Lastly...
Check out this research study.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?JPE31618PDF
Here's a part of the conclusion.
This is entirely misleading and ultimately false. I've been working in the industry, specializing with independent labels and the independent market for two decades. The downturn in overall sales of music in the market directly correlates with the rise and increased access to illegal file-sharing/downloading. Legal digital sales, while steadily increasing, isn't even meaningfully measureable when compared with illegal downloads. While core fans of niche genres, that's us folks, who care about artists and the music they love, will typically support bands by purchasing their music, the vast majority of people don't care. They see it as victimless crime, when if fact it is not - the overall worldwide aggregate loss is in the billions - that's billions people. While there is more music and more ways to get it then ever, the overall monetized pie is smaller because less and less people are buying music - it's hard to compete with free!
Here's one figure:
In 1996, music companies shipped more than 1.1 billion units -- all physical product -- for a value of $12.5 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Ten years later, despite a decline in physical product sold, they industry has "shipped" approximately 1.6 billion units -- but its value is down by a billion dollars, to $11.5 billion.
As you can see, while more music is being sold, less money is being made. This doesn't even account for the fact that the dollar is worth less now then it was then, so this number is actually much worse than it looks. And I've seen even much worse estimate then this one, which is somewhat conservative.
It's a fallacy to think that just because fans of niche genres, like prog-metal and such, that just because they're not as likely to download they're tunes illegally, that they'll be ok or better off. The ability to sell into the market, reach the consumer, relies and various forms of distribution and retail, all of which cost money, whether brick & motar or digital. These channels exist because of the overall volume of sales. In other words, indie labels and bands only get access to signficant distribution and larger retail channels because they are kept in business by larger volume sellers, i.e., Britney Spears, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, whatever - as the pop stuff is downloaded massively, that's major losses at retail - so they go bankrupt (seen any record stores lately) the list goes on: Tower, Wherehouse, Musicland, etc.; as retail goes under, distribution shrinks, as distributors shrink, they let go of smaller labels (niche genres go first), then the labels let go of artists and lay off employees - the CEO is the last one to get hurt.
Bottomline here, as the overall market shrinks, the overall monetized pies is smaller, and therefore less sales, less profit - and despite what you may here otherwise, the loss at traditional retail isn't being replaced by digital sales - it's being cannibalized by illegal traffic. The difference is huge - if sales are sufficient, then for example there's not enough money to support touring, which in turn further hurts sales.
The sad truth is that as long as the illegal downloading continues, and it will, it's only going to get worse. The possibility for independent artist to make a living at their art full time is disappearing, without the larger avenues of sales, labels are being reduced to boutique size and artist will have to continue to work full time doing other things and go on tour less.
Don't mean to be all doom and gloom here, but these are the facts, coming from within the industry, on the label and artist side of things. We just have to keep fighting the good fight, support what we love, which is great music, spread the word, and hope that somehow we can stop this scourge that is demolishing the music industry, while retaining all this wonderful new technololgy, but in a monetized form - so we can keep on rockin! Thank god for things like ProgPower and this forum and other places like it to bring people who love and support great music together!
