Declining Record Sales: Who Is to Blame?

The music recording industry is in trouble. For several years now, sales of new and popular music have steadily declined and show no sign of changing. The record companies are quick to blame the growing popularity of the Internet; music is being traded in a digital form online, often anonymously, with the use of file-sharing programs such as Morpheus, KaZaA, and Imesh, to name a few. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) succeeded in disbanding the pioneer Internet file-sharing program, Napster, but is facing confrontation with similar programs that are escaping American copyright laws. While there is an obvious connection between declining popular music sales and increasing file sharing, there is more going on than the RIAA wants to admit. I will show that the recording companies are overpricing their products, and not sufficiently using the Internet as an opportunity to market and sell their products. I shall begin by describing in greater detail the problem that the recording companies are facing, as well as the growing epidemic of online music trading. From there, I will show the correlation between the two and describe the other factors affecting record sales, and how these trends could be turned around to help the industry. "The Record Industry is in trouble," says Jann S. Wenner in an editorial appearing in a recent issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. "Album sales are now down almost 20% from two years ago, and the record business is facing the biggest retail slide since the Great Depression" (Wenner). People are buying less and less products released by the recording companies. "Nobody doubts that the music business is in trouble. Last year, global sales of CDs were down by 5% from 2000, the first fall since the format was launched" (NAPSTER R.I.P). The Nielsen SoundScan, used to report final sales to consumers, revealed some of its figures in a September 2002 issue of Billboard Magazine. "Nielsen SoundScan reports that overall music sales