Buying and owning music is a thing of the past. It used to be that people went out and paid for records and later CDs, but let’s face it – the Internet has changed everything about the way people consume music. For one, it’s made virtually everything digital. When was the last time you bought a physical album? To help put things in perspective, record store sales declined by roughly 76% between the years 2000 and 2010 (Pan). This means that today’s total revenue from record sales is less than half of what it used to be just a decade ago.
Digital sales and music
piracy both explain why record sales are at an all time low. A 2011
Nielsen/Billboard report said that this was the year digital sales surpassed
record sales for the first time – 1.2 billion digital tracks sold, while only
228 million physical albums sold that year (Gustin). A reason for this is that
digitization made the sale of individual tracks instead of albums possible and
preferable. Many people preferred to preview songs on iTunes and buy them if
they liked them rather than to take a chance on a full album and not like it in
its entirety.
Digital sales, though, are
also in a decline. The 2014 Nielsen Music Report revealed that CD sales and
digital track sales are both down by roughly 13% from 2013 (2014 Nielsen Music
U.S. Report). Do you think it is shocking that digital sales are falling at the
same rate as CD sales? Would you be more shocked to know that roughly 95% of
all music is downloaded illegally (PFanner)? The fact that artists can still
sell millions of tracks and even albums shows that the music industry isn’t
dead, so to speak; but the amount of pirated music and the inability to control
or stop illegal downloading indicates that the industry is far less profitable
now that piracy has lowered the value of music to zero.
Music streaming and
subscription services have grown in numbers and have helped combat piracy by
providing a new way for people to listen to music and for artists to get paid.
Instead of buying or illegally downloading music, fans can listen to their
favorite artists and stream music for free or for a subscription fee of as low
as $5 a month that eliminates advertising disruptions.
The 2014 Nielsen Music Report
shows that currently there is more growth in music streaming than in digital
and record sales. In 2014, “over 164 billions [were] streamed on-demand through
audio and video platforms” which is roughly a 54% increase in the amount of
music streamed in 2013 (2014 Nielsen Music U.S. Report). Some of the benefits
of streaming are obvious; from a consumer’s perspective, what is better than
(legal) free music? One can easily search for an artist or song title and
create playlists at no cost, reduce the space on a hard drive that would
ordinary be taken up by buying or downloading music, and connect via social
media and see what other people are listening to (Chavanu). From an artist’s
perspective, streaming services can increase exposure and build a larger fan
base, encourage listeners to actually buy your music, concert tickets, or other
merchandise, and still receive royalties per stream although users are
listening to music for free (Celestin).
In response to the growing
number of streaming services’ users and subscribers, Billboard, which tracked
“the top 200 albums of the week by sales alone” (Billboard 200 Makeover), integrated online streaming to
their chart system in order to accurately measure what artists, songs, and
albums are most popular. Silvio Peitroluongo, VP of charts and data development
at Billboard, says, “Adding streaming information makes the chart a better
representation of music consumption activity,” (Billboard 200 Makeover) which
acknowledges that the way music is consumed and monetized is changing.
Streaming services, however,
also have a downside. For a consumer, using or subscribing to a music service
does not mean you own the music you listen to, so access to music is limited to
the streaming service (you cannot distribute it onto other devices). And if at
any point a subscriber wishes to cancel his or her subscription, he or she is
left without any content despite having paid a monthly subscription fee to use
the service. For artists, streaming royalties are very low; musicians make
fractions of a cent - between $0.006 and $0.0084 – per stream (Youorski). “Some
artists have complained vehemently about Spotify’s business model” (Knopper),
and many have joined Taylor Swift in pulling their songs from streaming
services’ catalogs.
What do you think? Is
streaming the future of the music industry? If not, what better alternative is
there to keep both consumers and artists happy?
--
Work Cited
Pan, Joann. "Say Goodbye
to Record Stores and Physical Albums [INFOGRAPHIC]." Mashable. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Gustin, Sam. "Digital
Music Sales Finally Surpassed Physical Sales in 2011." TIME. N.p., 6 Jan. 2012. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
"2014 NIELSEN MUSIC U.S.
REPORT." (n.d.): n. pag. Nielsen.
Web.
<http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/public%20factsheets/Soundscan/nielsen-2014-year-end-music-report-us.pdf>.
Pfanner, Eric. "Music
Industry Counts the Cost of Piracy." The New York Times. The New York Times, 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Chavanu, Bakari. "The
Pros And Cons Of Streaming vs Downloading MP3s." MakeUseOf. N.p., 17 Oct. 2011. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Celestin, Robert A. "The
Pros and Cons of Music Streaming for Recording Artists." RAC Law Firm. N.p., 07 July 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2015.
"Billboard 200 Makeover:
Album Chart to Incorporate Streams & Track Sales." Billboard. N.p., 19 Nov. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Youorski, Joe. "A
Musician's Guide to Streaming: The Pros & Cons of Spotify, Bandcamp,
SoundCloud & More." Pastemagazine.com. N.p., 21 Aug. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Knopper, Steve. "Taylor
Swift Abruptly Pulls Entire Catalog From Spotify." Rolling Stone. N.p., 03 Nov. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
I think that streaming is the obvious next trend in the music industry. Like Kamps writes, “Streaming has brought fans access to any song, any time, anywhere” (Kamps) and in today’s tech-world, that is the only way consumers want it. In my opinion, it is naïve for the artists to try to fight this trend. Knopper hits the nail on the head in his Rolling Stone article: "There are reasons why you can sell 1 million units, but it's got nothing to do with not providing that album to Spotify. Every 15-year-old knows where to get that record, and it's not iTunes" (Knopper). In a market where it is so easy to download media for free, why wouldn’t artists embrace streaming instead of forcing their audience to take the alternative route that they will never see a penny from?
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the streaming business model may not be perfect yet, but the trend is still gathering speed and like with anything else, innovations will be made, kinks ironed out, and musicians appeased if they are willing to work through the change just as generations of talent before them did. In your blog you gave the statistic that 95% of all music is downloaded illegally and it doesn’t surprise me at all when I consider the majority of my music library. The millennials are becoming so much more embracing of such diverse sounds that it would be ludicrous to buy everything that interests us. We want more and we want it now and our appetites might even be getting too big for the tedious task of downloading media illegally; enter streaming.
