Double Standards (updated)

[olivertom]

The reason that record sales (including Michael's) have gone down IS DIRECTLY to do with piracy.

In an open letter in 2007, Steve Jobs CEO of apple stated that...

.....

Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.

.....

If CD sales have gone down and only 3% of of downloaded music is done so legally where are the lost sales? As many people are listening to music today as in the 80s, if not more.

Illegal downloads.

This is why it is unfair to compare Invincible to anything from the 80s or 90s.

 

[Katzr2000]

The reason that record sales (including Michael's) have gone down IS DIRECTLY to do with piracy.

In an open letter in 2007, Steve Jobs CEO of apple stated that...

.....

Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.

.....

If CD sales have gone down and only 3% of of downloaded music is done so legally where are the lost sales? As many people are listening to music today as in the 80s, if not more.

Illegal downloads.

This is why it is unfair to compare Invincible to anything from the 80s or 90s.

My argument is that piracy has effected sales just not as much as it is made out by record execs I believe that your above statements is just another example of this damage inflation.
In reference to your above statement, there are other things have to be taken into account, which you, or steve jobs has failed to mention! SOME of the loss in CD sales can be equated to the sales via legal sources of MP3s PLUS Itunes is not the only source of legal MP3s. And what you also have not taken into account is that a lot of people (myself included) transfer the music they already own on CD onto their IPODs and don't just fill it up with downloaded MP3s. I own an Ipod but don't even have an Itunes account, as I would much rather purchase it in CD format and then transfer it to my Ipod. You have to take into account that there will be others like me, lowering the percentage of MP3 purchases in relation to ipod capacity.
With all the above taken into account, you can see that the margin of loss will be a lot narrower!

Saying that though, I do agree that record sales from the 80's / 90's can not be compared to sales of the 00's. Not only because of piracy but also due to saturation of the market. Consumers have more choice now, but do not purchase more! Therefore their yearly quota of music purchases are spread over more artists, lowering the record sales average.

But thats not what this thread is trying to do! Its trying to educate people that you can't say Michael is a flop now cos he doesn't sell as many records as the 80's/ 90's. If thats the case then all artists now are unsuccessful, when they clearly are not!

Out of curiosity, how have madonna and mariah's (or any other multi-decade artist) sales figures changed?

 

[Spider-Man]

^^^That's a good question.

BUt on another note, I'm a relatively new fan (since 2001), and so I don't have as much exposure to soem things as some of the older fans. Anyhow, I came across an article written in 1993 (after the Oprah interview) and the author very much underscores michael's musical achievements (only to contradict himself at the end by hoping for a Michael: Unplugged special). He says that Dangerous was basically a flop and that Michael hadn't done anything meaningful since Thriller among other things. This made me wonder how long have they been doing this to Michael, cuz I thought it was something new, but apparently not.


the link to the article is:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,305696,00.html

edit: the article is pretty negative, just a warning...