UK Recording Industry: Record Sales for 2010, Still Says Piracy Hurting Industry

[admin]

The BPI, UK's recording industry group, has released sales figures for 2010, and they show a dramatic increase in the number of items sold.

Up 27% from 2009, 281.7 million units sold, the greatest ever annual results recorded by the BPI.

However, revenue is down, and the BPI is blaming piracy for this downturn. In its statement, the BPI said that it estimates 1.2b tracks were downloaded illegally in 2010.

However, there may be an far simpler and more likely explanation for the contrasting units sold and revenue figures. The increasing popularity of digital purchases means people are buying more single tracks than ever, but buying less and less full CD albums. The BPI's own numbers back this up, with CD sales down 12.4%.

The BPI, however, attributes falling CD sales to online piracy. But that does not explain the rise in digital album sales, up 30.6%, even though digital media, in theory, should be more affected by digital piracy.

More:

http://torrentfreak.com/more-music-sold-than-ever-before-despite-piracy-110110/

http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/01/10/uk-recording-industry-says-piracy-killing-music-despite-record-sales/

http://www.bpi.co.uk/press-area/news-amp3b-press-release/article/new-bpi-report-shows-illegal-downloading-remains-serious-threat-to-britains-digital-music-future.aspx

[doctorhardware]

No it is not due to illegal downloads, people are buying just the tracks they want from the CD instead of buying the whole CD. Why buy the whole CD when you can buy what you want. The record companies will always complain that the profits are down when in fact they aren't.

[Budreaux]

Make a better album and folks will buy the album. Have just a few songs that folks like on the album and expect singles to out sell the whole album. These guys are not idiots. They know this already, but this is a way for them to exploit the piracy train.