If streaming could replace reliance on illegal downloading, why wouldn’t artists be supportive of the shift? Meager royalties are better than none at all and it’s not exactly like musicians these days are starving artists. As Forbes described when compiling their list of highest-paid musicians, “To form this year’s list, we considered income from touring, recorded music, publishing, merchandise sales, endorsements and other ventures” (“The World’s Highest-Paid Musicians of 2014”). Celebrities have a multitude of alternative ways to make big bucks handed to them and I would argue that streaming and sharing only adds to the potential for more musicians to reach that level of celebrity quicker than ever before.
Just as Kamps summarizes in his article, “Downloads are dipping, streaming is booming, and there are only a half-dozen artists in the world who can still marshal their fans to Target. The future of music is mobile, and it’s one to which even Swift will eventually have to adapt” (Kamps). Change is the only constant and the digital age has brought with it many hurdles, but also great possibility to those who have the guts to think outside the box.
Works Cited
Kamps, Garrett. "How Mobile Finally Took Over the Music Industry in 2014." Billboard. 16 Dec. 2014. Web.
Knopper, Steve. "Taylor Swift Abruptly Pulls Entire Catalog From Spotify." Rolling Stone. 3 Nov. 2014. Web.
"The World's Highest-Paid Musicians of 2014." Forbes. 10 Dec. 2014. Web.
Coral, you have made many interesting points in regards to the future of the music industry. It seems, which each decade that passes by, there are new ways for people to receive their favorite songs. For example, records, cassettes, CDs, ITunes, etc. have all shown us how the music industry continues to change, quickly. Now, streaming music seems to be a very popular way to get your music for free. According to the article, “Streaming is King as Downloads Fade Away,” the author states, “YouTube, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and other music-streaming services are booming like never before, according to new mid-year numbers released by Nielsen Soundscan. Total video and audio streams jumped from 50 billion in the first half of 2013 to 70 billion this year, an increase of 42 percent, while download sales continue to bust, with albums dropping 15 percent and tracks 13 percent.”(Steve) One of the reasons for this success is because people rather listen to their music for free, than pay for an entire CD or pay $1.35 on ITunes for a song. However, you made some valid points on the downsides of streaming as well, and I defiantly agree with when you state, “For a consumer, using or subscribing to a music service does not mean you own the music you listen to, so access to music is limited to the streaming service (you cannot distribute it onto other devices).”(Cora) This is exactly why I do not use streaming services and why I buy my music on ITunes. In my case, I am a fitness instructor and I have to have my songs downloaded to my IPod or a CD and that is something that the streaming sites, do not allow me to do. I also want to be able to access all my music on my laptop, phone, and IPod, whenever I want too. Also, streaming services such as Spotify, are very limited, compared to ITunes. According to the article, “Islands in the Stream,” popular artists, such as Taylor Swift, Jason Aldean, Prince, Bob Segar, and The Beatles, won’t allow their music to be streamed on the site for many reasons. For example, Taylor Swift states, "I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music."(Steve) For that reason, I do not think that the streaming services are something that will continue to grow. However, I do think that they will come up with another alternative, where you will be able to stream your music to all your devices (something along the lines of Netflix).
ReplyDeleteKnopper, Steve. "Islands in the Stream: The 10 Biggest Holdouts in Digital Music." Rolling Stone. N.p., 02 Jan. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Knopper, Steve. "Mid-Year Music Update: Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. N.p., 07 July 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Amanda Schaffrick
ReplyDeleteMusic is becoming much easier to come by now a days. There is constantly new ways of getting music and unfortunately for the industry, these methods are illegal or cost very little to get the songs. I was not surprised at all to see that record sales have dropped. With the times changing and everyone not wanting to wait for things, this fact didn’t even phase me. People want convenience and now that they don’t have to physically go to the store to get an album, it makes it easier for them. People are happier when they can save time. I also think it’s a good point that they don’t have to buy an entire album. Unless it is one of their favorite artists, people generally don’t want the whole album. Being able to get the songs online only makes this even easier. Many sites like iTunes even let you preview songs for about a minute before you make the decision to buy it. People can then pick and choose which songs they actually want to spend money on making them a lot happier.
The music industry must now take into account the number of downloads as well as album sales since album sales are old news. To account for downloads now is a huge problem too though. Since many sites that people use to get songs are illegal, they are not able to count these downloads. They can’t get data from websites like these which in turn only hurts the music industry even more. It helps to know which artists and songs are popular but if they can’t get accurate data then how will the industry know where music is heading? These illegal websites also are harmful to the artists themselves because they are losing potential sales since people are getting the songs for free illegally. Artists and producers put a lot of effort into making music and then they can’t even benefit from it because people don’t want to have to pay for their music. The public only cares about what is most convenient for them and what is the cheapest way to do something. As much as the industry and law enforcement try and shut down these websites, there will always be more and pirated music will never go away.
Streaming sites also take away from artist and producer revenue. “YouTube, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and other music-streaming services are booming like never before, according to new mid-year numbers released by Nielsen Soundscan.” (Knopper 2014) These streaming websites are everywhere and seem like a great idea on paper and are very convenient for people but they are also doing a lot of damage to the industry. I was not aware of how upset artists are getting over these streaming sites. I was also not aware of how cheap these websites are and that most of them are free. When it comes down to it, how much is the industry really making off of music each time a song is played on a streaming site? I do not blame artists for not wanting their songs to be played on streaming sites just as Taylor Swift is trying to get rid of. Since these websites aren’t illegal like the downloading sites, then the artists should be making more off of the streaming sites. They should get paid more per song that plays on a streaming website because they put in a lot more effort to make the song than what they are truly getting out of it. I think the quote by Taylor Swift says a lot about how this issue. "Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for." (Knopper 2014)
Knopper, Steve. "Taylor Swift Abruptly Pulls Entire Catalog From Spotify." Rolling Stone. N.p., 03 Nov. 2014.
