Metallica Sued Napster For This?

from the pound-foolish dept

David Levine has a post up looking at Metallica's revenue streams last year. Apparently, the band made the vast majority of its money from concert revenue -- bringing in $22.8 million. It made $1.6 million from album sales. As Levine notes:

Hmmm...think it would make a lot of difference to the world if they lost the $1.6 million from the albums? Without copyright they'd only make $22.8 million from touring...You might almost think it would be worth it to them to give the recorded music away for free to promote their concerts...

Or, hell, give away the tracks and promote other stuff as well. Selling music directly (relying on copyright) is a tiny business compared to the opportunities elsewhere. And, of all the bands out there, Metallica should clearly recognize that.

Filed Under: album sales, copyright, live, metallica, revenue

Album Sales Fall, Of Course

from the who-didn't-expect-that dept

This will come as no surprise to anyone, of course, but the only significant area of the music business that is struggling is, once again, CD sales. Bloomberg has noted that album sales in the US declined 14% in 2008. Of course, digital sales continued to grow, and, as recently noted, the concert business is booming. Oddly enough, sales of vinyl records continue to rise -- a trend we noted last summer. To be honest, the fact that album sales only dropped by 14% seems rather surprising. If I were in the business of selling mostly obsolete plastic discs, I'd be thrilled they only dropped that much.

Filed Under: album sales, recording industry