those countries' laws are "out of touch" or not in line with "international standards."

Of course, what the IFPI totally ignores (not surprisingly, since they only represent record labels) is that while the sales of music directly may have declined in some markets, the overall market for music grew tremendously. In other words, the decline in sales of recorded music has not done harm to the music industry, but just to a few record labels. This new report is really just an attempt to pretend (yet again) that the "music industry" is really "the recording industry." And, of course, what this report doesn't come close to acknowledging, is that in putting in place these "legal environments" in places like Sweden and South Korea, it has cut off many more efficient and effective ways for musicians to create, promote and distribute their works.

That's what this report really shows. It shows that the IFPI wants to be the gatekeeper to make sure that more of the money going through the music ecosystem goes to its labels, rather than to others. It doesn't care if the overall market for music is smaller, just as long as more of the money goes to its members.

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Filed Under: ifpi, music industry, will page

9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 9:00pm

only the masnick could spin the report as a damnation of copyright. you never stop amazing me.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 9:15pm

Re:
Reading the article before trolling is helpful, usually, TAM.
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Ben (profile), 29 Apr 2010 @ 4:01am

RE; Sweden = Spotify
Anyone in the know about Sweden knows the one reason revenues are up for Sweden. Surprise, surprise it is legal service that people like, Spotify. Downloading has not decreased in Sweden, regardless of the laws in place.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Apr 2010 @ 5:12am

Re: Re:
i read the article. i then didnt swallow the masnicks conclusions whole like you did. it isnt just reading the article that matters it is actually understanding it and doing your own thinking not just accepting the drawn conclusion.
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so cowardly tom, 29 Apr 2010 @ 6:42am

cd sales
it seems to me that:
'Physical sales fell by 12.7% globally.' - Hardly surprising considering the rise of music on mp3 players and phones (and ipads and notebooks) none of which have a cd player.
'Digital music sales rose by 9.2%'
'digital sales account for nearly half - 43%'
All it says is music sales have dropped a bit 12%-9% = 3%. That could be for any reason - recession perhaps? video games, bad music, tv, and maybe even a small amount of piracy (but not as much as they always like to make out). probably a mixture of all these things.
Or am i misreading the article?
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Hephaestus (profile), 29 Apr 2010 @ 7:10am

Re: RE; Sweden = Spotify
" Downloading has not decreased in Sweden, regardless of the laws in place."

Downloading is actually up in Sweden just hidden behind encryption, VPN, direct shares, weblockers, etc.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Apr 2010 @ 7:49am

Re: Re: Re:
Perhaps if you had actually read it instead of pretending to, you would have noticed the complete lack of any "damnation of copyright."
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Joel (profile), 29 Apr 2010 @ 7:49am

Re: cd sales
I agree with you, maybe they don't know that the whole world is in a recession.
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Nastybutler77 (profile), 29 Apr 2010 @ 9:41am

Glossing over what they don't like
Notice the IFPI glosses over the fact that music sales increased in some countries like Australia which has pretty lax laws agianst "piracy." But they only focus on the two countries where stronger copyright laws were put in place and music sales increased, ignoring the countries that didn't enact new laws or where court rulings made file sharing legal and music sales STILL increased.
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