MUMBAI: International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the global music agency, has come out with some depressing numbers for worldwide music sales for 2007. According to a report in Timesonline, the worldwide music sales have tumbled to their lowest level since 1985. That year, total sales of recorded music hit 1.8 billion units (i.e., albums). In 2007, the IFPI says that the equivalent of 1.86 billion units was sold, down from the previous year’s 2.09 billion.
The main cause of the decline continues to be collapsing CD sales, hurt by illegal copying, that are not being offset by growth in download sales. Record company revenues tumbled 8 per cent last year to $19.4 billion, after CD sales fell 13 per cent – more than offsetting the 34 per cent growth in the smaller digital business, the IFPI says, although it’s not clear whether that number refers to the decline in shipments to music retailers. In Britain alone, revenues tumbled 13 per cent to ?1.02 billion, with Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black as the top-selling album. Industry revenues from CD sales plunged 16 per cent to ?871 million, while digital sales in the world’s third-biggest music market increased 28 per cent to ?132.2 million.
Presenting the statistics, the IFPI called for internet providers to work with the music business to stop illegal copying. John Kennedy, its chief executive, said that between 50 per cent and 80 per cent of internet service provider traffic was accounted for by illegally swapped content. The IFPI blames rampant file-swapping through peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent for the decline in sales.
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The IFPI wants internet providers to reveal details of their customers who illegally share music. Kennedy said that the group ‘wants ISPs to reveal details of their customers who illegally share music and possibly cut off any subscriber who breaches copyright three times [and said that] providers should engage constructively, before the tools of legislation or litigation were invoked to require them to act.’
Governments are beginning to look hard at copyright enforcement. Ministers have considered legislating for a “three-strikes” policy that could punish internet users with disconnection, but they want music companies to try to reach voluntary agreements with internet suppliers first.
Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, said that while regulation was not the first preference, he did not feel that he could stand by and ignore wholesale breaches of copyright. “British music is one of our biggest success stories. I don’t want to see it wasted away,” Burnham told the Broadcasting Press Guild.
Music companies and lobbyists are trying to reach agreement with internet providers. This month Virgin Media agreed that it would write to consumers who were engaged in large amount of music copying, based on information supplied to it by the BPI, Britain’s record company trade body.
However, industry executives said that the gloomy data was nothing new. A spokesman for Vivendi’s Universal Music, the market leader, said, “this must be the tenth consecutive year we’ve read the obituary for the music business, but we are still here.”
