If the music is from a living artist I am much more likely to pay for it than to simply download it from YouTube.
almost all is worthless crap.
The only laws Hollywood and the entertainment industry care about are the copyright laws that protect their money. Many years ago I was looking at laws connected to the Endangered Species Act and here was an insertion giving the movie industry tax breaks for some unrelated stuff. Conclusion: Leftist slimeballs paying off their supporters.
Let the ‘entertainment’ industry suffer the ravages of the rest of the economy from outright theft, copyright and patent infringement.
With Pandora and satellite radio, why bother to buy and album?
I relate the music industry to the book industry:
Both products are available on hard copy and digital download.
Folks still buy books, perhaps because there is a quality inherent in a new book that is lacking in new music.
With the exception of the Hag’s book, it’s called CONTENT.
People purchase content. New music sadly lacks content for the general populace.
I do understand the streaming music services can make a dent in this equation, though if new music was so damn good people would buy it. Period!
Of course, I stopped listening to anything made after the late 70's
I don't consider rap or hip hop to be music...
More like tribal war drums...
30 years of used CDs are on the market, nearly 70 years of LPs and 45s, nearly 100 years of 78s.
Additionally there are tens of thousands of labels/artists who’s new release recordings are not tracked by soundscan.
BIG MEDIA is losing sales but there are plenty of active musicians recording and touring, locally and nationally. These are full-time musicians with no day job.
Movie ticket sales are also in dramatic decline.
People are still watching movies and tv shows. Just not at the theater or on tv.
The old business model is no longer relevant.
Well that pretty much tells you all you need to know about what the music industry today - or what's left of it.
Back when I was buying records, a best selling album would sell a half million a week for months at a time.
I saw this coming 10 years ago when the RIAA was busy suing their own customers because they were sharing their favorite music online. While the Internet was revolutionizing commerce and digital media, the recording industry clung bitterly to their outdated business model, calculating on the silly notion that their lawyers would intimidate people into continuing to purchase overpriced compact discs at a retail store as opposed to obtaining it online at a fraction of the cost.
The implosion of the recording industry is very enjoyable to watch because the buffoons who ran it deserve all the bad fortune that is raining down upon them - they brought it upon themselves.
That said, there is no shortage of good new music out there. It's just that the major labels and mainstream media no longer decide for us what should be popular and what should not. They are not longer the tastemakers. More and more recording artists are using the Internet (such as YouTube) to promote their music and videos and are selling content directly to the consumer while building a fan base to go to their concerts - which is the primary source of revenue and profit for most performers today.
The music industry is like the shaving industry in that the music content is the "razor" and the concerts are the "blades". Give away the razor at cost - earn your profit on the blades. The old recording labels with their sleazy executives and A&R men are now out of the loop.