An Interesting Chart

ChrisCV · Post by **ChrisCV** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:30 pm

was the CD sales market a bubble?? over valued? music is returning to its typical market value?

wax works · Post by **wax works** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:25 pm

It depends, $5 billion in the 70's would be a lot more than $5 billion now..

So perhaps it's a bit misleading? It's interesting though, thanks for sharing it.

patrick bateman · Post by **patrick bateman** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:07 pm

@Chris:

Is this image associated to an article, link?

ChrisCV · Post by **ChrisCV** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:31 am

nope just from chart of the day....
basically a bunch of nerds that love to visualise data for fun

WillieSmalls · Post by **WillieSmalls** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:00 am

I would imagine sales have dropped across the board due to piracy. Most listen to music on their ipods, why pay for an mp3 when they are widely available for free.

roland · Post by **roland** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:33 am

hm .. kind of misleading figure cause monetary value is not considered.. i agree tho that cd was just popular during a short period of time and is basically dead now =)

Kiani · Post by **Kiani** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:12 pm

digital sales are increasing though

Shepherd_of_Anu · Post by **Shepherd_of_Anu** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:18 am

Its hard to say what any of it really means. We don't know if prices have been adjusted for inflation. We also do not know how these numbers relate to actual profit margins. Anyone on here who as put out music on vinyl or CD knows the production costs are higher than digital. Even putting out a few hundred records can cost the investor thousands. For all we know overall sales are plummeting while profits are skyrocketing for the big players all while they scream murder in an effort to get more taxes levied against the people via digital storage devices and such.

When you can sell a track for under $2 in digital and the same cost per track in vinyl format may run three for four times that (assuming there are multiple tracks per record) then it becomes very difficult to gauge the real state of the industry. Let's not forget that the players in music don't even have to cover the actual costs of distribution. It is the digital stores like Itunes that bear the costs.

This reminds me of a book my old roommate showed me called “How to lie with statistics.” Without information on sampling methodology and corrections it is just a pretty picture.

Beyond that... the RIAA is not a credible source of information since they are major musics industry lobbyists and the primary plaintiffs in the vast of majority of music related lawsuits as far as I can tell.

Not that I did not find the graph very interesting at first glance though.