Streaming will make sales records obsolete.

[phoenix83]

If you want to have something to own then buy the book, the T-shirt, or (best of all) the vinyl version. All are better than having the CD...It is such an underwhelming medium that I am amazed that people want to keep buying them.

Fewer and fewer are doing so:

Digital revenues outstrip CDs

Personally, I only buy CDs now when I'm buying someone a present. In that case, it does still make sense to buy a tangible item to give to someone, and most people don't have vinyl record players these days.

[SpyVsSpy]

So how will streaming work in a car when youre driving across a wide area where networks might be spotty? What about in the gym where the building has poor 3g connections? What about those who live in buildings where connections are poor? Files are still going to be needed imo in various situations.

[ANH]

I use Rhapsody. It's a similar concept. I stream music, and the music that I like, I'm able to download. That way, I can listen to my music on my iPod through Rhapsody.

Not too sure how Spotify works.

[WolfSpear]

I use Rhapsody. It's a similar concept. I stream music, and the music that I like, I'm download. That way I can listen to my music on my iPod through Rhapsody.

Not too sure how Spotify works.

That's basically what I've been using since 2005. It allows you complete access to almost any act (except the Beatles, Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin, George Harrison ...) and it's really a good deal for the price. Obviously, you could manual record the songs with a few cables and create a playlist for on the go

That's coming from a man who wants to see the industry thrive

[joao]

What if music was just for free and artists made their money from concerts and other types of endorsements? (like copyrights from a movie soundtrack, tv and radio airplay, etc.)

Artists who love music will still make music even if they don´t make fortunes out of it. Just like most professionals, they could live normal lives earning the money that is enough to sustain their family´s lives and have some comfort, but without making the fortunes that legends of the past have made.

There is no need to panick if the "music industry" ever dies, cause what is essential is music itself, not the industry behind it. Music will always be available, as it has always been, and the quality of the material might become even better without big companies dealing with it. What if only real musicians made music, and not so many of these crazy girls without any talent that want to live the "american dream" and become famous at any cost? What if we stopped looking at non-celebrity and non-charted musicians as total failures, and understand that music is a job like any other... if you can make money from it enough to pay your bills and live with your family with some comfort, then you´ve succeeded in your job.

I understand that art is essential for human beings, but the entertainment industry itself is a very recent phenomenon. The bulk of the great works of art (including music) in human history has been made before the period when art has become an industry.

I don´t think any of these forms of digital music sales (streaming or mp3) is definitive. As soon as the physical format dies, labels will make less money from sales and tend to become less interested in even producing and releasing new material. Let´s face it, no matter how they try to force the idea on us, ilegal downalods are not considered imoral like stealing a physical product from a store is. If legislation considers it criminal, then it´s not updated with society´s values, and it tends to change or become obsolete. Companies will find more lucrative forms of business and move on.

[ShayLaB]

So how will streaming work in a car when youre driving across a wide area where networks might be spotty? What about in the gym where the building has poor 3g connections? What about those who live in buildings where connections are poor? Files are still going to be needed imo in various situations.

You can choose to download songs to your mobile app to play offline. It may vary between service but withSpotify I can choose about 3000 songs...which will be about 200 albums.

Driving...most people use the aux/USB option in their stereo these days. Ford announced last year that they will cease including CD players in their cars.

[ferrero]

Issit limited to only Spotify? Can someone discuss the Vevo model? the likes of Justine Bieber/Lady Gaga/ Rihanna are earning millions of dollars from it

from what i understand, 1 spin = 0.007 which is eq to 127 streams to 1 paid downloads...

i don't think CD will phase out completely...

[JimJim]

So how will streaming work in a car when youre driving across a wide area where networks might be spotty? What about in the gym where the building has poor 3g connections? What about those who live in buildings where connections are poor? Files are still going to be needed imo in various situations.

Exactly, even with the download, listen to later option, it's still flawed. Consider also that I have to pay for mobile internet, if I have to use up my data for listening to music, that's more $$$ from my wallet. If I'm just putting the files on my phone and listening to them, it costs me nothing.

Also, for people such as myself, we need the files, so we can alter them as we see fit e.g. I can't be the only one who makes homemade 'radio edits' of 7-minute long dance tracks? ...I also piece together other things e.g. made my own version of The Saturdays 'Higher' which had both Flo Rida and the album versions sections mashed together.

[ShayLaB]

So how will streaming work in a car when youre driving across a wide area where networks might be spotty? What about in the gym where the building has poor 3g connections? What about those who live in buildings where connections are poor? Files are still going to be needed imo in various situations.

