More than a third of 6,000 people surveyed by the NPD Group say they've bought fewer CDs this year than last.

"Among younger consumers, downloading and burning music tracks were an additional primary reason cited for purchasing declines," said the report, going on, "Forty-one percent of consumers aged 13 to 25 reported that their use of file-sharing services caused them to purchase less music."

But, "While zero-tolerance for file-sharing has received a lion's share of media coverage, other methods to combat dwindling sales are being regularly rolled out by record labels, though consumers are responding better to some tactics than to others," says vp Russ Crupnick.

He also said certain marketing features such a bonus tracks are getting consumers' attention, but, "It's incumbent upon record labels and music retailers ... to really listen to the concerns of music buyers, in order to provide them with the kind of music product they're willing to pay for."

So, who is the NPD Group? Who hired them for this survey? Are they unbiased or giving paid-for results?

"Among younger consumers, downloading and burning music tracks were an additional primary reason cited for purchasing declines". The primary reason is deliberately left out of this report. I'm guessing inflated CD prices are probably the primary reason?

George has the evidence that shows the LIES, who cares about this.

"Forty-one percent of consumers aged 13 to 25 reported that their use of file-sharing services caused them to purchase less music." Vague... did the users merely take the music without buying the CD (their intimation I suspect), or did the users download & listen & decide the music wasn't worth the expenditure of funds? Also, that leaves 59% of that age bracket still either buying music and/or not having file sharing services impace their purchasing.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

I dont remember hearing about any response other than the zero-tolerance attacks. Could it be refering to the failed SDMI initative, or the almost useless pressplay?

I dont know who the NPD group is, but ive heard some other statistics from them on the subject before. They usually say p2p is heavily hurting sales, but they wont put an exact figure on the loss, unlike the RIAA who claim piracy is costing them a significent part of the US GNP

I don't know if any of you do this. Most of my MP3 collection are those of music I already own. I like the convinience of being able to download the track quickly, make a mix and burn it the way we used to use tape recorders way back in the 20th century. But without the time constraint of waiting longer to convert each of the songs I want on my hard drive or data disc. I hardly download anything new because just about everything that is new, sucks ass. The RIAA should to take note. Not much of what is new is download worthy except for the few unheard of indie bands that want to get their music out. Any retard that downloads P. Diddy's music deserve to get sued anyway.

So if i download a new album and decide its not worth paying for, does that count as lost revenue because of file swapping? If this were true, all car dealers should sue the people who test drive a car and don't buy it because they lost POSSIBLE revenue.

That's funny ,I checked out c-span and the Simon Renshaw the representative for the Dixie Chicks and other groups testified on July 7 at the Senate Hearing on FCC Local Radio Ownership Rules that Media consolidation was making it harder for artists to be heard and thus hurting sales. Also he said that payola was still going on and that was hurting the profit that artist stands to make due to paying for these illegal fees that the artist has to pay not the lable. This seems to put a big hole in the RIAA's "Downloading and P2P is the only cause of lost sales defense" The worst part is I am sure the small artists are against these lawsuits but are blackmailed with their contract into saying that the are for it. Please stop (RIAA) spoon feeding us this crap about how rapsody and itunes are a good legal alternative because they a big rip off scam. I WILL NOT EVER pay money for something that is one tenth what is really is. (lossy format) Buy a CD average price/per song is 1.00, and it's wav no compression, Buy and song online it's 1.00 or 10.00 subscription fee and .79 per song and it is a lossy format with DRM. What a freaking waste of my money. Don't tell me your selling me apples when your only selling me apple slices. I want the whole apple, aka whole song not some poorly compressed crap.

dang I should have proof read that, but I think i made my point

Again, statistics and survey's from groups nobody seems to know. Must be nice to have easy access to the media to state your case. Especially when your case is BULLS**T. The RIAA is not interested in compromises or alternatives to get people to buy music again. I'm sure this won't be the last of these bulls**t survey's from bought and paid for groups.

In some sence I am ready to agree with this review. Nowdays I usually download the album prior to purchasing it. And if it does not worth listening more than a couple of times, I do not buy it. It saves a lot of place in my CD-holders.

CD sales dwinling? Good.

The RIAA money-making scheme is finally coming to an end, after a century of a parasitic business model.