Knopper, Steve. “Streaming is King as Downloads Fade Away.” Rolling Stone. N.p., 07, July 2014.
Brittany Joyal
ReplyDeleteWhat’s the price to pay in order to listen to music in today’s industry? It’s no secret that the Internet, social media, digital distribution, and streaming services have revolutionized the way in which music listeners consume their music, however at what price? When analyzing the current state of the music industry, I tend to think streaming being the future trend is undeniable.
As Knopper states in his Rolling Stones article, “YouTube, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and other music-streaming services are booming like never before, according to new mid-year numbers released by Nielsen Soundscan” (Knopper). When one is to take a look at the big picture it is easy to see that as music has shifted from physical copies to digital copies consumers have been more appeased. By this I mean that nowadays media-savvy music consumers have such a diverse taste in music and short attention span that they need a larger variety of music at their disposal, quickly; consumers no longer seem to have such strong allegiances to a select handful of artists, but rather prefer to pick and choose what they listen to track-by-track. Digital streaming satisfies this consumer-want by giving the listener the ability to jump around from station to station for free, and with no further commitment.
Kamps discusses the affect that mobile has had on the music industry by stating, “For all of the accessibility and targeting and sharing that mobile facilitates, it has created an increasingly fractured landscape, one where business models and best practices are in constant flux” (Kamps). As acknowledged in the above anecdote, the business model for music streaming is not perfectly executed; many artists such as Taylor Swift are unsatisfied with the little-to-no revenue they receive from their presence on these sites (i.e. Spotify). However, I believe you make a valid point when you state that streaming, if anything, has had a hand in combating illegal music downloading. It comes as no surprise that 95% of all music is illegally downloaded; why would anyone choose to pay for something they know they can easily listen to for free? I think this statistic can be easily explained with a point I previously mentioned: consumer mentality is not conducive to investing money into buying music. With the introduction of streaming services, the consumer is able to get exactly what they want day-by-day with no serious investment (some sites require a subscription monthly, but the prices are low).
Brittany Joyal cont.
ReplyDeleteIt is the abovementioned consumer mentality that leads me to also be unfazed by the fact that digital sales are falling at the same rate as CD sales. Music distribution sites such as iTunes do give you the option to preview songs before purchasing, as well as solely buy one or two songs from an album rather than the album in its entirety. However, one thing iTunes lacks is the ability for the consumer to discover new music similar to their tastes. When a consumer uses a streaming site such as Pandora, they are not only able to listen to songs they like (for free) but also are provided with similar songs from different artists that may match up with their listening preferences. This feeds into the today’s consumer need of constantly discovering new content/ the “next best thing” in the industry.
According to Brian Mansfield’s article in USA Today thanks to men like Neil Portnow music consumption may begin to cost more however; not only for consumers but also for streaming services. Portnow, Recording Academy president, used his speech slot at the 57th Grammy Awards to announce the creation of an advocacy coalition, Creators Alliance. Creators Alliance’s mission is to “bring the nation’s music professionals together to lobby for copyright reform” (Mansfield). The group plans to advise policymakers in establishing “what it considers fair royalty rates” as well as educate fellow artists/musicians/creative professionals on “how to advocate for their rights and needs”.
Portnow’s coalition creation came at the perfect time seeing as apparently the capital is currently looking at the copyright system in its entirety for the first time in decades. Artists and musicians are concerned they cannot make a living and thus the general consensus is that the system needs reform. Overall, Portnow hopes to gain a large following and acquire many members to join the Creators Alliance in order to better combat the ‘free music’ trend in this digital era. If this coalition’s mission is to gain any traction and copyright reform is to take place music fans will undoubtedly be affected.
Works Cited:
Kamps, Garrett. "How Mobile Finally Took Over the Music Industry in 2014." Billboard. 16 Dec. 2014. Web.
Knopper, Steve. "Mid-Year Music Update: Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. N.p., 07 July 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Mansfield, Brian. "Grammys Creating Advocacy Coalition." USA Today. Gannett, 08 Feb. 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Erika Almanzar
ReplyDeleteCoral,
I agree with many of the points you made about issues facing the music industry in terms of piracy and streaming contributing to the massive decline in album sales. With instant accessibility to leaked albums online, illegal downloading became much more commonplace within the past decade with the growth of iPods, iPhones, and other mobile devices that helped consumers listen to music digitally. However, as streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify have become much more popular recently, it seems as though these new digital outlets are taking the place of piracy and also physical albums by providing a free and legal online service to enjoy music. Overall, streaming services sound like the perfect solution to some of the problems that have faced the music industry in recent years. However, with newer digital outlets, there are positive and negative outcomes that have resulted from the growth of streaming.
According to the Rolling Stone, streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Rhapsody have boomed from 50 billion subscriptions in July 2013 to 70 billion last year, which has resulted in a 42 percent increase. However, while streaming has become much more popular among listeners, album sales have dropped even more drastically in the past year. For example, Beyonce’s self-titled album only sold 702,000 copies compared to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ The Heist, which sold over 1.7 million in 2013 (Knopper). With the instant access of streaming, music listeners have the ability to choose which singles they want to hear, instead of purchasing an entire album. While this helps artists gain more exposure among streaming music stations and genres, these services have also played a huge factor in total sales declines.
As a result of issues facing artists due to streaming services, Taylor Swift made headlines when her label, Big Machine Music, removed the 1989 album from Spotify within its first week, according to the Rolling Stone. While Spotify’s representatives claim that about 70 percent of their revenue supports the music community, artists are still only making a fraction of sales from streaming services (Knopper). Swift’s decision with Spotify shows just one example of how although streaming subscriptions are currently soaring, album sales and individual singles are still receiving the negative impacts of new media on the music industry.
Lastly, I believe that as of right now, it seems as though streaming is here to stay in digital media. Although there are downsides, streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora have made songs and music videos more accessible to the public than ever before. While album sales are declining overall, individual singles have been proven to receive success from streaming. For example, Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ sold 5.6 million, Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’ received 4 million, and many other songs became hits due to the popularity of streaming sites and apps (Knopper). While artists such as Taylor Swift and Prince are unhappy with the free accessibility of streaming services, it seems to be the most reasonable option for consumers right now in order to prevent piracy and illegal downloading.
