Digital Strength Drives First Growth in Music Sales Since 1999 as File Sharing Declines

[Szarky]

I wish here in Canada we could get Pandora and Spotify. Only hear great things about them. Songza for me has totally changed the way I listen to music. Used to download music, now I stream it depending on my mood. Highly recommend it. Free too!

[ThatsMeRight]

Originally Posted by Monkeydude

Which Country would that be?

(I assume we are talking about downloading without paying)

The Netherlands. Hello neighbour.

[Cuban Missles]

There are still titles that are released in one country that is not available in another country. Several times the only way I was able to get a song I liked was to download it illegally because even iTunes would not sell it in my country. This is one of those industry habits that need to changes. The spotify and pandora threads are all valid, but I still like to own my own songs so that I can create my own tracks and playlist for parties etc.

[ThatsMeRight]

Originally Posted by Cuban Missles

but I still like to own my own songs so that I can create my own tracks and playlist for parties etc.

You actually can create playlists with Spotify. And you can also import your own songs, if you want.

[The Bulge]

Good music … they don't make it anymore.

[Akuratyde]

Originally Posted by ThatsMeRight

Yep, I totally agree. It now feels like as if CDs are ancient and services like iTunes are at best "out-dated". Spotify - for me - is perfect.

The operative phrase here being "for me". For you Spotify is perfect, for many others like myself it's useless. I listen to a lot of music that simply isn't available on Spotify and never will be. I also live in an area that has spotty cell coverage and I spend a lot of time in the car. Not only would I never want to waste my 4G on streaming while in the car, I couldn't even if I wanted to.

I think it's great that so many people find streaming services a perfect solution for them but it comes across a bit smug to be saying iTunes is "outdated" when for me, it's the perfect option.

[Tiger8]

That's cause music nowadays is so disposable, not worth even the space it takes on the precious iPhone...

[Nunyabinez]

But wait! Bon Jovi said Steve Jobs ruined the music industry. How can this be so?

[Daalseth]

Music files burned and ripped from CDs owned by friends and family fell 44 percent

How would they know that? Seriously, that they so casually toss that number out bothers me a lot. If I take a song on a CD that I own and rip it into iTunes how would they know? How would they know if I put that song on a CD or jump-drive and give it to a friend, how would they know? Either that stat is pulled out of their ... thin air, or they have some spyware out there that we don't know about.

[ArtOfWarfare]

Originally Posted by SirChadwick

This situation isn't new. Back in the day (I'm old), we would listen to music on the radio FOR FREE and then buy the song the next day.

Thinking about it, you're exactly right... I listen to a song a few times on Spotify, determine I like it enough to buy it, and then I do (so I can have it when I'm on my iPhone... I don't buy often enough to justify the paid versions of Spotify, but maybe every 1 or 2 weeks I pick up a song for $1.29 on iTunes.)

[Avatar74]

Originally Posted by Lestdog

Yeah because those were the only 2 places you could steal music from.

The music industry should have developed a better business plan, instead they got one thrust open them.

Actually, according to the data in the original report, he's correct. In countries where they block Pirate Bay and BitTorrent, piracy is undercut substantially.

[neuropsychguy]

Originally Posted by spazzcat

So most people have what they want in their libraries and there isn't anything new worth pirating...

I disagree (although that argument is as reasonable as just about any other ones related to this topic). I think music now is better than it's ever been because we have direct access to so many more musicians and don't have to hear just the "filtered" stuff. Yes, a lot of the charted music is average or worse but we are not limited by charts with iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, turntable, and so on.

[GermanyChris]

And Norah Jones is still a great looking lady with a great voice..

[dustinsc]

Originally Posted by ThatsMeRight

Yep, I always downloaded music (which, I must note, is not illegal over here) but ever since services like Spotify have emerged I do no longer see the need to download music.

You can listen to almost any song, anywhere for just $10 a month. It's ideal and it is so cheap that it isn't even worth it to download music for free, and it is not as expensive as buying your songs on - may I dare - "old fashioned digital services" like iTunes.

I doubt it's legal where you are. Unless you live in a country that did not sign the Berne Convention, either you or the web site you're downloading from is criminally or civilly liable for the unauthorized copying of the music. The law might lack teeth, but it's probably not legal.

[Nunyabinez]

I must admit that I don't do much pirating anymore. For a while I was recreating my vinyl and cassette library by torrenting songs (I refuse to pay again for something just because there is a new storage medium.) And the genres that I listen to (mainly rock) seem to release new material so slowly that I can easily afford to buy when there is a new Foo Fighters or Alter Bridge album. Not sure I represent a major trend, but I am definitely buying more and downloading less. Although the major stumbling block for me with iTunes is lossless music. I still buy CDs because I want the highest quality that I can get on my main system and then use Match to reduce the bit rate for mobile use.

[Ubele]

Originally Posted by SirChadwick

This situation isn't new. Back in the day (I'm old), we would listen to music on the radio FOR FREE and then buy the song the next day.

With one crucial difference: unless the song you liked was released as a single, you had to buy the entire album to get it, and often the rest of the album was crap. My strategy back in the late 1970s and early 1980s was to buy vinyl LPs at used-record stores for $2-$4 each, record the one or two songs I liked on mix tapes, and sell the LPs back to the used-record store. I'd only pay full price for new LPs if I was pretty sure I'd like most or all of the album. Although I spent many wonderful hours rummaging through the used-records bins, I much prefer the current models for listening to and buying digital music.

[damacus]

Originally Posted by Akuratyde

The operative phrase here being "for me". For you Spotify is perfect, for many others like myself it's useless. I listen to a lot of music that simply isn't available on Spotify and never will be. I also live in an area that has spotty cell coverage and I spend a lot of time in the car. Not only would I never want to waste my 4G on streaming while in the car, I couldn't even if I wanted to.

