So let’s get this straight. This year, the UK music industry has sold more albums than ever before. Album sales since 1998 (just after the first popular internet explosion) have been on average 40% higher than in 1993.
So what’s the problem? Why the tearful stamping of feet over the issue of filesharing? Well, despite this massive upturn in sales, profits are still down. And bingo… we’re reminded that this is the music *industry* here. These people want to shift units, whatever the product happens to be, and at the highest price the market will stand. But faced with the reality of people avoiding High Street record stores in droves and turning to American online retailers (not something they can force ISPs to snoop on people for) they’ve had to reduce the prices of certain categories of CD albums.
It’s a simple lesson in economics… profits have a tendency to fall in the short term when you stop shafting your customers.