The CD is dead! Long live the music download?

The economic crisis exacerbates the recession in the music industry. Recorded music sales have been in sharply decline for years. Digital music offerings on the Internet and via mobile phone cannot compensate for the losses. One reason: The wrong licensing policies of the record labels.

The music industry cannot escape the general economic and financial crisis. In 2008 a dramatic slump in sales of recorded music for nearly all markets was reported. But the economic crisis only reinforces a downturn in the market for recorded music that begun already in the late 1990s. Thus, in the largest music markets the CD unit sales dropped in the period from 2000 to 2008 between 35% (United Kingdom) and 59% (USA). This recession, however, is a symptom of a paradigm shift from music delivered in form of a physical product to music as a service delivered in form of online and mobile music offerings.

The blog on music business and music industry research

In this blog the current developments  in the music business/industry are highlighted and commented from a scientific perspective. All interested parties are invited to contribute to.