Initially, I wonder if the CD listening stations at my local HMV have had the same effect. Of course, if people have the chance to listen to something before they purchase it, they may decide that they only liked the one song, and not buy it. This is the thing the RIAA fears most. But it's coming anyway, no matter what. Imagine if you couldn't test drive a car before buying it. That's the situation we've had to deal with in the past, only hearing one or two songs, and seeing the artists image, then having to decide based on that. I see a new age of music approaching where the image and fashion of the artist begins to mean less than the actual music. This kicks ass! When I hear a band like Audioslave (insert own preference here) and I get to hear the whole album, whether by p2p or at the listening stations I spoke of, then I go buy the CD, and I'm WAY happier than if I just bought because I heard one song on the radio. It's just a more intelligent purchase. Although with the way we're currently being attacked, and the threats of being hacked, I won't be buying ANY CDs till that stops.

Survey says, the RIAA sucks. Nuff said.

--"Among younger consumers, downloading and burning music tracks were an additional primary reason cited for purchasing declines," said the report, going on, "Forty-one percent of consumers aged 13 to 25 reported that their use of file-sharing services caused them to purchase less music."

That sounds odd, because according to RIAA's own site -- " A comparison of the distribution of purchases by age for 2001 and 2002 shows a slight increase in the proportion of units purchased by teens "

So, here we have people saying they buy less music and somehow end up with a bigger proportion of sales? I smell fish

-Rig

in other words:

Less than 2/3 bought the same or more (and 'less than' is as subjective as 'more than').

The older consumers and likely a good number of the younger ones saw an alternative method to get the music and used it, likely because no legit service comes close.

Even with the DMCA and other paid-for laws enacted and in full abuse, consumers are largely still uneducated and complacent about their existence. the media is owned by just a few individuals, and most are RIAA members, so only positive (pro-RIAA) news will be a focus.

at last, the retail/corporate folks in the music industry are starting to hear our concerns. but everyone knows their days are numbered, and the educated consumers are deciding that boycotting the industry is the fastest way to make it disappear. in time...

Just out of spite, I'm burning 10 copies of the new Disturbed album and giving them to each person I hate for free....

It continues to amaze me that people underuse their common sense so much. It doesn't matter what kind of spin someone puts on a turd, it just becomes a spinning turd. Thanks to a bush league president, we are losing our economy and people are losing their jobs at an increasing rate...worse in 20 years! Companies which have been in business over a century are going under and filing bankruptcy. So, for the dumbasses at the RIAA, it's this simple, listen up!
If it comes down to buying a round,flat, piece of acrylic for 15 bucks, or being able to use that 15 bucks to pay for electricity or rent...
do you think that 15 bucks is going to a cRAP CD or to keep a roof over your head or food on the table?

DUH! Your industry is putting out cRAP. Also, you're acting like a bunch of real assholes with this litigation threat...This isn't Godfather IV RIAA...and by the way, what kind of guy is named Cary anyway?

Not only am I promising NOT to buy any CD from any group or singer represented by the RIAA, but I am not evening friggin' LISTENING to any of these artists on the radio or MTV. I'm boycotting all the assholes!

Turn off the spigot and the fatcats start drying up and blowing away!

RIAA=FECES
BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS!

JOKE-
Know the difference between the RIAA
and a bowl of rotten meat covered in maggots?

A.-The bowl of maggots doesn't bother someone a hundred miles away!

BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS!

Cary Grant.

I notice that the RIAA's big concern seems to be 13-year-olds. They've been polling children for years now in an effort to use uninformed teens to bolster their stats and provide a lopsided viewpoint.

They're afraid to ask the adults why they don't buy more CDs. Too many of us will tell the truth. So they ask kids.

Guys, we all know that p2p networks are a big reason,(maybe the biggest reason, maybe not), why the record labels are losing money, there's no point in denying it.
It doesn't mean they aren't bastards, but most people i meet these days who are under 30 years old and are computer savvy get the lion's share of their new music through p2p networks.

To be fair, (which is more than they deserve) maybe they think that only 13 year olds buy CDs.

Would explain the product they ship. I'm too old for the crap they put out.

Take Pop-Punk-Rock, for example. I'm not even talking about the hard stuff, I'm talking about the mainstream stuff that was put out. I'm only 24, but I see a big difference between the punk of Bad Religion (not exactly a non-mainstream band) in the 80s and 90s, and the "punk" of today, like Blink 182.

For one, Bad Religion could rock better, didn't sound like their voices hadn't changed yet, and actually had lyrics that talked about how crappy the world was and what people needed to do to change it.

