Surprise, Digital Music Only Now Overtook Physical Music

Quote:

The long-observed decline of physical media has hit a new low, as a global trade group reports that digital finally music generates more money than physical sales. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s newly published report on the global music market notes that in 2014, global digital music revenue edged out the physical stuff, $6.85 billion to $6.82 billion. On orders of magnitude they’re roughly the same, but the shifts are steep: Physical is down eight percent while digital is up seven percent. So people don’t buy CDs any more—what’s the big deal? In fact, how the hell didn’t this happen sooner? Well in the US, this shift actually happened years ago, so the eventual global change isn’t that surprising. The real story here is the rapid ascent of streaming music revenue and the overall decline of the music market. Streaming music services account for nearly 23 percent of the global market, up 39 percent year over year. But the rise of this new business hasn’t lead to more money—as the global market contracted by .4 percent. (The IFPI refers to this in a lengthy section about the “value gap” between physical and digital.) These machinations seem trivial, but they are significant in the long run. Streaming music subscriptions services are popular and people will pay for them, but they’re not the savior tech companies say they are because they don’t generate the money the recording industry as we know it needs to survive. Which, whatever, screw the recording industry and the major labels that take most of the money we’re talking about here. It doesn't matter at all except that the old industry could throw money at smaller artists and is currently only thriving because of Taylor Swift and the soundtrack to Frozen. That investment, however parasitic, is going to fade. It’s a bit like Hollywood’s unwillingness to bet on anything but BS blockbusters. Artists will be increasingly left to fend for financial self-sufficiency, which sucks—because I’d rather they spent their time in the recording studio than in business school.

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I've been in the music biz for a long time and have done everything by myself, most DJ's and producers do. But digital is a godsend for being able to go that route