Truth or Dare - the Lies of the Record Industry

You know what really gets me? It's the continuous bilge peddled by the record industry that mp3 downloads account for the current slump in record sales. It sounds plausable doesn't it? Until you realise people have been 'taping' music for twenty years, but the statistics weren't available to manipulate then. Not like now. Apparently 800 million downloads of music tracks were done last year, equating to what, exactly? Does the music business seriously believe themselves when they say that they lost 800 million extra sales? It's ridiculous. I went down my local high street at the weekend, where now, sadly, only one music retail store is left. Even more sadly it's an HMV store. Yuck. Well, there were quite a few kids in there, and you could just make out some music was playing inside. That was it. You'd like to think music was still alive and kicking, but there used to be at least three other independent stores, all packed, all busy. The sad truth is, as the characterful indy stores have been edged out, only the most coventional kids are still into music. Everyone else has moved on. The chart kids, usually under sixteen, still buy the top ten, and everyone else has been left 'out in the cold'.
My partner recenty aquired a nice mp3 player. Now he doesnt like chart music, being in his early forties, so he had to record some of his beloved Led Zeppelin albums, convert the wave format into mp3, and then input to his new toy. Is he now a criminal? Or should he really be confining his listening to the new Atomic Bollocks cd? This should be of serious consideration to the music industry. The Led Zep did sound ace, though. I am now in the process of converting my new Magnet discs to mp3, so I've got some tracks to listen to aswell.
The link to the news article below is hysterical, as it seems to imply we'll all be really glad when the music industry saves its lost sales, and we can all return to paying top dollar for average product. They really have lost it........

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Digital music revolution changing the tune
Sun Feb 1, 4:46 PM ET Add Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!



CANNES, France (AFP) - 2004 will be the year of a new generation of mobile jukeboxes and telephones that will revolutionise how the world listens to music.

If the latest technological breakthroughs showcased at the MIDEM international music fair over the past week fulfill their potential, people worldwide will soon be tuning into their favourite songs and compiling albums via their cellphones and video-game consoles, or downloading music onto mobile jukeboxes.

A host of new digital music devices and services will be launched on the market this year. But there are still snags on the horizon. Europe's copyright red tape notably is slowing the flow of music tracks onto the new digital services, and not all new gadgets are compatible with each other.

The MIDEM fair saw movers and shakers in the music industry get down to serious talk with the giants of the cellphone, telephone service providers, Internet and electronic worlds about how they can make the new technology work for them as well as for music lovers.

MIDEM, the international music industry's most influential annual gathering in this Mediterranean resort town, was the venue for this first major get together between the music and hi-tech worlds. There was also a sense of urgency that industries need to move more quickly as technology as well as consumers' tastes can change rapidly.

On the piracy front, the music industry recognised it was too slow in reacting to the onslaught of illegal music Internet downloads. These fell to 800 million at the end of 2003 but were still the main reason for last year's 10 percent slump in album sales worldwide.

Luckily for the record business and musicians, the tide is starting to turn, mostly thanks to the runaway success of the first paying online music stores and digital jukeboxes. more.....

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