| The real reason for the music industry's decline If Bono thinks that the ISPs are the reason why the music industry is declining, then he's ignoring a huge amount of other factors.
First of all, the economy isn't exactly booming right now. People have less money to spend on entertainment items.
Secondly, when they do look to spend their entertainment dollars, they have more options than ever. They could buy a month of a premium cable channel. They could buy a DVD. They could buy a video game. They could rent a movie. And so on. Buying the latest CD isn't the only outlet for people's entertainment dollar.
Thirdly, the music that the industry itself has been putting out stinks. The music industry execs have been pushing out "copycat music acts" for too long. They find an act that's actually good and then find a dozen other less talented, but similar acts and flood the market expecting each one to be a hit. When the market's tastes react by rejecting all of the acts, the industry moves on to the next hit and bands similar to that one. These actions cause people to seek out other outlets for their entertainment dollar.
The net effect is that people are buying less CDs than ever. Heck, just over a year ago, the Dreamgirls soundtrack took #1 by selling 60,000 copies in a week. 60,000! That wasn't the result of ISPs "disintermediating" the music industry, it was the result of a weakened economy coupled with poor music selection and many other choices available to the consumer.
The music industry should get used to this as I don't think that these trends are going away any time soon. The economy might improve, but that would only lead to more choices competing for entertainment dollars. The music industry could increase the quality of their offerings, but that would place the blame on them. They'd rather blame someone else, like those dirty, rotten Internet Pirates.
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-Jason Levine
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