Works Cited
Knopper, Steve. "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. 7 July 2014. Web.
Knopper, Steve. "Taylor Swift Abruptly Pulls Entire Catalog From Spotify." Rolling Stone. 3 Nov. 2014. Web.
Margaret Thompson
ReplyDeleteCoral, I really enjoyed your blog post. I enjoy listening to music and do so everyday, but I never gave much thought to the industry and how it has drastically changed in my lifetime. I remember getting gift cards to f.y.e for holidays. Those were the best presents and waiting for artists to come out with new albums was almost as exciting as Christmas. But it seems to me that the medium for accessing music is not the only thing that has changed. The whole “excitement” around the music industry seems to be lacking. “Part of the problem may be a lack of exciting new album releases, as the Top 10 best-sellers include 2013 retreads such as the resilient smash Disney soundtrack for Frozen, Beyonce's self-titled album and Lorde's Pure Heroine alongside warmed-over hit-single compilations like NOW 49 and NOW 50” (Knopper). Record sales are one thing. I understand the digital age eating away at those sales over the past 15 years, but the thing that shocked me most was to see a drop in digital sales as well. “Total video and audio streams jumped from 50 billion in the first half of 2013 to 70 billion this year, an increase of 42 percent, while download sales continue to bust, with albums dropping 15 percent and tracks 13 percent ” (Knopper). I still buy music almost as much as I stream it so those statistics surprised me, but I also am aware that I am in a small group of people who are in Limbo between digital sales and streaming. I often use streaming to discover new songs or artists I otherwise wouldn’t have. Then I buy the songs I like as a back up incase the streaming is ever slow, which if we are being honest is sometimes more often than not.
There is no doubt that most people are making the switch to music streaming. You can see this by their user increase in recent years. “Music app revenues on iOS and Android grew by 77% in 2013, with Pandora topping the chart as the highest earning music app in the world” (Jones). These streaming sites are also making money, which is what any company needs to do to survive. The bring in profit through advertisements during their free levels of streaming or from charging people for a premium subscription like Pandora One which gets rid of ads. “While no revenue numbers were revealed, earlier reports tip Pandora’s revenue from its Pandora One subscriptions in the first three financial quarters of 2013 at $85.2m” (Jones). With numbers like that it is no surprise that steaming websites and apps like Pandora, Spoitfy, etc. are doing well and will most likely continue to grow and stay popular until the next “big thing” arrives. Nothing lasts forever anymore. First it was records, then cassettes, followed by CDs, digital downloads and now streaming. In just 21 years I have seen four of these five mediums come and go (even if I was too young to remember vinyl records). For right now I think it is safe to say that streaming websites are here to stay. The question is, how long?
Knopper, Steve. (2014, July 7). "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. Web.
Jones, R. (2014, January 31). Music app revenues up 77% in 2013, Pandora highest earner - report. Music Week.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCaroline Gaudet
ReplyDeleteCoral, I think that you made some fantastic points in your blog regarding the changing settings of the music industry. I think that with any industry, be it that of cars, books, music, or anything in between, it is inevitable that there will be generational change with the passing of time. From steamboats to motor boats and gas ovens to electric ovens, we have seen society continuously produce faster, simpler, and more cost effective ways to complete a task. The conversion from physical records to downloads to live streaming is just another example of that.
Just as in all of these other industries in which competitors need to either adapt or step aside, music producers are learning that streaming is the industry of the future and it’s not just an option, it’s the only option. In an article with Billboard, author Garret Kamps explained, writing, “downloads are dipping, streaming is booming, and there are only a half-dozen artists in the world who can still marshal their fans to Target” (Kamps). Between the simple ease of the act of streaming to the opportunities of exposure to new music, streaming creates a dimension of the music listening experience that society has never seen.
Even in the numbers, streaming popularity is exploding as download sales continue to fade. Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper reports, “Total video and audio streams jumped from 50 billion in the first half of 2013 to 70 billion this year, an increase of 42 percent, while download sales continue to bust, with albums dropping 15 percent and tracks 13 percent” (Knopper). The industry is changing, becoming more and more dependent on the digital technologies so prevalent in the world in which we live. As technology evolves, it’s only natural that our music industry will evolve right alongside it.
I also feel that streaming is a perfect reflection of the society in which we live today. Sure, many argue the issues that come with not owning the music you’re listening to while streaming. The song is yours in the moment, able to be paused and rewound, but after streaming services end, when an individual is no longer a subscriber, the song is no longer accessible. The individual has no tangible evidence of ever having paid for the song at all. However, this works for our fast paced society with our constantly changing likes and dislikes. With small attention spans and a continuously morphing list of what’s “hot” on the music scene, users need not pay to own a song that they wont be listening to in a month. Why not pay a smaller price, listen to the song while you still enjoy it, and not have a laundry list of song, each that you paid over a dollar for, sitting in the dark depths of an iTunes playlist.
Streaming is the technology of our generation in the fact that it is fast, it is constantly meeting our needs, and it is never old or stale. Streaming gives us what we want when we want it at little to no cost, and that’s what millennial are all about.
Works Cited
Kamps, Garret. "How Mobile Finally Took Over the Music Industry in 2014." Billboard. N.p., 16 Dec. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015. .
Knopper, Steve. "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. N.p., 07 July 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015. .
Coral, I really liked your post about streaming. I totally agree with your statement that buying and selling music is a thing of the past. From personal experience as a college student, I find that almost everyone is streaming his or her music from companies like Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or SoundCloud. No one wants to spend $1.29 for one song, because when you add up your entire music library, there’s a good chance the cost would be anywhere between $500 dollars to $3,000 dollars.
