Hi keithdressel,
The independent music scene has definitely seen sales increase the
most for digital downloading of songs.
According to Indicare, "in 2003, the market share of Independent music
on the world market was 25.3 % and 19.4 % in Europe. Big online
retailers like iTunes or MSN need Independent content to offer a broad
range of music. In 2003, the market share of Independent music on the
world market was 25.3 % and 19.4 % in Europe (cf. IMPALA). In the
United States, Nielsen SoundScan found that content delivered by
Independent-owned labels makes up 27.5 % of the retail market volume
(Morris 2005). According to the British Association of Independent
Music, Independent music averaged 21 % of sales in digital format in
the top 75 chart of week 15 / 2005 (cf. AIM 2005). Apple?s iTunes
Music Store claims to offer tracks by more than 1,000 artists signed
with Independent labels (cf. Apple 2005)."
The independent music scene on the Internet has benefited from the
growth of the digital music scene in general. That has been led by
ITunes, the leading source for legal music downloads. ITunes has
recently spread to Europe and has offered many independent artists a
venue for their work to be sold. It has contracted with the three
biggest independent record labels in Europe, Beggars Group, Sanctuary
Records Group and V2, to offer sales of their artists.
Emusic.com is the overall leading retailer of independent music on the
Internet, with over 1 million tracks from independent labels. In
February 2006, it began reporting its sales to SoundScan. eMusic sells
more than 4.5 million downloads monthly (second only to iTunes) and
has sold 45 million downloads in the past two years. (2) SoundScan
only began tracking sales of digital music in June 2003. With the
addition of eMusic to SoundScan, independent sales will be more
accurately reported and will no longer be left out of digital sales
records. At the time of the announcement, David Pakman, the CEO of
eMusic, said, "The independent music sector is enjoying spectacular
growth while overall recorded music sales from major labels continue
to decline, and yet many in the music industry treat the independent
music market as an afterthought. We're certain that independent music
market share has been inaccurately reported." (4)
This is entirely possible as with eMusic's huge sales, it sells as
many downloads in one month as Rhapsody, Microsoft's MSN, Yahoo!, and
Napster do, combined.
Meanwhile, traditional markets such as physical CD sales continue to
decline-- as they did by 4.2 percent in the first half of 2006-- while
digital album sales continue to increase, doubling the figures of the
first half of 2005. This bodes well for independent artists, as CDs
are more expensive to package and sell than downloads. A site called
CDBaby (cdbaby.com) allows independent artists to sell their CDs and
make a higher cut of the profit than they would see with iTunes. A
graph showing CDBaby's sales rising over the last few years can be
seen here:
http://cdbaby.org/stories/03/08/12/6186390.html
Groups such as FUNKtional Family have achieved success on CDBaby and
then made it onto the Billboard charts from there. (7)
From the Christian Science Monitor:
"While executives at... labels wail about the industry's imminent
collapse, indie labels and artists are singing a much happier tune.
Profits are up - in some cases by 50 to 100 percent. That's in
contrast to overall album sales, which dropped about 11 percent in
2002.
"'We don't do too much crying over here,' Cameron Strang, founder of
New West Records, admits proudly. The home of artists like Delbert
McClinton, the Flatlanders, and John Hiatt has doubled its business
for the past three years and is projecting a $10 million income in
2003.
"Paul Foley, general manager of the biggest independent label, Rounder
Records of Cambridge, Mass., happily brags, '2002 was actually
Rounder's best year in history. We were up 50 percent over 2001.'"
The overall trend is that the major labels consolidate and merge to
cover their losses, while independent artists can often find success
digitally.
As far as ringtones go, the site http://www.groupietunes.com/ allows
independent artists to upload their own music as ringtones to sell.
There are many revenue streams available to those producting
independent music.
Sources:
1. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jul/21indie.html
2. http://www.netweed.com/hiphoppress/2006/02/emusic-worlds-largest-digital-retailer.html
3. www.emusic.com
4. http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2006/01/indie_music_sal.html
5. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/results?title=Soundscan
6. http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:XOhH7APISU0J:www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php%3FarticleId%3D130+independent+artists+market+share&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9&client=firefox-a
7. http://cdbaby.org/stories/06/06/18/3074070.html
8. http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
9. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0411/p13s02-almp.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
search terms:
"independent artists sales increase"
"emusic.com independent sales"
"independent artists market share"
"itunes independent downloads"
I hope this helped you. If you need anything else or any
clarification, let me know and I'll be happy to help.
--keystroke-ga |
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