December 24, 2005

"Wow. You must be really smart, huh ?"

said in my very best Julia Roberts/Pretty Woman impressioned voice.

CD sales fall as downloads rise, fueled by broadband

"I think CD sales are going to continue to decline," says Owen Sloane, a Los Angeles music attorney who specializes in music and intellectual property.

I sometimes wonder if people really appreciate how their words are quoted by the press. I've had my own experience with such things and have been left with a pretty awful taste in my mouth in regards to the reporting press because of it. As an L.A.-based attorney specializing in music and intellectual property obviously Owen Sloane is not an idiot. So my best guess suggests that what he more than likely said was something to the tune of "We've seen a continued increase in online sales via downloading and streaming music sites. Because of this increase obviously 'I think CD sales are going to continue to decline'" or something similar. And he would definitely be right.

The rest of the above linked article is actually pretty good. It points out that...

...the record industry is apparently crying the 'CD sales decline blues' again because of an apparent 7% decline in sales over the past year. What I don't buy is that every person in the music industry is a complete idiot and doesn't bring recognition to the fact that we're right smack dab in the middle of a media/medium shift in regards to the delivery mechanism for music. When you couple this with the increase in both legal and illegal downloads the distribution numbers are obviously going to be skewed. But overall things are OK, and as the increase of legal online music sites (up by 180 over last years 50 apparently) continues to provide increasingly better and better services that make both cost, availability, and accessibilty attractive to this same base of consumers, they're only going to get better.

Some might think I'm giving the music industry far too much credit in regards to what they actually believe. But I don't think so. To make it in the music industry requires skill, talent, and from the business side of things especially, smarts. They'll get this thing figured out. In the mean time my advice would be believe about half of what you read in the press. Based on my own above linked experience, that number would be about right.