The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a trade body that claims to represent the UK music industry, has once again warned of falling investment and lost jobs because the Government is allegedly "taking too long to act" against "chronic piracy" from broadband ISP customers. Curiously the doom and gloom comments accompanied news of strong growth in digital music sales during 2011.According to the BPI, a "fourth successive record year for singles and growing consumer confidence in digital albums" has not been able to offset a "decline in overall UK music sales". The decline could equally be caused by the fact that rising digital sales allow consumers to pick and choose what tracks they like from an album and ignore the rubbish, although piracy still takes the blame. Not to mention the current economic problems.
Total singles sales increased 10.0% overall in 2011, with the vast majority (98%) sold as digital tracks and bundles. Consumer appetite for digital album downloads has also continued to grow (23.5% market share), although CD album sales remain dominant with 76.1% of total sales.
Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive, said:
"It has been another record year for digital singles, but the most encouraging news of the year is the strong backing consumers are giving to the digital album format. British music fans understand that the album remains the richest way to connect with an artist’s work. Digital developments grab the headlines, but the CD remains hugely popular with consumers, accounting for three-quarters of album sales. Physical ownership is important to many fans and the CD will be a key element of the market for years to come.
British artists continue to produce incredible music that resonates at home and around the world. But while other countries take positive steps to protect their creative sector, our Government is taking too long to act on piracy, while weakening copyright to the benefit of US tech giants. The UK has already fallen behind Germany as a music market. Unless decisive action is taken in 2012, investment in music could fall again – a creative crunch that will destroy jobs and mean the next Adele may not get her chance to shine on the world stage."
"It has been another record year for digital singles, but the most encouraging news of the year is the strong backing consumers are giving to the digital album format. British music fans understand that the album remains the richest way to connect with an artist’s work. Digital developments grab the headlines, but the CD remains hugely popular with consumers, accounting for three-quarters of album sales. Physical ownership is important to many fans and the CD will be a key element of the market for years to come.
British artists continue to produce incredible music that resonates at home and around the world. But while other countries take positive steps to protect their creative sector, our Government is taking too long to act on piracy, while weakening copyright to the benefit of US tech giants. The UK has already fallen behind Germany as a music market. Unless decisive action is taken in 2012, investment in music could fall again – a creative crunch that will destroy jobs and mean the next Adele may not get her chance to shine on the world stage."
Taylor's comments are largely directed towards the controversial Digital Economy Act (DEA), which seeks to warn and ultimately punish (e.g. disconnect) ISP customers who become "suspected" of involvement with internet copyright infringement activity (piracy).
Unfortunately the act is reliant upon unreliable IP address based evidence, which at best can only identify the connection owner whom may or may not be the guilty individual. Many homes and businesses share their access (e.g. Wi-Fi hotspots, libraries and schools etc.), which could all now risk disconnection.
The act has faced significant opposition, not least from a Judicial Review by TalkTalk and BT that pointed to several serious conflicts with European law (here). The appeal hearing is set to go ahead in February 2012. Alternative plans for website blocking, which Ofcom rejected (here) and even the EU court appears to regard as illegal (here), have faced similar problems and remain incredibly easy to circumvent but continue to be developed as part of a voluntary code (here).
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Comments: 16
BobPosted: 2 January, 2012 - 1:13 PM
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The report does not seem to indicate that Piracy is a significant problem.
What appears to be happing is the market is changing and moving to downloadable media whilst th CD market is shrinking.
Consumers are also being a lot more selective about the music they buy when downloaded, in many cases rather than buy an entire album they will only buy one or two tracks off of the album.
The other aspect is that people have more choice nowadays as to how they spend there money many prefering to spend it on films and DVD's rather than music and also at presemt people budgets are shrinking
The indications are that the problem is that the music industry has refused to change and adapt. THere is also a denial by the industry as well that the demand for recorded music is shrinking. They prefer to blame the decline on piracy in spite of the facts indicating otherwise
AnonymousPosted: 2 January, 2012 - 2:50 PM
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Well, maybe music fans prefer to save their money for music concerts?
They basically get more for less, cos they download about ...50-100 tracks for free and then go to the concerts?? There Iis no money being lost here, as the costumer just gets more. There is no loss, no profit.
It is the record industry that are greedy which is evident as even the artists are against the DEA.
DeductionPosted: 2 January, 2012 - 3:54 PM
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Record industry talks piffle again.
Is this even news any more?
SledgehammerPosted: 2 January, 2012 - 3:57 PM
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The BPI still banging away at the same old drum. Somebody should sell them a trumpet.
Andrew CrawfordPosted: 2 January, 2012 - 6:13 PM
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I think they also forget where probalyl about to enter another receession people money is strectch just trying to buy food and pay essential buills, so people will contunie to buy, i dont disagree piracy isa problem but not to th extent these idiots say, i really wish someone one would conduct a true survey to find how much is downloaded and make sure it is completley anonymous so people can trust there not getting tricked into giving informaiton, but the suurvey would need to address other issues like why people are no logner wanting cd etc but even if it was done these idiot would jsut not accept to change
DeductionPosted: 3 January, 2012 - 2:45 PM
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If its costing them so much money why are they even still in business and claiming to help find new talent and fund it?
Surely if your business is losing millions for whatever reason you cut your losses and run.... Not cry like a little beehatch you are still losing money and keep spending it.
Maybe none of them passed their GCSE in business studies?
I for one will not miss the likes of xfactor and teenybop trash music we are flooded with. In fact ill actually thank the music industry for once if they shut up shop and my eyes and ears were no longer subject to the cack.
BobPosted: 3 January, 2012 - 3:05 PM
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Digital singles downloads accounts for 77 Million of the total sales, most of the other categories showing declines are old formats. The only significant drop is in CD singles down 40% in actual quanities down about 800,000 much of that being down to people choosing digitald downloads and the simple fact that fewer single CD's are now produced.
As far as I can tell it does not indicate any significant level of piracy in fact the sale of singles is up 10% hardly an indication of piracy particularly when the UK is in recession and people are cutting back.
Album sales were down by about 5.5% hardly an indication of pircacy but down to a mixture of people cutting back on spending on music and people choosing to download individual tracks rather than buy an entire album.
People are being mmore sensible and it becomes far more obvious with digital that most of a new album is old material
LouisbsPosted: 3 January, 2012 - 7:15 PM
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The music industry needs to wake up to the 21st century.
Offer services people want!
I don't know anyone who likes a whole CD but instead likes 2 - 3 tracks. Most albums are filled with crap now. So why bother paying for an album?
When its much easier to purchase from the likes of iTunes the tracks you like.
DTMarkPosted: 4 January, 2012 - 4:02 AM
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I can't acually recall when I last bought a CD. In any event there's nowhere in our local town that sells the things (really).
I've downloaded stuff from YouTube (music, I mean) and then gone on to buy the ones I like, mostly, obscure non current tracks.
In the most recent case I've been chatting to the composer of my all time top tune (Italian DJ called Paola Peroni), sent her the link to Juno Downloads (legal, paid for, has her rare-in-the-UK stuff) so she can put the link on her page, and, frankly, what I'd especially like is to be able to send her a few quid directly over the net cutting out the middlemen.
The same middlemen who are complaining, no doubt.
The same would go for movies except at a miserable 6Mbps (all we can get) downloading "on demand" isn't really practical, and the cost of the data is just too high to bother with.
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