ReplyDeleteI picture streaming as the long awaited middle ground between buying and illegally downloading. You don’t have to pay for your subscription, but you can spend money for additional perks like song skips and the absence of advertisements. Before streaming, the music industry was in an inflationary bubble. Consumers were forced to pay ridiculously high prices for albums and songs that were “free” to listen to on the radio. This tremendous pricing differential didn’t sit well with consumers. Is music supposed to be expensive? Or free? As music began to go digital people found ways around these prices by using sites like LimeWire and Bearshare to illegally download music. It was a clear sign that consumers didn’t want to pay an elevated price for their music. Streaming fills the gap in between buying and illegally downloading. As a result, there has been a decrease in piracy and digital downloads. According to Nielsen Soundscan Report, video and audio streams increased from 50 billion to 70 billion in 2013 – an increase of 42%. Inversely, downloading albums dropped 15%, and downloading individual tracks dropped 13%. (Knopper, Steve)
What currently makes streaming even more popular is how accessible the music is. Almost every streaming site has an app for android or iPhone. This makes it easy for consumers to switch devices and still have all their music available to them. There is also a social element where you can see your friends account and follow their playlists. Music apps are so popular that their revenues on iOS and Android grew by 77% in 2013. That year, Pandora was the highest earning music app in the world. (Jones)
Despite the new boom in streaming music, there are still people spending their money to actually purchase albums. Just fewer than five million albums are still sold in America every week. (Ugwu) So who are these people still buying albums? And why are they doing it? According to an estimate from MusicWatch, 61% of people who buy CDs are 36 and older. 13 to 17-year-olds only account for a mere 7% of the CD-buying population. (Ugwu)
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Continued....
ReplyDeleteSo next begs the question of why these people are still paying high prices to buy albums instead of just streaming their music? For starters, the demographic that is buying albums is much older. A portion of them might not understand or know how to work streaming services. After all, we weren’t all born in the tech boom and understanding new technology takes time for a lot of people. Another reason is because they may like the significance of owning an actual album and having something physical to hold on to. Ironically, owning CD’s may make them feel youthful and allow them to reminisce on when they were young and buying albums was popular. Lastly, it could be because they are big fans of Taylor Swift. Swift refused to put her music on free streaming services, forcing music consumers to buy physical albums or actually pay for the songs on iTunes. "I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music," says Taylor Swift. And she is not alone. Jason Aldean, Garth Brooks, and the Beatles are also all big name artists who won’t post their work on Spotify because they don’t feel it fairly compensates them. (Knopper) Whether this is true, or these artists are being greedy and looking for more money on top of the millions they already make, doesn’t really matter because it points out the biggest flaw in the music-streaming world. Ultimately, the artists still hold the pricing power over consumers. If more artists follow Taylor’s lead, inevitably there will be a spike in streaming service prices. Streaming will then no longer be the middle ground between buying and illegally downloading music for free. We will end up right where we started.
Knopper, Steve. "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. 7 July 2014. Web.
Jones, Rhian. "Music App Revenues Up 77% in 2013, Pandora Highest Earner." Music Week 31 Jan. 2014. Web.
Ugwu, Regge. "Who Buys Music Anymore? A Statistical Inquiry." BuzzFeed. N.p., 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Knopper. "Islands in the Stream: The 10 Biggest Holdouts in Digital Music." Rolling Stone. 2 Jan. 2015. Web.
Lindsay Goldstein
ReplyDeleteThe music industry is always changing and relies heavily on the changing environment that surrounds it. You make a very interesting point when you mention that digitzation has made it possible to easily purchase select songs after previewing them as opposed to buying an entire album to only like a handful of songs.
Personally, I still buy CDs of a select few artists that I love because I know that I will love all of their songs and in a weird way I want to support them. Joshua Radin, for example, has been a favorite musician of mine for years and releases all of his own music independently. This means that he writes every song on the record, records it, does whatever production/editing is involved to make it perfect, and markets it. He even designed and created the album cover of his most recent record using magazines. To me, buying his albums every year or every other year when they are released is important because of how hard he works to get the music out to his fans.
I'm not really surprised that digital sales are also down because it has become so easy to listen to music for free through websites like YouTube or Pandora or even for a small fee like with Spotify. As Steve Knopper writes in the Rolling Stone article "Streaming is King as Downloads Fade Away," "YouTube, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and other music-streaming services are booming like never before, according to new mid-year numbers released by Nielsen Soundscan," (1). Because streaming has become so easy and remains perhaps the cheapest way to listen to music, it will continue to grow in popularity. In the same regard, I am also not surprised to learn that roughly 95% of all music is downloaded illegally (PFanner) for the same reason that physical and digital album sales are down – people like things free. If they can get the exact same product without having to pay, downloading songs or even entire albums illegally is their answer.
I think that this could also be because those who do purchase music share it with their friends instead of making their friends purchase the exact same thing. Whenever I get a new CD, whether it's Joshua Radin, Taylor Swift or Britney Spears, my roommates all burn it onto their computers so they don't have to buy it themselves.
Lindsay Goldstein, continued
ReplyDeleteWhile there are obviously many problems with the music industry today when it comes to sales and money, you make a very important point when you write, “The fact that artists can still sell millions of tracks and even albums shows that the music industry isn’t dead, so to speak,” (Rivera). Taylor Swift is a prime example of this, as cliché as it may sound. Swift’s decision to pull all of her music from Spotify, a streaming service that would allow subscribers to listen to all of her music after paying a small fee, was controversial, but she had good intentions and motives behind the decision as explained in the Rolling Stone article “Taylor Swift Abruptly Pulls Entire Catalog From Spotify.” She wrote, “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for,” (Knopper 1). The idea that music should be paid for started a real conversation among the industry and I would not be surprised if other artists follow suit and pull their music from streaming sites. This, of course, won’t prevent people from illegally downloading music by any means, but it starts an important dialogue that hopefully will make people think. According to Keith Caulfield of Billboard, in the article “Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ Beats ‘Frozen’ As Top Selling Album of 2014,” “Swift’s 1989 finishes as the year’s top selling album,” (1). The fact that she was still able to sell 3.66 million copies of her album in 2014 (Caulfield 1) is proof that she’s doing something right and the music industry is, in fact, still thriving.
