iTunes swallowed a quarter of US music sales

One in four songs sold in the US are done so via Apple’s iTunes store, according to a new report. NPD Group's MusicWatch division said today that while audio CDs remain the most popular format among music consumers, digital tracks notched up 35 per cent of all songs sold in the first half of 2009. That’s a 15 per cent leap in …

[Anonymous Coward]

The record companies are miming

I was at a music event the other day, there was a DJ, he had the full setup. 2 turntables, big mixer, 2 headphones, he played a 2 hour set, smoothly mixing records on his turntables, queuing up the next record and playing with the sliders.

He did everything, except for one small thing............ he never changed a record, not once, he just pretended to que the same 2 records over and over again.

The Apple Laptop on the corner of his turntable was really playing the music, he was just miming being a DJ.

IMHO, the record companies are just miming. Apple is doing their distribution, the acts are doing more and more of their own promotion and the record companies.... we'll they pretend to move sliders and que up distribution deals, when in fact they just pretend.

[Robert Oakes]

Awesome Achievement Apple

And and industry analysts said that iTunes would never work and that people will never pay for music! A bit like Steve Ballmer's prediction with the iPhone!

[Anonymous Coward]

Impact of illegal downloading?

OK I realize that there are people out there that will never buy music if they can get it for free but hey I think of it as try before I buy. I have added over 100 CD's to my collection over the last two years, CD's I never would have even heard of let alone purchased with out the copies floating around on the Internet to sample.

[Tim Anderson]

Walmart not so strong in download sales

As far I can tell from the release, Walmart is only ahead of Amazon in overall music sales - the 14% is for download + physical combined. In downloads, it is iTunes 69%, Amazon 8%, and Walmart not stated but around 3% by rough calculation.

Apple's share of the download market seems steady at around 70% for the last three years, despite Amazon's efforts.

Tim

[Francis Boyle]

It's pretty damn obvious

that if the distributors of digital media are to make any headway against Apple they're going to have to swallow their pride and get together to produce an open digital media management system.

Maybe they could talk to Palm. (their cat and mouse game with Apple's a joke.)

[Anonymous Coward]

@Tim A

Simple reason...

Dribbling sheep.

the must have an iThingy becuase it the best*

they install iTunes because err the ithingy only works with iTune don't it?

they download from iTunes.

Simple.

*the dribbling masses verdict, not mine. Easy to tell because 99% of them use the shite headsets supplied, so don't give a actually give a toss about audio quality.

[lukewarmdog]

great survey

Is this how we find stuff out now?

We just poll a few 13 year olds?

I see problems with this approach, for instance questions about credit would be limited to pocket money, housing questions would all be answered as "living with parents".

[Christopher Rogers]

So...

When are world government bodies gonna start trying to rip apple apart just like Microsoft? Is 70% not monopolistic enough just yet? Or are all those money grabbing weasles still too mesmorised by shiny new iphones to see any potential for positional abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC 19/08/09 08:11 GMT

What an utterly pointless and arrogant twat. That is all.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Christopher Rogers

When and if Apple become the dominant firm in the whole market, and control it in an anti-competitive manner; ie price fixing, then I'm sure they will be. As it stands, they don't. They have a 25% share of the overall market, which remains competitive, unlike the web browser market. If you were to remove your bitter Microsoft RDF glasses, you probably wouldn't have posted your comment.

[Rob Davis]

Re: The record companies are miming

Have I missed a joke or something...

Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 18th August 2009 17:22 GMT wrote:

"I was at a music event the other day, there was a DJ, he had the full setup. 2 turntables, big mixer, 2 headphones, he played a 2 hour set, smoothly mixing records on his turntables, queuing up the next record and playing with the sliders."

"He did everything, except for one small thing............ he never changed a record, not once, he just pretended to que the same 2 records over and over again."

Those records were probably timecode vinyls - they are recordings of signals, that when played into a the computer with appropriate software (see below), the position and speed of the track can be calculated to play a audio file on the computer accordingly, thus emulating vinyl.

Using this software and hardware

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/dj/traktor-pro

or

http://www.scratchlive.net/

"The Apple Laptop on the corner of his turntable was really playing the music, he was just miming being a DJ."

Yup it probably was, but he still had the skill controlling the vinyl.

You'll find this at most music events, bars, clubs.

Am I telling you something you already know? I guess I might have missed something...

As far as iTunes taking more market share - that's progress. Sure saves carrying Vinyl around everywhere. I'm not a fan of iTunes though I have bought tunes from them, DRM and non-DRM. Also from amazon. Guess what? So convenient!

Music has been around long before record companies have. But record companies still have their role: how to position artists, when/where/how to release artists material, choosing the right time. Sure there might be some bad ones, but it is a populist view to slag them off, but all that aggregate knowledge over years of managing several artists has to be useful. Great works by an artist does not automatically sell itself. Sure they want their money, but this is business.

The industry continues to evolve. Selling music is not the only way for artists to make money: merchandise, festivals, concerts, sponsorship, use in adverts, film, television, computer games.

[Attridge]

Piracy

Estimates on the economic and employment damage caused by piracy vary. In the

UK, Jupiter Research valued the loss at £180 million in 2008.

Taking data over 3 years across muliple markets it is estimated nearly 95% of all music downloaded results in no payment to artist or record label.

[source ifpa]

http://onehandshake.blogspot.com