In what appears to be a continuation of a long-running trend, sales of music CDs, DVDs and other formats fell 35 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period a year earlier, the Canadian Recording Industry Association reported Thursday.
That comes after a 12 per cent sales drop between 2005 and 2006 -- the largest-ever annual decline in Canada's music market -- and an almost unbroken string of sales declines since 1999.
"We've experienced sizable short-term drops before, but nothing compares to the drastic numbers we're seeing so far this year," said CRIA President Graham Henderson.
CRIA, a non-profit trade organization, believes the shrinking sales are due in large part to music pirating and downloading. It's calling upon the federal government to update the Copyright Act and bring in more government policies to deter counterfeiting.
"The reforms sought would place Canada on an equal footing with its major trading partners, most of which have already updated their copyright laws in line with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaties, to which Canada is a signatory," CRIA says in a release.
Yadda, Yadda goes the experts but I am not really surprised. I can’t remember the last time I actually bought a CD. Currently, the ipod count is 3 in the tribe and my youngest is asking for his own ipod for his birthday which would bring the count to 4 in the home.
My music budget has actually increased steadily since the tribe came into possession of our first Ipod three years ago. Furthermore, all the music I have purchased has been duly bought and paid without having to utilize one of those weird little backdoor downloads via an Russian online retailer or the more patently obvious illegal kind of downloads.
But here’s the deal – we only buy the songs we want. It’s rare that we actually purchase an entire album by any one artist. The Last Amazon has rather unique taste and often patronizes websites of alternative artists. She then buys the download of only the songs she actually wants directly from the artist’s site. It’s really a win-win situation for the artist. No middle man, no packaging, no storage, no transportation costs so the royalty fee on the site is relatively unencumbered with the except probably being the costs for hosting the site and the website designer’s fees.
If CD sales are down 35% in a single quarter I would say our music habits are much more indicative of what is happening out in the larger general public domain. My point to all music industry types; time to change your business models and get connected with the truly wired generation rather than crying “piracy” at the end of every quarter.
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