Works Cited:
Caufield, Keith. “Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ Beats ‘Frozen’ As Top Selling Album of 2014.” Billboard. 31 Dec. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Knopper, Steve. “Streaming is King as Downloads Fade Away.” Rolling Stone. 7 July 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Knopper, Steve. “Taylor Swift Abruptly Pulls Entire Catalog From Spotify.” Rolling Stone. 3 Nov. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Pfanner, Eric. “Music Industry Counts the Cost of Piracy.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Coral,
ReplyDeleteThere are many things that you pointed out that I believe. The internet really has changed everything about the way every generation consumes music. My dad still collects records but he complains at the fact that many of those places that he would go to buy records are closing down. My mom always jokes with him since he is not tech savvy and tell him that he is the only person in America that would still buy records.
The stats clearly show that records are not being purchased anymore. Record store sales declined by 76 percent between the years 2000 and 2010. 2011 was the first time when digital sales surpassed record sales on the Neilson/Billboard. 1.2 billion digital tracks were sold while only 228 million physical copies were sold.
Streaming is now the biggest thing presently and in the future in the music industry. The reason why streaming has become so popular is because it gives the general population instant gratification. Spodify has succeeded more than any other streaming app or website “Streaming has brought fans access to any song, anytime, anywhere” (Kamps). Consumers want to listen to what they desire at the time as soon as possible. Some artist like Taylor Swift and the Beatles are against this new trend but most artist and consumers have become accustomed to this new trend. "I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music,” (Swift)
“YouTube, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and other music-streaming services are booming like never before, according to new mid-year numbers released by Nielsen Soundscan. Total video and audio streams jumped from 50 billion in the first half of 2013 to 70 billion this year, an increase of 42 percent, while download sales continue to bust, with albums dropping 15 percent and tracks 13 percent.” (Steve)
Even though streaming services are booming like never before you do not own the music that you’re streaming. Access to the music is limited to the streaming service. When you are streaming music you cannot download the song onto a CD or on your iTunes.
Many websites where our generation downloads music are illegal. It is unfortunate for all record label industries that our generation religiously downloads music illegally. Music industries should take accountability for the amount of number of downloads as well as album sales. It is nearly impossible to keep track of all of the downloads because of how much of it is downloaded illegally. Since these songs are downloaded illegally they can’t get accurate data which hurts the music industry even more. The illegal websites are harmful to the artist mostly because they lose potential sales.
Our generation has become selfish when it comes to getting access to the song(s) that we all want to listen to. Streaming songs limits the amount of illegal downloading being done but at this point it has been going on for so long to the point where it has become socially acceptable to illegally download songs. Artist should be making more money off of streaming per song but it will not happen any time soon because it is accepted in our society.
Knopper, Steve. "Islands in the Stream: The 10 Biggest Holdouts in Digital Music." Rolling Stone. N.p., 02 Jan. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Knopper, Steve. "Mid-Year Music Update: Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. N.p., 07 July 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Jessica Betsy
ReplyDeleteMusic, nowadays, certainly does play such an important role in our everyday lives. Whether we download a collection of music onto our phones for a six-hour airplane ride to California, or whether we download the Pandora app onto our phones and search for a station to add to our Pandora collection such as “Summer Hits of the 90s Radio” to listen to on our way back to school from home or even to listen to on the beach during the summertime, we are constantly being exposed to music, especially since it’s easily accessible being at the palm of our hands. Actually, according to an article from Music Week, it stated, “According to analytics firm App Annie, which measured revenues from Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play (including in-app purchases), music is now the third biggest app category for revenues, just behind games and social networking” (Jones). This means that besides us connecting with family and friends through networking apps such as Facebook and downloading games to pass time, possibly due to stress, boredom, or just for plain old fun, music seems to be one of the three essentials in today’s world, which does not surprise me at all.
To be honest, I cannot remember the last time I bought a physical CD album, let alone buying an entire album through iTunes. Though what does ring a bell are each of the individual songs that I downloaded onto my laptop last night. Coral you stated, “Many people preferred to preview songs on iTunes and buy them if they liked them rather than to take a chance on a full album and not like it in its entirety,” and I couldn’t agree more. Even though I do not download music on iTunes as often as I used to due to our ability to download streaming services like Pandora or Spotify, when I did use iTunes to download songs, I would never buy an entire album. Rather, I would choose the two or three songs that I liked from that album and download them individually. Why? Well because for one, it is extremely rare that I like all the songs that a specific artist may sing and secondly, I like to listen to a mix of music, not just one specific artist or let alone one specific genre.
Like I mentioned, I rarely ever download music as much as I used to since I rely on streaming services, especially Pandora. Though the only time I do download music, I usually download songs that I have heard and loved on Pandora. To me, I believe most people use streaming services rather than downloading music not necessarily because we are lazy, but perhaps since we do not have the time to sit down and search for songs like we used to. In other words, we find these services more convenient. Streaming services provide us with music that we love whether we are in the car on the way to class, at our desks at work or even if we go for a quick run around the neighborhood. In fact, according to an article from Billboard, it stated, “Thanks to the supercomputers that 71 percent of Americans now keep in their pockets, whether tablets or phones, everyone’s a mobile-music power user,” adding that, “Streaming has brought fans access to any song, any time, anywhere” (Kamps).
From the looks of it, it seems that the way we consume music will only continue to change, though for now, streaming services will only continue to grow.
Works Cited
Jones, Rhian. "Music App Revenues Up 77% in 2013, Pandora Highest Earner." Music Week 31 Jan. 2014. Web.
Kamps, Garrett. "How Mobile Finally Took Over the Music Industry in 2014." Billboard. 16 Dec. 2014. Web.
Connor Powers
ReplyDeleteCoral, I agree with the points that you made about the future of music and digital downloading compared to the past strategies that were in place. I for one have not bought an actual album since I was in at least Middle School. There was no reason to buy a whole album if you only wanted a couple of songs from that specific artist. Furthermore, that was around the time that ITunes was taking off and becoming a main way to get music. But, I have not actually paid for a song off ITunes since probably High School. The main way to get music now, for me, is to use streaming sites such as YouTube and Spotify. So I do believe that streaming music is the future, if not the method of the present.
