Skip to footer

Despite piracy, digital music sales catch up to CDs

While the music industry still struggles with online piracy, new reports show that the combination of music downloads and streaming subscriptions have brought online purchases on par with physical sales for the first time.

|
Stephen Brashear/AP Images for T-Mobile
File - T-Mobile CEO John Legere introduces Music Freedom which allows customers to stream all the music they want from all the most popular music streaming services without ever hitting their high-speed 4G LTE data during the T-Mobile Un-carrier event.
  • By Michael Roddy Reuters

Digital delivery of music caught up with physical formats like CDs as a money stream for the first time last year, the trade association IFPI said on Tuesday.

It came, however, as overall global sales of $14.97 billion fell marginally from 2013.

Piracy and free Internet sites remain a huge problem for an industry still reeling from the impact of turning music into digital form, which encouraged copying, bootlegs and free music sites, and led to a collapse in sales from $40 billion in 1999.

IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said in an annual report, that while revenues were down 0.4 percent in 2014 from the previous year, digital formats, including streaming and downloads, had finally caught up with physical formats, with each accounting for about 46 percent of the market. Performance rights and film and related revenues made up the balance.

"We have overall a positive picture, with the biggest market, the U.S., growing and the third biggest market in the world, Germany, growing as well," Edgar Berger, chairman and CEO international of Sony Music Entertainment, said at a news conference.

"If we keep the current trajectory the industry will inevitably grow," he said, adding his view that paid subscriptions to streaming services "will be the predominant performer."

But the IFPI also noted some dark clouds ahead for the industry, including the impact of free delivery of music over Internet sites such as YouTube and dailymotion.com, and the desire of Chinese consumers to get their music for free.

The industry group said it was pushing for legal changes to be made in Europe, and eventually elsewhere, so that YouTube, dailymotion and others could no longer contend they are "safe harbors," immune from copyright violation because users post music and other content themselves.

"Companies that play the role of distributing, monetising, promoting don't belong in the 'safe harbors'," IFPI chief executive Frances Moore said.

She noted that streaming sites such as Spotify and Deezer which pay the industry for music rights had contributed some $1.6 billion in revenues on the basis of having about 140 million users while the free Internet sites, with a billion users, paid something over $641 million.

Berger said there was a "a piracy issue that needs to be fought in China," adding without piracy instead of ranking in 19th place globally for music revenues, it would be in the top five.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Despite piracy, digital music sales catch up to CDs
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/0415/Despite-piracy-digital-music-sales-catch-up-to-CDs
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe