Despite Drop In Piracy, French Music Industry Still In Decline 272
New submitter Hentes writes "France has one of the strictest anti-piracy laws. After 17 months of operation, Hadopi has released a report, claiming that illegal P2P downloads have been reduced significantly in the country: the studies they cite measured 43% and 66% decrease in copyright infringement. But that huge amount of 'lost revenue' doesn't seem to show up in the French recording industry, as the overall recorded music market has decreased by 3.9% in 2011. Even more interesting is that digital music sales have skyrocketed in France. Could it be that it's not piracy killing the traditional recording industry but digital distribution?"
Simple Answer: (Score:2, Insightful)
NEXT!
Or maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope they don't find the site I pirate music on (Score:5, Insightful)
P2P is so 1999 (Score:5, Insightful)
doesn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)
But that huge amount of 'lost revenue' doesn't seem to show up in the French recording industry,
But it does. Right there in the decline. Check with a hundred of your closest friends if the following sentence is true: "The more exposure to new music I have, the more likely I am to go and buy some."
Music isn't like food. You don't notice its absence much. If you go without your iPod for a month, you're not going to miss it all that much after the initial adaptation is over.
If you reduce the amount of music that people have available, you reduce the demand for music.
Re:Podcasts killed the industry (Score:5, Insightful)
...digitable distribution model that is killing traditional music sales.
The industry shouldn't exist today period. There is no 'killing', it is dead, and the music executives are corpse camping.
Why do we make art? It's not for money. It's not for social prestige. We make art as an act of self expression and as a way of passing the time when we're not engaged in activities necessary for our own survival. Art has no survival value -- and yet it has persisted since before recorded history. Cave paintings and such, jewelry, etc.
The recording industry couldn't exist until it was possible to capture audiovisual events. When the technology was first invented, it was expensive to record, duplicate, and distribute it so that people could observe the art of others. Music didn't start with the invention of the phonograph, anymore than acting started with the invention of motion picture.
But what has happened is that the technology has gotten cheaper, and cheaper, to the point where audio-visual recording equipment only costs a few dollars and reproducing those recordings costs nothing. The industry's raisin de etre is gone.
The advent of digital technology is what killed the recording industry -- they are no more relevant today than horse shoe manufacturers. The only reason they still exist is because they are sitting on massive piles of cash garnered because the technology decreased the business cost, and they pocketed the difference; They can afford to spend millions, even billions, convincing countries worldwide to rewrite their laws to create artificial markets and monopolies under the guise that if their industry disappears, the art will too.
Re:I hope they don't find the site I pirate music (Score:5, Insightful)
They already have. Many, many videos are blocked here in Germany because the GEMA or SME or whatever other crappy music-mafia content parasite organisation wants to be paid for every view.
And it's not just music videos, including official band channels. It's also videos where you hear a song in the background.
They probably held a brainstorming session on how to make the general public pissed off most efficiently as an April Fool's prank and then nobody noticed that the notes were found by a secretary and sent down the chain of command to be actually implemented. It's the only rational explanation I have.
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
Daft Punk?
Re:Simple Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
I would agree, I am french educated and I have a perfect french(more or less), and been living here in France for the last 4 years. I can't say I ever heard something worth it.
Long live classic rock!
Well, there you put your digit upon it .. by now we've had decades of music of many genres, forms, alloys and so forth .. more songs than have probably been written or sung in the entire history of mankind. We've even experimented with awful music, where some people have become major stars and quite rich as a result of the public's appetite for something different.
Where I have a decent collection of classic rock, I find my interests have wandered from todays desperate offerings to music of incredible craft from the 1940's and 50's. Amazing stuff, when you can find good recordings. Even heard Edith Piaf's "La Vie en rose" from 1946 and was quite impressed with her talent.
With digital preservation of music we've got a lot of it and interests are no doubt diverging. People will listen to whatever, once they break free of following what the crowd does.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
You could almost say the French music industry is...retreating.
Lame. But also misguided in the same way that a lot of comments on this story have been. You seem to assume that this is sales of French music and not sales of all music in France, which is the actual topic. It's actually more apt of a metaphor to say that the French are driving the music industry out of their nation.
Re:Simple Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't say I ever heard something worth it. Long live classic rock!
Or any music played with actual instruments, for that matter.
Re:Podcasts killed the industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the horse shoe market also shrank massively. The idea of the market shrinking is not compatible with the greed and sense of self importance the recording industry has.
Re:Podcasts killed the industry (Score:5, Insightful)
He means mankind. Mankind created music before the recording industry and will do so after. Those who are only in it for the money make shit commercialized crap music with no soul anyway.
People signing with labels is just evidence that people will take money (regardless of whether they would have created music without it or not) when offered and that the recording industry owns lots and lots of monopoly and political power. For instance, here in the US if you want to stream your own music via online radio you have to pay per play royalties to the big studios... who have no claim on said music.
The reason the music industry fights file sharing so hard isn't because it costs them money, its because it erodes their control of distribution.
Re:Podcasts killed the industry (Score:2, Insightful)
"Why do we make art? It's not for money."
Wow, just wow, you basically just precluded the idea of someone creating art for money. What horse shit. As a person who has worked in the arts and tried to make a living let me just say it's bad enough without this attitude. I don't know what your chosen vocation is but imagine if someone said the same of your vocation.
Take for example IT. Why do we do IT? It's not for money." both are monumentally dumb statements.
Re:Or maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Crappy music is nothing new. Sift through the top hits for any decade you didn't grow up in, if you don't believe me.