No one wants to pay for music anymore when there are so many ways to get around it both legally and illegally. The only reason I can see for someone to buy an album is for souvenir purposes. Furthermore, to strengthen the point I am making, Steve Knopper in his article regarding the growth of streaming music says “YouTube, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and other music-streaming services are booming like never before, according to new mid-year numbers released by Nielsen Soundscan. Total video and audio streams jumped from 50 billion in the first half of 2013 to 70 billion this year, an increase of 42 percent, while download sales continue to bust, with albums dropping 15 percent and tracks 13 percent.” (Knopper) These are just the numbers that show how much of an impact that streaming music has on the market and where the focus should be. I also found a point you made very interesting about how Billboard started to factor in the streaming of music into more accurately rating the most popular songs that were currently out. If it was soley going off albums sold then they would not have an accurate representation of the music that people are listening too.
Although, I understand how this kind of change in the music industry can be frustrating to musicians. It takes away their main source of revenue from album sales and ITunes downloads. It makes them have to make most of their money through tours and advertising. Although, some artists completely get where consumers are coming from in regards to the consumption of free music. But on the other hand, a recent Rolling Stone article quoted Taylor Swift as saying “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.” (Knopper) Swift even went as far to pull her catalog from Spotify to try and further prove her point. The argument that you make is a good one and I agree that buying music is a thing of the past. There is just too many loopholes that people are going to create or take to avoid paying for music.
Work Cited
Knopper, Steve. "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. 7 July 2014. Web
Knopper, Steve. "Taylor Swift Abruptly Pulls Entire Catalog From Spotify." Rolling Stone. 3 Nov. 2014. Web
Tyler Speed
ReplyDeleteCoral, I think that this is a very interesting topic to bring up in this class and I think that you are really on to something about the streaming of music. Last time I checked the only CD I owned was a 1990’s backstreet boy album that was only available in stores on a CD. Now, I simply don’t even bother looking for CD’s nor do I even bother going on itunes for that matter, it is all about the streaming services like Pandora, Spotify, and yes I will even throw Youtube into the mix. To me the concept of streaming music is brilliant. Allow fans to listen to their favorite artists for free so that they will hopefully enjoy the songs enough to either buy the album itself, buy merchandise, or even buy concert tickets. Artists who get into the music industry now a days should be accustomed to this new way of gaining revenue. Unlike the ways of the past where a lot of artist profit was generated from album sales, now they make their money off of the physical merchandise or concerts they put on. As even stated by Forbes, who did some research on top paid artists this year, “To form this year’s list, we considered income from touring, recorded music, publishing, merchandise sales, endorsements and other ventures.” (Forbes 2014). I think the perfect example of this new way of generating revenue is looking at someone like Dr. Dre who Forbes even comments on as being the highest paid musician because of his beats brand that he sold to Apple. If it wasn’t for Dr. Dre’s brand and his merchandise that he is selling he would not be anywhere close to the top of that list.
Now, having said that, the thing that I have a question about though is this concept of not owning the music your streaming. I wonder if there will be a way in the future that we are able to simply download these free apps, click a button when we hear a song we like, and boom see that song pop up in our itunes library? The reason why I wonder if this might be the way of the future is because, as it already is these streaming companies have received permission to own and distribute the music on their companies servers. So therefore, the streaming companies do own those songs, and thereby should allow customers to pull from their sites if they want to. I understand that this would cause issues for the artists because that might limit the .006 cents that they earn off of a song being played, but on the opposite side of things it could increase the artists brand and that would increase their revenue stream significantly. Also, it is not like these app companies are going to lose any money by sharing these songs with people in fact I think it would draw even more of a customer base to the apps than the industry is currently seeing. As stated by Rhian Jones of Music Week,
“While no revenue numbers were revealed, earlier reports tip Pandora’s revenue from its Pandora One subscriptions in the first three financial quarters of 2013 at $85.2m.” (Jones 2014).
So what is my point with this quote? Well the point is that Pandora and other apps are making money no matter what and it could be beneficial to both audience and artist if they let music be downloaded straight from the streaming site.
Work Cited
Jones, Rhian. "Music App Revenues Up 77% in 2013, Pandora Highest Earner." Music Week 31 Jan. 2014. Web.
"The World's Highest-Paid Musicians of 2014." Forbes. 10 Dec. 2014. Web.
Brittany Berg
ReplyDeleteCoral, I found your blog extremely interesting. I believe streaming is changing the future of the music industry.
Privacy laws in terms of content piracy for illegally downloading music and movies have become a major issue. This also includes online copyright infringement. The main problem for illegally streaming is that is costs nothing, so people do not have to spend money on the movies or music they want to watch or listen to. This is extremely illegal since people are stealing without any consequences. There are different laws/acts that have been enacted to stop copyright infringement.
The streaming that exists in today’s society is legal. Streaming is only legal if you have a network connection, meaning that in order to listen to music or watch movies, one must be connected to a network the entire time they are listening or watching. One example that allows legal streaming is YouTube. YouTube consists of clips that are copyrighted and, also, homemade. YouTube has teamed up with Vevo to expand and feature more variety on their site. Therefore, all of the music on this site is licensed because all artists upload directly. Furthermore, videos can only use advertisements on licensed music. Other examples include SoundCloud, a free and legal peer-to-peer sharing, and Vimeo, a legal video-sharing site. Additionally, Spotify and RDIO both offer a premium for offline play. In order to make sure that laws are being followed, there are agencies that electronically track and report all activity on these sites. Two different agencies are BMI and ASCAP, but they do the same thing. They are hired to ensure all the royalties are properly accounted for. For example, if a song is played on a commercial, there is a payment made for the rights to license that song. If not, one of these agencies will come after the company in the advertisement. However, online pirating still exists but to a much lesser degree. One site that recently got shut down is Demonoid, but is working to get back, while the Warez-BB site still exists as of now.