I think it's great that so many people find streaming services a perfect solution for them but it comes across a bit smug to be saying iTunes is "outdated" when for me, it's the perfect option.

If you pay for Spotify premium ($10/mo) you can store your playlists on your phone for offline playback. You just pull up the playlist on the phone and mark it as "make available offline" and it'll download everything to the phone.

As far as the selection, there are definitely gaps in what Spotify has, but you can fill in those gaps from your personal collection and Spotify will play those files. (Assuming they're mp3 format anyway.)

[el-John-o]

Originally Posted by Daalseth

How would they know that? Seriously, that they so casually toss that number out bothers me a lot. If I take a song on a CD that I own and rip it into iTunes how would they know? How would they know if I put that song on a CD or jump-drive and give it to a friend, how would they know? Either that stat is pulled out of their ... thin air, or they have some spyware out there that we don't know about.

Alot of this is done the same way TV ratings are done, by surveys or certain software/hardware with (hopefully) the users consent. TV Ratings are done by a handful of people getting these little boxes plugged in and recording what they watch to get a 'feel' for what the general public is watching. I'm sure with the ripped CD stat, it was just a few thousand people responding to a survey. They do those sorts of things at malls and stuff all the time, or even online.

I would have to say, for me, it's definitely dropped. Ripping music and making mixed CD's makes me feel nostalgic, haha. I can remember doing that years and years ago, especially when I had a CD burner before any of my friends! It was so cool making mixed CD's. Now we don't really do that anymore. Heck, I haven't even bought a CD in years and years yet I've bought a lot of music on iTunes. Though I'll admit, I'm buying less music anyway as I tend to use the streaming services.

10 years ago many of us were on dial up, broadband was comparatively slow and cellular data was this slow and extremely expensive service you had on a handful of devices few people had. CD's and digital downloads made sense. Today, the average person is connected to high speed internet 24/7. I have an iPhone, I use it to listen to music, it's almost always connected to the internet- streaming makes perfect sense!

Now we're seeing software move to the digital download format as software is still too big (compared to bandwidth) to be streaming for most people. But what will it look like in 10 years? I think it'd be great to pay a subscription fee and be able to access whatever software I need (no, not a subscription fee to one company for one piece of software I could otherwise buy, that's silly. But what if I paid Steam $10 a month to access most of their library any time streamed over the internet?)

[spazzcat]

Originally Posted by neuropsychguy

I disagree (although that argument is as reasonable as just about any other ones related to this topic). I think music now is better than it's ever been because we have direct access to so many more musicians and don't have to hear just the "filtered" stuff. Yes, a lot of the charted music is average or worse but we are not limited by charts with iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, turntable, and so on.

Not sure directed to market artist would be included in these figures?

[rbrian]

So let me get this straight... If you make your goods available, people buy. Who would have guessed? Certainly not the TV and movie industries.

If everything was available at a fair price, most people wouldn't pirate. The only times I have was when the official DVDs were damaged (Star Trek slip cases I'm looking at you..)

[cxny]

Please someone start an audiobook version of Spotify.

[bawbac]

Originally Posted by ThatsMeRight

Yep, I totally agree. It now feels like as if CDs are ancient and services like iTunes are at best "out-dated". Spotify - for me - is perfect.

How well does this streaming work for mobile vehicles with no WiFi or cellphone coverage?

[NewAnger]

Originally Posted by Lestdog

Yeah because those were the only 2 places you could steal music from.

That's what I was going to say. I never used those two. There were always safer alternatives.

[ThatsMeRight]

Originally Posted by Akuratyde

The operative phrase here being "for me". For you Spotify is perfect, for many others like myself it's useless. I listen to a lot of music that simply isn't available on Spotify and never will be. I also live in an area that has spotty cell coverage and I spend a lot of time in the car. Not only would I never want to waste my 4G on streaming while in the car, I couldn't even if I wanted to.

I think it's great that so many people find streaming services a perfect solution for them but it comes across a bit smug to be saying iTunes is "outdated" when for me, it's the perfect option.

Yep, I realized that and that's why I said "for me". That said, I still feel like Apple is using a business model that might be "fine" or "good" at this point, but will be out-dated in the future (and is out-dated in some areas in the world already). For example, CDs will still be modern in 3rd world countries.

I guess our (mobile communications) infrastructure is a bit better here, because 3G networks here can easily achieve speeds around 10 Mbps, and in some areas even around 20 Mbps - only the more rural areas will see speeds of around 5 Mbps. Right now, carriers are busy with building a 4G network plus upgrading current 3G networks (they're aiming to double the speed everywhere).

Streaming music really doesn't use that much data and you can also download music in the Spotify app at home, which you can use for offline play (in case you have no internet connection or you don't have any MBs left in your data bundle).

I get what you are saying, but even for you I feel like Spotify can be a nice addition. $10 a month and for that money you can listen to any song - be it via streaming, be it via downloading it upfront via Wi-Fi and then listening it online without using an internet connection.

Also, you say that you listen to a lot of music that isn't available on Spotify. Can you name a few songs? Spotify currently has 20+ million songs in it's library. I can't find any recent numbers for iTunes: the latest numbers Apple has announced are a little over a year old; at that point they were talking about 20 million songs.

No hard feelings.

[bawbac]

Originally Posted by damacus

If you pay for Spotify premium ($10/mo) you can store your playlists on your phone for offline playback. You just pull up the playlist on the phone and mark it as "make available offline" and it'll download everything to the phone.

As far as the selection, there are definitely gaps in what Spotify has, but you can fill in those gaps from your personal collection and Spotify will play those files. (Assuming they're mp3 format anyway.)

Can I store over 6000 songs for offline playback like my iPod?