Blink-182's "punk" is, as far as I can tell, about early teenage angst, and small things that only bother small-minded people.

Why?

Because it has no substance.

Substance is anathema to entertainment. Substance is controversial, substance and meaning mean that you have to think, and thinking is hard work. Substance means you get people angry at you. It's the same reason CBS killed "See It Now" but kept the celebrity fluff piece "Person to Person."

It's why Big Media wants to put out "infotainment" rather than "information" on it's news programs - because saying something worth saying takes guts.

So they put out crap. Why not? No one gets offended by crap, except people who look for substance - and we're a dying breed.

Crap is infinite. You don't need much to make crap, crap just piles and piles. There's tons of it.

And the more people listen to crap, the less people think. And that's good for business.

-- Funksaw

Lawyers are lawyers because they never learned to fight because they have no balls. That's the reality. Trust me, when one shows up at your door to serve you papers, you grab that little wimp by his tie and slap him him around like the bitch he is. Usually they'll cry and run away to Boca Raton with all of the other bottom feeders. I'm fed up.

Funksaw - I can't agree more. I simply applaud.

MSoper and co., I hate to remind you of that unfortunate decade known as the 80's when pop music was at its lowest point in history, c'mon guys, am I the only one here who remembers New Kids on the Block? or Poison? or Debbie Gibson? or (in the UK) Bros?

Even the 70's had David Cassidy, Bay City Rollers, Ram Jam...

You guys are just as bad as the pro RIAA in you selective reasoning.

Pop music is no worse now than it has been since the dawn of recorded music, there's more sexual content and vulgarity, but that's not relevant to the quality of the music.

Despite my hostile feelings toward the RIAA, they do manage to release good music every once and awhile,(in spite of themselves).
If you can't find it look harder, don't whine.

The RIAA is catering to consumer demand, for every guy out there who likes Radiohead(or whoever you think is good), there's 20 little shits out there who love Christina Aguilera. Majority rules.

There is tons of brilliant music being put out right now by major labels, i'm not defending the labels so much as making sure that the GOOD musicians don't get slandered in our campaign against the RIAA, we need their support.

When you compare what is popular today(as in the past 24 hours) against the very best of an entire DECADE or more of pop music, of course the new stuff is going to come up short.

rather than tarring it all with the same brush, let's celebrate the good stuff while dissing the bad.

The fight is with the record labels not with musicians

Funksaw - "A-men"

So people are purchasing less CDs now...big deal! Maybe it's because I'm paying anywhere from $13 and up for a 10-12 track CD from an artist just based on a "wonder if it's good" mentality and then I get it home and 6 of the 12 tracks suck and I'm left thinking that I have certainly not gotten my money's worth. I care about what I spend my money on.

What I am not concerned about, however, is how these complaining a** artists are so worried about the general public downloading and burning their music. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if P. Diddy can't ever buy another Bentley or Cash Money couldn't "bling-bling" all up in my face. How about Lil Romeo...about 12 years old....with a miniature Benz to drive? Or Lil Kim losing $250 thousand dollars worth of jewelry, most of it made just to glorify a persona that she herself has created? She ain't the Queen Bee in my life! I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT ANY OF THAT! Now, if one of these artists wanna stop by my town and hand out a couple of millions, then they are welcome to swing by here and drop some off to me. Most of these artists out here are perfectly capable of making themselves platinum without my help.

The RIAA is welcome to try to sue me because until they manage to shut down all p2p applications, I'm gonna keep downloading. And even if they do stop p2p, what's gonna stop me from borrowing an album from a friend and burning a copy like people have BEEN doing even back in the day with vinyl albums and cassette tapes? And does the media REALLY think that they've scared anyone with that little FBI notice at the beginning of DVD's and VHS tapes?? I know half of all Americans have at least one so-called "bootleg" copy of something in their homes...

GO FIGURE!

Recent christmas number ones: Eminem, Bob the builder. Marketing power wins every time. Quality isn't nessicary, just create enough hype for people to think they want it.

The RIAA are committing online terror, plain and simple. If KaZaa and the rest declare their services off limits to the RIAA and the copyright bots,
they can invoke USC TITLE 18,Part 1, Chapter 121, Sec. 2701, since the RIAA would be accessing the network of users without permission and this is a violation, to access stored electonic communications without authorization.
There is the assumption in law that only people with "clean hands" should sue. Violation of federal law by them and their minions would dirty their hands!
BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS! BAN THE BASTARDS!