I saw an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today, about the ARIAs attempt to hide the fact that last year was a record-breaking year in terms of CD sales. There's also an article at Ars Technica here.
For years the ARIA has claimed that internet music piracy has led to a decrease in CD sales. These figures clearly show that despite widespread music piracy over many P2P networks, CD sales have increased. Instead of lauding the record number of CDs sold, the ARIA press release is titled "Music DVD continues its rise whilst CD singles slide further". It goes on to say that there was a 16.5% decrease in single sales last year. The author of the article, Steve Cannane, sums it up well: "But it's not telling the whole truth. It neglects to mention the record companies are not releasing as many singles as they used to. Sales of singles do not make much money. Singles are these days pretty much released for promotional purposes - to get radio play and drum up interest in an album. In the US, singles have virtually disappeared from sale." Of course, without knowing this fact, readers of the press release will jump to the conclusion that internet piracy is the reason for this drop in single sales. That may be the case, to a small degree. But the fact that there was a large increase in CD sales indicates otherwise.
Maybe, just maybe, all this internet piracy has actually had a positive effect on CD sales, because people have greater access to music. All someone has to do is type in the artist, song name, album, etc, and they will get a list of results. If I were to search for an artist in any major P2P app, I would get a listing of songs available. I might download one of those, and then another, and find out that I like a lot of the songs by this band. I might then go and buy the CD, and another, and another, because I find that I really, really like this band. I'd then go an tell my friends to buy this artist's CDs, and so on and so on. Now, I'm not saying music piracy on the internet is a good thing - far from it. It's copyright infringement and we all know it. BUT, the internet (and by extension, the P2P apps that many people use) give people access to a much greater library of music for them to enjoy.
Legalised music download services, such as the iTunes Music Store, have made this a lot easier, by allowing people to preview tracks and download single songs or whole albums easily. However, services like this are not available in most countries, and the sound quality may leave something to be desired. I buy lots of CDs, rather than download the tracks off the net, because I want to support the artists (even though very little money actually goes to them, according to some sources), and also because the quality of CDs is much better than MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg, etc… I also have a conscience, and something in me just says that its bad to download the songs and not pay for them. Some people may differ in this respect.
Enough ranting from me. I just think it's silly that the ARIA is hiding the fact that it had record CD sales last year. Instead, it should be embracing these new technologies and working on a download service in Australia, by expediting negotiations with Apple or another vendor.
