Silver surfers driving the digital music revolution

FERGUS SHEPPARD
MEDIA CORRESPONDENT
The Scotsman


BRITAIN'S digital music revolution will be increasingly driven by the over-50s as the affluent "silver surfer" generation migrate their music collections onto MP3 players, industry experts said today.

The British Phonographic Industry, the country's trade organisation for the music industry, revealed new details of the powerful influence of the "grey pound" as the MP3 player appeared destined to become one of this year's most popular Christmas gifts.

A survey of 10,000 people aged over 50 compiled by the BPI and charity Age Concern revealed the 50-plus bracket was responsible for nearly a quarter of all album purchases in 2004. More than half (59 per cent) had bought an album in the previous three months while a fifth (20 per cent) bought six or more CDs a year.

While 50-plus buyers are apparently helping to bolster the UK's £2 billion a year record industry, The BPI's research suggests they are also increasingly comfortable with the emerging world of MP3 players and digital technology. Nearly a quarter of those who do not already own a digital music player say they intend to buy one.

The BPI believes that appetite for buying digital tunes will translate into a huge new wave of business as ageing baby boomers buy classic back-catalogue artists in digital format, and also succumb to the allure of new "adult oriented" artists such as Katie Melua.

Sales of songs in digital format have topped 23 million this year, an increase of 400 per cent on 2004. That figure is expected to spike sharply in the week before New Year as music fans who received MP3 players for Christmas try out their new gifts.

BPI spokesman Matt Phillips said: "Legal music downloads may have taken off in a big way in 2005, but these figures underline the huge potential that still remains in digital music, particularly amongst older music fans.

"Nearly a quarter of all albums sold are bought by older music fans - and that percentage is set to grow as the UK population ages."

The popularity of MP3 players has been heavily driven by the success of Apple's iPod. The iconic white player has been the first introduction to digital music for many older music buyers whose last technological shift was the transition from vinyl to CD.

Memory is cheap. Who cares about lossy compressed crap? We've got the room for uncompressed now, baby. Got the bandwidth too, if it comes to that.

And exactly why would I want to buy what I already have on CD and can rip to MP3, OGG or whatever, on my own PC for free?

Shhhhh!!!! They don't want you to know!

last time I checked my mp3 files I was at 29 GB . that translates to about 1100 cd's and I haven't even gotten half of my collection ripped yet. at this rate it wil be well into 2012 before I ever have the impulse to buy another cd. I wonder if they will still be making them then?

The RIAA started stopping to make real CD's when they started putting out discs with DRM and rootkit infections. I don't see CD's (at least not recordable CD's) going away anytime soon so long as there are independent musicians in the world.

16 bit digital discs are just too damn good and convienient a medium for recording to simply "die off" because the RIAA wants you to switch to THEIR format.

Right. The CD format is too entrenched to stop.

They nipped DAT before it could grow but with redbook CD and mp3, sorry the cat's out of the bag.

The music industry did object greatly to consumer DAT. Thats why they insisted on SCMS copy-prevention, and lobbied for a substantial levy on recorders and media. And never released music on DAT, and I suspect did a bit of price-fixing to ensure players were never cheap. The capability to make digital copies was considered too dangerous to be allowed for mere consumers.

CDs would have gone the same way, if they had been recordable. But they were entrenched long before the CD-R was developed. And now its stuck for the near future - the industry may suppliment them with downloads and the new DVD-Audio or SACD, but it cant abandon them.

Many of these customers will remember when they had to rebuy all their old vinyl music.

CD-Rs are usful for independent musicians. But they arn't really very stable. And ebay wont allow CD-Rs to be traded under any circumstances - they are assumed to be infringing copies. The expense of having someone contact the copyright holder and ask if they authorised an auction far exceedes the profit the auction would give eBay.

So, if these guys are silver surfers, then Galactus would be the music industry? Devourer of planets and all that you know.

"And ebay wont allow CD-Rs to be traded under any circumstances - they are assumed to be infringing copies. "

Which is the BIGGEST bunch of Bullshit fostered by the RIAA record labels. They don't want eBay to allow CD-R's to be traded because the RIAA doesn't want independent musicians to SELL THEIR OWN MUSIC that way. As far as I'm concerned, eBAY ought to be ashamed of itself for this act of greed.

It might be a bunch of crap, but it's good business.

Ebay is just trying to protect itself; the RIAA is trolling for whatever they can get, since their "customer base" is shrinking by the day (wonder why?).

eBay has no way of knowing what is legit and what's not. I don't blame them. I would do the same thing if I ran an online auction dealing with so much stuff.

Like it or not, there is lots of "gray area" stuff traded on eBay every day. I can imagine how much copied software and music would be available if they allowed it. Let's be honest about this.

Don't think the major software producers (Micro$oft?) aren't monitoring online trading like a hawk.

It is true. Ebay policy. Its just too expensive to check every CD-R, and too legally risky to allow them to be traded without checking. Swap meet organisers are legally liable for the sale of infringing material if they knew of and were able to prevent it - it is very likely the precident could be extended to ebay.

I know Microsoft is watching ebay. They arn't concerned much about real counterfit software so much as grey licences - particually academic edition licences.

Go on eBay and search for mp3.

Exactly how many of these items do you think are on real CDs?

And check out the old-time radio shows. All on CD-R.

Here's the deal on eBay, unless they changed the rules.

• You can only sell stuff on CD-R if you are the copyright owner. It will take you a month or so to get past this obstacle, even if you are the copyright owner.
• You must say so in your ad. No one does.
• You may not mention the name of more than one musical influence or "sounds like" reference in your ad. This is called keyword spamming and is the primary cause of people getting their sales and chains yanked, NOT the fact that they're on a CD-R.

The RIAA trolls can only search the ad text. Put those musical influence or "sounds like" references in a graphic.

But, being the copyright owner still wouldn't allow someone to make copies and sell them, would it? I'm not arguing, you just piqued my interest a little with that bit of info.

You make a good point; where else would mp3 files come from? It seems like the RIAA would be all over that one.

"But, being the copyright owner still wouldn't allow someone to make copies and sell them, would it?"

The copyright owner is the only one who IS allowed to make copies and sell them. It's the whole purpose of copyright.

Yep. The copyright owner, and those with the permission of the copyright owner.

Oh, duh, I wasn't even thinkin of indie musicians, who actually DO own the copyrights to their work. I'm still thinkin in the mainstream.

Sorry. Never mind.

Olde-Phart, that very touch of confusion you just admitted to is one of the PRIMARY reasons I hate the RIAA. (It is THEIR fault you were thinking along those lines. The RIAA has fu*ked up our culture and music heritage.)