<i>“If there is a lesson to take away, it is probably that the earlier you can embrace new business models and services, the better,” said Paul Brindley, chief executive of Music Ally, a consulting firm in London.</i><p>Oh really? That lesson wasn't learned when VHS was created? Or cassette tapes? Or CDs? Or DVDs? Or e-books? Or when millions upon millions of their customers preferred to download music instead of purchase a disc? What the hell were these guys doing for the last 15 years?<p>It's great that they're "embracing digital". That phrase is used by every aging exec in every industry now. The real question is how will they handle kids who create youtube mashups of songs. I guarantee they still file DMCA takedowns for years to come when in fact, THAT is yet another "new business model and service" that could help the music industry.
I suspect this will turn out to be a "dead cat bounce"[1]. The record industry still hasn't figured out that its customers are actually the musicians, not the audience. Musicians aren't expendable laborers, they're businesses that need various kinds of services in order to deliver to their own customers (audiences). If the labels really want to make a meaningful place for themselves in the post-filesharing universe, they first need to correct this perversely inverted relationship.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadcatbounce.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadcatbounce.asp</a>
<i>“At the beginning of the digital revolution it was common to say that digital was killing music,” said Edgar Berger, chief executive of the international arm of Sony Music Entertainment. Now, he added, it could be said “that digital is saving music.”</i><p>This is what I want to hear from music executives, along with other commentary in the article that mentions subscription services like Spotify.<p>The sooner the industry realises that what customers want is <i>ease of access</i>, above and beyond <i>piracy</i>, and that piracy isn't actually a threat if you give customers what they want, then the sooner we can get beyond this war on digital media that's been a blight on computing for the last decade.
The damage has been done. The major labels (major now only in terms of increasingly dubious marketing clout) now spend most of their 'creative' energy scouting do-it-yourself musicians rather than producing great music...which was, initially, what distinguished them from the little guys.<p>This leveling of the playing field was supposed to be a great thing for everyone except the majors.<p>But as a listener, I bemoan that the output quality of the majors has dropped so much (especially in classical music). In order to get access to first class, interesting music, it is becoming increasingly necessary to do tons of research.<p>The bigger picture is this: would you invest in a business that celebrated <i>not</i> losing revenue for the first time in over a decade? I wouldn't.<p>Edit: thank you, pgsandstrom
So, in other words, instead of pioneering the digital age of music they spent the better portion of last 14 years fighting it.<p>However, kudos to the consumer for forcing such a monolithic industry into changing for the better.
Billboard #1 songs of 2000-2009
<a href="http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_billbord6.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_billbord6.html</a><p>Now, compare the previous decades. 1999 is the last time they made anything good (and even that is questionable). They can blame piracy or the internet all they want but really it's their product that sucks.
Reporting Revenue is a hugely political affair. There are many ways to manipulate that number and it's not really a direct measurement of the health of the industry. It's only real use is for pointing at and shouting "look at what new fangled technology is doing to us. we must restrict everything."
I wonder if these numbers take into account direct sales to musicians on services like bandcamp. I assume the article mostly (entirely?) refers to publicly reporting music distribution & publishing companies. If so, there's a significant part of this story missing.
Increased funding for heavy-handed lawsuits, coercing ISPs to monitor and interfere with subscribers, lobbying for more personally invasive laws, and pushing locked down "trusted" computing. Yay!
Surprising to me that vinyl got no mention here. I know it's only a relatively small bump, but vinyl sales have been on the rise year over year for the past few.