even barring illegally free... music has never been cheaper to access or own in the history of recorded music. there's just no justification for stealing, sorry.
Digital Music News - Worse Than Worst Ever? Tommy Boy Starts Number-Crunching Again...
Quote:
"The first Beatles album in America came out in 1964 at $4.98 list," Tommy Boy continued. "In today's dollars that would be $35 for a 28 minute, monophonic 8-song album."
In other words, using today's pricing of $9.99 for an Itunes album would have only cost $1.35 in 1964... Even if you wanted to entertain a $20 CD (are there any $20 CDs these days?), the same would have only cost $2.70 in 1964.
So in the very worst case scenario, music is STILL 45% less expensive today than it was in 1964! And that's calculated on a $20 CD!
If you calculate the difference for an Itunes download, and full album today costs 86% LESS than it did in 1964...
Inflation Calculator: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Today's $8.00 hr Min Wage equates into only $1.08 in 1964. But, the Federal minimum wage in 1964 was actually $1.25... so today's minimum wage, adjusted for inflation actually has MORE buying power than it did in the 60s.
this is the WEAKEST argument ever for the decline in music sales... the WEAKEST... And, low ticket items (like 99 cent songs) or the most resilient in a bad economy. It's durable goods like cars and washing machines that take the big hit.
here's 1973 - 2008...
the years correspond to excel row numbers, the graph represents 36 years of data 1973 - 2008.
Excel graphed the years as follows:
1973 is plot point "1"
1979 is plot point "7"
1999 is plot point "27"
2008 is plot point "36"
data source:
http://musicbusinessresearch.files.w...obal-sales.jpg
so it looks like the economy and consumer competition really isn't that big of a factor after all, again, looking at 36 years of data... the 90's may have been the peak, but that's only because of the illegal exploitation of content without compensation that began at the turn of the century.
remember that each decade saw it's own added consumer competition...
the 70s saw the initial release of VCRs and Video Cassettes as well as video game consoles and cartridges,
the 80s saw home video boom as VHS matured, cable tv boomed, new types of youth sports took hold,
the 90s saw the introduction of DVDs, home computers became household items, people started paying for internet service, and cell phones began to be common place...
and yet through each one of those decades (without rampant online piracy) sales grew steadily until broadband reaches ubiquity at the turn of the century...
then, the sales plummet.