Issues and Debates within the music industry: DECLINE OF CD PURCHASES

CNET news posed the question ‘Do you still buy CD’s?”, or is it time we said “bye” to them?

Music downloading has taken over the way we obtain music. There are many opportunities that people can get hold of to download music for free such as Limewire and BitTorrent as oppose to buying an artist’s album in the shops for around £10. People have the ability to order music on sites such as Amazon, where even though they are buying the CD, how does that person know it isn’t an original CD and it hasn’t been copied onto a blank disc and made to look exactly like the original CD.

Graph showing decline of  CD sales from 1999-2006

The loss of cassettes that were so popular in the 70’s may even impose that the loss of CD’s is likely to occur because as technology keeps developing massively, many of us as consumers move on with it and get rid of old habits if there is a better way of doing something or obtaining music. However some people still prefer the traditional way of purchasing CD’s as they have sentimental value and are always accessible whenever you want to listen to them as oppose to when you download music onto your computer, you will have to be on the computer in order to listen to that song.

Gizmodo.com said that technology has completely changed the way in which we listen to music and has caused a decline in the CD market. MP3’s are so much easier and quicker to get hold of as oppose to going to a shop and buying it. Downloading gives a sense of ‘instantaneity’. Another factor that may be influencing the decline of CD sales is that people don’t always like every song on an album so instead of buying the whole album and feeling like you’ve wasted money because really you only liked 3 songs on the album, people will result to just downloading the singles they enjoy the most. Because of this issue, artists are under more pressure than ever to make every song on their album good so this entices consumers to buy the album.