Exactly, even with the download, listen to later option, it's still flawed. Consider also that I have to pay for mobile internet, if I have to use up my data for listening to music, that's more $$$ from my wallet. If I'm just putting the files on my phone and listening to them, it costs me nothing.

If your mobile device is worth the money you paid for it will pick up wi-fi in preference to your mobile network. When you are at the house/work/anywhere-with-wifi you can choose which songs are available to play in off line mode.

Basically, it will be the same as you do currently except instead of dragging songs from your HD to your mobile device you drag it from the streaming library.

I don't even have a smartphone - I have a crappy, bottom of the range old fashioned phone (with a no data contract) and a shiny iPod Touch. There is no need to have a mobile data package from your MNO.

[JimJim]

It's interesting that you say that (I'm not sure what country you are in), but I heard that free WiFi is plentiful in the US. Whereas here, you can only pretty much get it at McDonalds

I need to save my mobile data for all my Facebook/UKMix checks throughout the day

[ShayLaB]

Issit limited to only Spotify? Can someone discuss the Vevo model? the likes of Justine Bieber/Lady Gaga/ Rihanna are earning millions of dollars from it

from what i understand, 1 spin = 0.007 which is eq to 127 streams to 1 paid downloads...

i don't think CD will phase out completely...

According to MusicWeek CD singles now account for 0.3 of all single sales.

[tryffel]

Streaming is alredy over 90 % of the siingle market in Scandinavia. I have never bought a singel on Itunes when i can get it for free on spotify. Sadly, album sales here are much lower these days. I just wonder why it takes so long time for spotify to taking over the rest of the world

[emilhot]

Streaming is alredy over 90 % of the siingle market in Scandinavia. I have never bought a singel on Itunes when i can get it for free on spotify. Sadly, album sales here are much lower these days. I just wonder why it takes so long time for spotify to taking over the rest of the world

Well i don't follow the Swedish and Norwegian charts, but eventhough the album sales in Denmark are not what they have been, i still think the Danish sales are pretty healthy compared to most other countries.

Though you are right streaming is big here. The biggest internet and telephony provider launched the first big service here in early 2008 for all their subscripers, and since then Spofity has also become pretty big. Streaming has definitely become a very important factor for the Music Industry in Scandinavia!

[Graham76man]

Issit limited to only Spotify? Can someone discuss the Vevo model? the likes of Justine Bieber/Lady Gaga/ Rihanna are earning millions of dollars from it

from what i understand, 1 spin = 0.007 which is eq to 127 streams to 1 paid downloads...

i don't think CD will phase out completely...

According to MusicWeek CD singles now account for 0.3 of all single sales.

They are lying ALL sales of singles are higher. The industry wants people to think they are lower for a massive varity of reasons.

On the Vevo thing. As I said, if young girls are too stupid to work out that they can get a free bit of software so they can download the justin tracks after just one view, then the industry will be happy.
If you want to listen to thousands of songs in a random order (most don't) then there's this thing called RADIO Hey it's free
But as you can see there's a fool around every corner.

When I used to listen to spotify the tracks would often jump! I had to go into the wave file and edit it to get rid of the jump = bit like this ~~-~~ it was!

[stevyy]

If you want to listen to thousands of songs in a random order (most don't) then there's this thing called RADIO Hey it's free

in Germany u have to pay to listen to the radio.. or watch television.. it's called GEZ. my parents have to pay idk what.. maybe even more than €100 per year.

i don't pay it though. I'm pirating tv and radio as well as music. <3

[Graham76man]

If you want to listen to thousands of songs in a random order (most don't) then there's this thing called RADIO Hey it's free

in Germany u have to pay to listen to the radio.. or watch television.. it's called GEZ. my parents have to pay idk what.. maybe even more than €100 per year.

i don't pay it though. I'm pirating tv and radio as well as music. <3

Is that like a BBC licence fee? Where you have to pay for having a TV set?

There is free Sat, which is satalite TV service that is free. But of course if you have to pay for this GEZ thing then it's not!

A few years back I could pick up German TV on a old analoge Sat system. Used to watch MTV and Viva on it.
The adverts on the other channels were amazing. They would NEVER get broadcast on UK TV. I conclude that your fellow countrymen are a bit more relaxed about sex than in the UK.

[Pufnstuf]

Concert Gross and attendance continues to be, and will so in the future, a solid way of measuring artist popularity

There are plenty of artists who are popular as recording stars but can't sell out a large venue as a concert draw. It's naive to think that every artists can make money through concerts alone. Many artists make a ton of money through concerts (like Madonna, the Stones) but there are many popular singers who just aren't draws, despite having big singles and albums

What if only real musicians made music, and not so many of these crazy girls without any talent that want to live the "american dream" and become famous at any cost? What if we stopped looking at non-celebrity and non-charted musicians as total failures, and understand that music is a job like any other... if you can make money from it enough to pay your bills and live with your family with some comfort, then you´ve succeeded in your job.

