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Survey: iTunes music sales tumble in early 2006 | |
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| Time: 11:17 EST/16:17 GMT | News Source: Reuters | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Sales at Apple Computer's online music shop iTunes Music Store fell off a cliff in the first six months of 2006, according to a recent survey. Since January 2006 the number of monthly iTunes transactions has declined 58 percent, while the average size per purchase declined by 17 percent, leading to a 65-percent overall drop in monthly iTunes revenue, U.S. market research group Forrester Research said in a survey among North American consumers. "It is too soon to tell if this decline was seasonal or if buyers were reaching their saturation level for digital music," Forrester said in the report that was published to its clients last week, and made available to Reuters on Wednesday. | ||
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| #1 By 3653 (68.52.143.149) at 12/13/2006 11:54:53 AM |
| thats what happens when you stop giving them away with every can of pepsi and every quarter-pound sandwich. Its absolute bullshite that they sold 1.5billion songs. There is an un-said, but strongly IMPLIED message that those were end-user sales. And thats not true. |
| #2 By 20505 (216.102.144.11) at 12/13/2006 4:26:32 PM |
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ya know, my kids ages 18 and 15 love itunes.
i personally think it's pure naivety on their part as it relates to the issue of the bit rate encoding of the acc files and the drm rules (and i tell them so). but looking back at my childhood, i still own many lps that i can't listen to and have repurchased as cds. so maybe it's really no different. moreover, itunes has brought back a long dead 50s and 60s concept... the single. i can't remember the last time my children asked for a cd. when i purchase them, they just download 1 or 2 tracks. i suspect decreased sales or no, itunes will be around until something better comes along. |
| #3 By 2960 (68.100.7.161) at 12/14/2006 7:56:50 AM |
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What wasn't mentioned is the same thing is being realized at all the other download services as well.
The problem isn't customers. The problem is DRM. People are fed up with it. TL |
| #4 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 12/14/2006 11:51:34 AM |
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..and wholesale P2P theft of content had nothing to do with the current state of applied DRM?
Just as those same networks had nothing to do with the spread of mal-ware and the harvesting of machines? Part of this mess is our own fault - too few recognized that such sharing wasn't sharing at all and that it was theft on a massive scale. If people were naive, they chose to be. I mean, all arguments about whether all that P2P activity actually reduced CD sales, or not, aside, the act was clearly illegal and simply wrong. It didn't just harm the content owners and artists, either - it harmed anyone who played by the rules - even if all it did was dilute the value of adhering to them. Theft insults all people. It diminishes all people because it devalues them. I mean, how many admins and techs grew SICK of cleaning affluent PC owners home systems of mal-ware? I know we did. The profile was typical - customer/client owner would call and ask for help with a home system - we'd of course provide it and spend hours fixing machines that teenage kids had tanked through their use of P2P and the resultant mess. Despite publishing countless warnings, help documents and policy letters regarding this mess, little helped - not until parents were prosecuted in court for the actions of their minor children, did it stop. Those examples and the real concern they generated, finally ended that type of support call. It used to insult us deeply, to be subjected to that - well to do parents who could afford to buy the music their kids listened to, simply ignoring it and asking someone else to clean up the mess. |
| #5 By 3 (62.253.128.14) at 12/14/2006 12:52:22 PM |
| No real surprise, it's DRM that hurts net sales and it won't help any of the MP3 sellers including the subscription services. I'd rather buy a CD. |
| #6 By 7760 (12.155.143.50) at 12/14/2006 7:29:30 PM |
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lketchum, the problem with that theory is that DRM would still exist without P2P. The studios (music and movie) will do anything to protect their property, even if it's just stopping you from giving what you bought to one friend. Just look at all of the forms of copy protection that pre-date the internet (ex. Macrovision, code wheels, cartridges, etc.). They were devised to, mostly, prevent you from giving a copy of something to your best friend. The makers would still have invented and applied DRM without P2P.
Personally, I hate DRM and refuse to ever buy anything with it embedded in it. I've never used iTunes and, likely, never will. Besides just DRM, though, I also have a problem with the flat pricing. The vast majority of the music that I listen to is old. I shouldn't have to pay the same price for old music (such as 80s tunes) as other people pay for the latest hits. The most fair way to do it, IMO, is to offer a song for just under 10% of the CD's average price (or, even better, the same fraction of the CD price that the song is of the CD's # of tracks). |
| #7 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 12/15/2006 11:19:12 AM |
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#6, I know there are other guys on Awin old enough to remember a time when there were public service commercials which began to remind people to lock their car doors. These information spots began to air in the mid 60's. Point is, prior to what was going on at the time, most people didn't lock them and many homes didn't even have doors that could lock.
They didn't need to be locked, because theft was so rare. Fragile old people could and did walk up to youngsters who were acting up and tell them to settle it down - and we did what we were told and apologized in the process. Today, an elderly person would be risking their life if they did the same. Stealing wasn't the issue. That word was rarely spoken - I remember hearing it, but not knowing what it meant [I was nine]. It was more than that - when taking what wasn't yours to take was simply understood to be very wrong and people just didn't do it. Even dressing well, or openly spending a lot of money was considered rude somehow - it was "bad form" because it was something that offended. One didn't "show out..." so to speak. These memories carry - forever. I recall a contemporary business partner - speaking casually about how he and some college buddies stole cable TV when they were younger. It scared the crap out of me [forty years after the fact]. While I didn't mention it, I recall my reaction - "there is no way I'm going to do business with this person..." That wasn't some morale judgement, it was a reaction that went all the way back to an understanding that if it wasn't yours you didn't take it - back to a time BEFORE I learned what the word, "stealing" meant. The very different part is that I do not specifically recall learning not to steal - or being taught that it was "bad." It was simpler than that... if "it" made you feel bad, you didn't do it. No, I don't agree. Those public reminders to lock one's car came about AFTER people began to steal cars in large numbers. I look at DRM the same way. If it's locked, it's locked for a reason and one doesn't touch it. It was so much more fundamental and I think it was about respect - one respected oneself for what one did and expected to be measured that way. In turn, one was respected by others and offered the same. |
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