‘Explosive’ UK singles music market

[DaBees-Knees]

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/30230

According to  Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry), file sharing is ruining the corporate music industry and if there was any justice, file sharers would be heavily penalised with forcible disconnection from the Internet and jail time included in punitive measures.

The Big 4 argue file sharing equals sales lost. It’s exactly the same as walking into a shop and stealing a CD off the shelf, they claim.

But a moment’s thought puts the lie to both contentions, even setting aside academic and other studies such as, say, Felix Oberholzer (Harvard Business School) and Koleman Strumpf’s (UNC Chapel Hill) The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales.

It states clearly: “Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates” and, “Moreover, these estimates are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales.”

Explosion in the singles market

It used to be when someone bought an album, they expected to perhaps get two or three decent songs out of it. The rest would be garbage.

The arrival of the net fixed that. Today, people can, and do, access single tracks, completely by-passing corporate filler dross.

Now, the Guardian has Martin Talbot, managing director of the Official Charts Company, saying, “The explosion in the singles market has been nothing short of astonishing this year”.

Some 117 million singles have already been sold so far in 2009, surpassing the previous record of 115.1 million set in 2008, says the story, noting:

“The total has been reached with 10 weeks of trading, including the vital Christmas period, still to run this year, which also marks the 60th anniversary of the single.”

And the trend looks likely to continue, says Talbot.

“Unlike the albums market, which is dominated by CD sales, the UK top 40 is now almost entirely comprised of digital singles,” says the Guardian. “During this year, 98.6% of all singles were sold in digital formats.”

“That singles have hit these heights while there are still more than a billion illegal downloads every year in the UK is testimony to the vibrancy of the download market,” states BPI boss Geoff Taylor in the story

“Consumers are responding to the value and innovation offered by the legal services and these new figures show how the market could explode if the government acts to tackle illegal peer-to-peer filesharing.”

Says UK artist and activist Billy Bragg, co-founder of a2f2a.com:

“So a billion ‘illicit’ files are being downloaded each year and yet we’re seeing record numbers of download sales?

“Could the two be in any way connected?

“Isn’t it about time the BPI recognised the important promotional role played by the p2p community and stopped trying to suppress file-sharing?

There's an old saying, "Having your cake and eating it". It seems the music industry not only wants to own all the cakes. but charge people for looking at them.