Broadband News

Are digital downloads enough to keep music alive?

Tuesday 3 January, 2012

By Anthony Hill

New figures show album sales fell by 6% in 2011.

Faster home broadband means more households now download their music than ever before, but digital sales may not be enough to save our struggling record industry.

Data published by the BPI, the UK’s music industry body, shows that in 2011 an estimated 26.6 million albums were purchased as files over the internet. This figure is 24% higher than in 2010.

Meanwhile, CD album sales dropped by 13% to 86.2 million units, meaning 6% fewer albums were sold overall last year than 12 months previously.

Geoff Taylor, the BPI’s chief executive, said the perceived value of “physical ownership” was still driving sales of CDs, but warned that a “backdrop of chronic piracy” remained a major threat to the UK’s music industry.

“While other countries take positive steps to protect their creative sector, our government is taking too long to act on piracy, while weakening copyright to the benefit of the US tech giants. The UK has already fallen behind Germany as a music market.

“Unless decisive action is taken in 2012, investment in music could fall again - a creative crunch that will destroy jobs,” he added.

The government is currently pursuing a plan to involve internet service providers (ISPs) in suspending the accounts of web users who download copyright infringing material. In France, a law has been passed allowing pirates to be blocked from accessing the internet.

A spokesman for the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: “We will continue to work with industry on how they can better tackle online piracy but this is not an issue that ISPs or rights holders alone can deal with.”

He added: “All elements of the internet industry - payment companies, advertisers, search engines, ISPs and rights holders - need to play their part in tackling unlawful activity online.”

Despite the ongoing issue of piracy, digital downloads from legal sites have massively increased over recent years. According to The Official Charts Company, just 6.2 million albums were bought online in 2007 - last year’s total was four times that number.

During the past 12 months, 15 of the UK’s best-selling albums sold more than 100,000 digital copies, with north London soul star Adele shifting 3.8 million copies of her album 21. In Britain, she was the biggest-selling artist of 2011, followed by Michael Buble, Bruno Mars, Coldplay and Rihanna.

Photo by meddygarnet