(Disclaimer: I've only skimmed, and I don't know anything about the author or the site.)
I'm not even sure who and what he's referring to every time he says Free Culture (which he capitalizes) movement. People who don't pay for music but just because they're lazy and cheap and not because of principles? I think a response by the SFC Board or Core could be warranted. This article is getting a lot of comments and shares. (Example: I'm Facebook friends with Rivers Cuomo from Weezer for some reason (I think because we went to the same college and I saw a lot of friends were, I don't remember) and he shared it.) Alex, I've seen similar claims made related to the misconception of the public momentum against SOPA being primarily orchestrated and financed by Google, but I'm not sure if that's related. Alec, in response to those numbers, some excerpts from: http://www.techdirt.com/skyisrising/ (the annotated Google Doc<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qtoe_7a7qMIfmR7L8DueyLqtXxZwMYiRQycoHRyhVkM/edit?pli=1>version) *On the consumption side, music is also being consumed at near record-setting levels. According to Nielsen SoundScan<http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110106006565/en/Nielsen-Company-Billboard%E2%80%99s-2010-Music-Industry-Report>figures, the overall sale of music (including albums, singles, digital tracks, etc.) exceeded 1.5 billion transactions in 2010. That's up from 845 million transactions in 2000. These overall sales figures seem to rise and fall a bit over the years, but they don't necessarily drop<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/12/demise-music-industry-facts>during economic recessions. * ... *In 2005<http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/the-broader-music-industry.pdf>, the IFPI estimated the global music industry to be worth $132 billion -- which included revenues from music in radio advertising, recorded music sales, musical instrument sales, live performance revenues and portable digital music player sales (among a few other income categories). By 2010, the IFPI estimated the market to be worth $168 billion, but it had also changed how it categorized some of the revenues and added categories such as audio home systems, music-related video game sales and music revenues from TV advertising (in addition to a few other categories).* * * *...* *But, despite the increasing production and consumption of music, the music industry doesn't seem rosy to everyone. The revenues from recorded music, such as CD sales, have been falling steadily<http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/news/e3i868d104ace88f495a07f9534916589ed>over the last several years. This shouldn't come as a huge surprise, either. Historically, music has been sold on various kinds of physical media: vinyl records, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs and other less well-known formats. Each of these formats has seen its peak, and each of them may someday cease to be sold entirely -- though that time has not come yet even for vinyl (as there are signs<http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/digital-music-leads-boost-in-record-sales/>that vinyl records still have plenty of useful life left and their sales were up ~41% for 2011). Still, as the CD format wanes, the revenues from selling CD albums are diminishing, too. The problem, it seems, is that consumers are buying more single tracks<http://musicbusinessresearch.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/the-recession-in-the-music-industry-a-cause-analysis/>now instead of entire albums and that consumers have an expectation that digital music tracks should be cheaper than purchasing plastic discs. The result is that the number of single digital tracks purchased is rising (initially with double-digit growth<http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/01/16/us-global-idUSTRE50F6NE20090116?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews&rpc=69>), but the revenue from selling single tracks isn't matching<http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1047366&c=1>that of the peak years of selling CD albums. This trend was apparent in 2007 <http://www.economist.com/node/10498664?story_id=E1_TDQJRGGQ>, as the volume of physical recorded music was dropping (also by double digit percentages). The problem here is that the major labels have been relying on CD sales as their main income stream and are only just starting to diversify their revenue and business models. Interestingly, a former executive at Universal Music, Tim Renner, has said that the major labels had a chance to diversify their income streams when "they had the money and could have built the competence by buying concert agencies and merchandising companies." However, this hindsight isn't necessarily the way forward for the major music labels now.* On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Alec Story <[email protected]> wrote: > The letter quotes some numbers: > > Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999. >> >> Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!! >> >> The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000. >> >> Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 >> copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. Without going into >> details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin >> to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and >> promotion. >> >> > This is the first time I've heard that - everything else I've seen has > suggested that big media companies have been growing just fine in the past > decade. Can anyone who knows better comment? I'm sure that some of the > revenue decrease is just due to the un-bundling of the album. > > On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:04 PM, Alex Leavitt <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Don't have much time to respond with anything lengthy at the moment; >> mainly wanted to share, since it garnered so many (supportive) comments. I >> think my main criticism is the characterization of the "free culture >> movement" as led by corporate stakeholders (eg., Megaupload, Google, etc.). >> I really felt like that came out of left field, but I've also never seen >> that critique before, so I'm wondering if anyone had additional thoughts. >> >> >> >> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Rich Jones <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Interesting, Alex - would you like to share your opinions and start a >>> discussion? >>> >>> This is the author, for those interested: >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lowery >>> >>> R >>> >>> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 6:33 PM, Alex Leavitt <[email protected]>wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/ >>>> >>>> Alex >>>> >>>> --- >>>> >>>> Alexander Leavitt >>>> PhD Student >>>> USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism >>>> http://alexleavitt.com >>>> Twitter: @alexleavitt >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Discuss mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>>> FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss >>>> >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss >> >> > > > -- > Alec Story > Cornell University > Biological Sciences, Computer Science 2012 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss > > -- Ali Sternburg, J.D. [email protected] alisternburg.com @alisternburg <https://twitter.com/#!/alisternburg>
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