Streaming is continuously changing and affecting the conventional media. A big topic right now in the media is the future of the media because of on-demand and streaming capabilities. We are going to see a lot more labels, which are going to act like distribution networks. Artists are going to be putting out music for free but the labels themselves are going to be advertising it. Right now, there is no way to fix the problem.
Projections for the future could possibly include paying what you want for a specific album. For example, the band, Pretty Lights, put out an album for free but you can pay what you want. The theory behind this is that artists would rather you have their music, therefore, we are going to see a lot more free music coming out. Music licensing is becoming a thing of the past at least in the consumption for listening purposes, but commercials and movies are still going to be licensed.
Works Cited:
Atalay, Melis. “Regulating the Unregulable: Finding the Proper Scope for Legislation to Combat Copyright Infringement on the Internet.” Hastings Communications & Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent) 36 (2014) 167-191. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web.
Ezra, Lisa M. “The Failure of the Broadcast Flag: Copyright Protection to Make Hollywood Happy.” Hastings Communications & Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent) 27.2 (2005) 383-404. Communication & Mass Media Complete.Web.
Knopper, Steve. "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. 7 July 2014. Web.
"Spotify Year in Review 2013." Spotify. Accessed 21 Feb. 2014. Web.
My blog will tie together all of this week’s blogs. Streaming music from a seemingly endless library of knowledge is absolutely the future of music consumption. I remember how happy I was freshmen year when I found out that the ABL has greatest hit CD’s of a ton of artist I wanted to try out. I would let them download onto my iTunes as I would do my work. When I went back to my dorm I would check them out. It was a 5 hour process that would have been costly if I didn’t have the library. What was I getting? A bunch of the artists “best” work. I’ve always loved the back wall stuff, as that was the nature of why I listened to music. That’s what Spotify has, all the great songs you never heard about. One of the benefits of internet is an informed public, that’s a metaphor for what Spotify does to a music listener. It is a flat price, and to quote from Spotify’s statement in Jakes blog “you can listen to whatever you want, wherever your want”.
ReplyDeleteThe second impact of streaming services is that people no longer had to deal with downloading and storage of music on their iPods/iPhones. With streaming there is no commitment to a song, it plays as it downloads and you can still make offline playlists just in case. Note that you do have to pay for Spotify Premium and whatever WIFI you used. These are the reasons that “Total video and audio streams jumped from 50 billion in the first half of 2013 to 70 billion this year, an increase of 42 percent, while download sales continue to bust, with albums dropping 15 percent and tracks 13 percent” (Knopper).
There is no doubt that the Spotify model benefits the music fans. Every element contributes to cheaper music, more music and easier music. What makes the model unstable is what it is doing to the artists, music labels and businesses involved with old music infrastructures like MP3 players and record stores. Jake’s topic about artist doing other things to make money serves as a nice solution to the problem for both artists and the larger music companies. With the enhanced music listening experience that Spotify gives to fans, comes a stronger fandom to the band itself. That is to suggest that even though they aren’t making as much money on record sales they could take advantage of their advanced image. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur like Dr. Dre to do this. Live events and merchandise!
We talked about the money making power of live TV events, the same is true of live concerts. “The Eagles, who earned $100 million on the strength of their History Of The Eagles tour. Bon Jovi ranks fourth with $82 million and Bruce Springsteen rounds out the top five with $81 million; both Jersey-born rockers grossed millions per night on successful arena tours”. The DMB/ Grateful Dead model of the live events and T-shirts is another example of this. There is still plenty of money to be made in music without overpriced iTunes songs.
knopper, Steve. "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. 7 July 2014. Web.
"The World's Highest-Paid Musicians of 2014." Forbes. 10 Dec. 2014. Web.
My blog will tie together all of this week’s blogs. Streaming music from a seemingly endless library of knowledge is absolutely the future of music consumption. I remember how happy I was freshmen year when I found out that the ABL has greatest hit CD’s of a ton of artist I wanted to try out. I would let them download onto my iTunes as I would do my work. When I went back to my dorm I would check them out. It was a 5 hour process that would have been costly if I didn’t have the library. What was I getting? A bunch of the artists “best” work. I’ve always loved the back wall stuff, as that was the nature of why I listened to music. That’s what Spotify has, all the great songs you never heard about. One of the benefits of internet is an informed public, that’s a metaphor for what Spotify does to a music listener. It is a flat price, and to quote from Spotify’s statement in Jakes blog “you can listen to whatever you want, wherever your want”.
ReplyDeleteThe second impact of streaming services is that people no longer had to deal with downloading and storage of music on their iPods/iPhones. With streaming there is no commitment to a song, it plays as it downloads and you can still make offline playlists just in case. Note that you do have to pay for Spotify Premium and whatever WIFI you used. These are the reasons that “Total video and audio streams jumped from 50 billion in the first half of 2013 to 70 billion this year, an increase of 42 percent, while download sales continue to bust, with albums dropping 15 percent and tracks 13 percent” (Knopper).
There is no doubt that the Spotify model benefits the music fans. Every element contributes to cheaper music, more music and easier music. What makes the model unstable is what it is doing to the artists, music labels and businesses involved with old music infrastructures like MP3 players and record stores. Jake’s topic about artist doing other things to make money serves as a nice solution to the problem for both artists and the larger music companies. With the enhanced music listening experience that Spotify gives to fans, comes a stronger fandom to the band itself. That is to suggest that even though they aren’t making as much money on record sales they could take advantage of their advanced image. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur like Dr. Dre to do this. Live events and merchandise!
We talked about the money making power of live TV events, the same is true of live concerts. “The Eagles, who earned $100 million on the strength of their History Of The Eagles tour. Bon Jovi ranks fourth with $82 million and Bruce Springsteen rounds out the top five with $81 million; both Jersey-born rockers grossed millions per night on successful arena tours”. The DMB/ Grateful Dead model of the live events and T-shirts is another example of this. There is still plenty of money to be made in music without overpriced iTunes songs.
knopper, Steve. "Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away." Rolling Stone. 7 July 2014. Web.
"The World's Highest-Paid Musicians of 2014." Forbes. 10 Dec. 2014. Web.