More ways to cook the music-industry books: The industry has been reporting total sales in steady decline, but as George Scriban, boy researcher (employers: he's at large!) discovered, there's every indication that the industry is folding in sales figures from singles (which they've discontinued, by and large).
Did you follow that?
It used to be that the labels sold CDs (which were expensive, and got very expensive after they started price-fixing) and singles (which were cheap).
Then, they stopped selling singles.
Then, total sales — of singles (which they no longer sold!) and CDs — declined.
But really, Napster caused the drop in music sales.
the RIAA's numbers support Ms Horovitz' argument: since 1997, shipments of CD singles have free-fallen from over 66 million units to 17 million — they now represent less than one percent of the total dollar value of all CDs sold. had CD singles represented as much of the overall market as they did in 1997 (the peak of the format, with 66.7 million units shipped), the major labels might well have seen a modest increase in music sales compared to 2000, rather than a drop.
with the increasing evidence the evidence that a botched major-label money-grab of bad pricing and foolish product mixes was responsible for recorded music's woes, it becomes harder and harder to accept Big Content's party line that "the internet dunnit".
Would it surprise anyone if CD sales were actually up, post-Napster?
This is a meme worth spreading — tell your journo friends.