You are really naive to think that artists don't care about being rich and famous. Of course they care. That is why they pursue record deals.

[emilhot]

Concert Gross and attendance continues to be, and will so in the future, a solid way of measuring artist popularity

There are plenty of artists who are popular as recording stars but can't sell out a large venue as a concert draw. It's naive to think that every artists can make money through concerts alone. Many artists make a ton of money through concerts (like Madonna, the Stones) but there are many popular singers who just aren't draws, despite having big singles and albums

Yeah you have a point

[rihmonster]

Concert Gross and attendance continues to be, and will so in the future, a solid way of measuring artist popularity

There are plenty of artists who are popular as recording stars but can't sell out a large venue as a concert draw. It's naive to think that every artists can make money through concerts alone. Many artists make a ton of money through concerts (like Madonna, the Stones) but there are many popular singers who just aren't draws, despite having big singles and albums

Name one artist who has had major album and single sales that is struggling on tour cause none come to mind.

[Pufnstuf]

Name one artist who has had major album and single sales that is struggling on tour cause none come to mind.

Are you for real? Kelly Clarkson had to cancel an announced tour years ago because the tour wasn't selling. And this is someone who has had 2 multiplatinum albums and 10 top ten hits. I think she tours county fairs now.

[rihmonster]

Name one artist who has had major album and single sales that is struggling on tour cause none come to mind.

Are you for real? Kelly Clarkson had to cancel an announced tour years ago because the tour wasn't selling. And this is someone who has had 2 multiplatinum albums and 10 top ten hits. I think she tours county fairs now.

Also Kelly's last three albums have struggled to reach platinum....Kelly hasn't had a major album since 2004.....NEXT

[NoAngel]

Name one artist who has had major album and single sales that is struggling on tour cause none come to mind.

Are you for real? Kelly Clarkson had to cancel an announced tour years ago because the tour wasn't selling. And this is someone who has had 2 multiplatinum albums and 10 top ten hits. I think she tours county fairs now.

Also Kelly's last three albums have struggled to reach platinum....Kelly hasn't had a major album since 2004.....NEXT

If I remember correctly Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera had problems with selling tickets for their joint tour in 2003.

[rihmonster]

justified/stripped grossed over 45mil with just 45 shows so on average they made a million bucks a night.....ticket sales couldnt have been that bad. Next

[joao]

There are plenty of artists who are popular as recording stars but can't sell out a large venue as a concert draw. It's naive to think that every artists can make money through concerts alone.

Does "make money" = "making 100 million from a tour like U2 or Madonna does?". Of course some artists won´t be able to sell out large venues... move to smaller venues then. These are the rules of the market.

What if only real musicians made music, and not so many of these crazy girls without any talent that want to live the "american dream" and become famous at any cost? What if we stopped looking at non-celebrity and non-charted musicians as total failures, and understand that music is a job like any other... if you can make money from it enough to pay your bills and live with your family with some comfort, then you´ve succeeded in your job.

You are really naive to think that artists don't care about being rich and famous. Of course they care. That is why they pursue record deals.

Well, they might care about being rich, but does this means WE need to care about THEM being rich? I think that´s totally nonsense. Of course everyone enjoys getting a lot of money from a job, but not everyone is able to. That doesn´t mean they have to quit their jobs. If an "artist" will quit his career because he isn´t able to become famous, then I´d say this type of "artist" won´t be missed in the scene. There´s a lot of difference between real musicians and young boys and girls who only have the dream of becoming stars and end up getting a record deal. The latter would spend more time at the gym or at the hair salon then actually training or playng an instrument, writing music, etc.

In any case, if an artist isn´t able to survive with his concerts, record sales or anything else he does with his music, there´s a simple solution: get a day job. That´s what everyone else has to do when they need to pay bills. There are failed lawyers, failed businessmen, failed athletes, etc. If an artist is not getting any interest from the public when it comes to concerts, airplay, digital sales, etc, then most likely he wouldn´t be selling millions of albums even if the album market was as big as in the 90´s!

[Timmy94]

But there are really artists that can sell lots of records but they could never do a real tour because the people just wouldn't want to go to them.

Actually Madonna, U2 and a few others are the real huge exclusions of artists with no real hit albums but still fill huge concert halls.
Most artists with flop eras can't even think about a tour because the people's interest just isn't big enough and so the artist or his label would make a financial loss otherwise.