Music Industry Worried About CD Burning

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer Sat Aug 13, 8:11 PM ET

Music copied onto blank recordable CDs is becoming a bigger threat to the bottom line of record stores and music labels than online file-sharing, the head of the recording industry's trade group said Friday.

"Burned" CDs accounted for 29 percent of all recorded music obtained by fans in 2004, compared to 16 percent attributed to downloads from online file-sharing networks, said Mitch Bainwol, chief executive for the Recording Industry Association of America.


The data, compiled by the market research firm NPD Group, suggested that about half of all recordings obtained by music fans in 2004 were due to authorized CD sales and about 4 percent from paid music downloads.

"CD burning is a problem that is really undermining sales," Bainwol said in an interview prior to speaking before about 750 members of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers in San Diego Friday.

Copy protection technology "is an answer to the problem that clearly the marketplace is going to see more of," he added.

Album sales in the North America are down about 7 percent this year compared with a year ago, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Yet the recording industry has seen a lift from online music sales, which when factored in with album and sales of CD singles increased overall music sales through July to 21 percent over last year.

The focus on CD burning Friday was welcomed by Alayna Hill-Alderman, who said she has seen music CD sales slide in recent years while sales of blank recordable CDs have soared.

"We are feeling the decline in our store sales, especially with regard to R&B and the hip-hop world," said Hill-Alderman, co-owner of Record Archive, a two-store company operating in Rochester, N.Y. "It's all due to burning. We've lost tremendous amounts of those sales to flea markets and bodegas."

After experimenting with copy-protected CDs in Europe and Latin America in recent years, some record labels have begun releasing albums in North America with similar copy restrictions. The CDs typically allow users to burn no more than a handful of copies.

Velvet Revolver's "Contraband," released last year, was equipped with such copy-protection technology and grabbed the top sales spot in its debut week.

Some saw that as a sign music fans didn't mind CDs with copy restrictions. But other releases since, such as the latest Foo Fighters album, have sometimes spawned fan complaints that the restrictions go too far or create technology conflicts with portable audio devices.

Simon Wright, chief executive of Virgin Entertainment Group International, which oversees the Virgin chain of music stores, said he's in favor of labels releasing more albums in a copy-protected CD format, regardless of the potential for consumer backlash.

"If, particularly, the technology allows two-to-three burns, that's well within acceptable limits and I don't think why consumers should have any complaints," Wright said.


source

Can't you just burn endless copies from one of the original burned copies?


Also...



ah now, that's racist.

What they fail to realize is that, no matter how smart and ingenious their people are, our people are 10X better at what they do...and they often have a chip on their shoulder. Someone will break DRM, eventually, and there will have to be some sort of compromise on this issue, because I believe the RIAA/music industry will lose their ass, should they belligerently fight this. I also believe they have turned it into an "us v. them" fight, as CD costs rise, ownership rights shrink, etc.

I continue to buy music, subscribe to more than one online resource and also use the occasional music download to hear a new release early or whatnot.

You know maybe if they weren't throwing tens of millions promoting kooky divas and shite that doesn't recoup and actually promoted good bands to an adult audience record sales might rise.

The best album I've heard this year is 29,091 on the Amazon sales chart and I discovered it quite by chance.

Instead of whining because they can't afford colossal cocaine habits anymore perhaps they should actually be doing there job; something we here do often with the help of burned CD's, namely seeking out and promoting good new music.

They should concentrate on making good music that people won't mind paying for.

actually, there are already programs out there that will break DRM for you. dunno which ones they are, but it was mentioned on the This Week In Tech podcast a week ago.

Damn I'm good. Spooky, it is.

Yep, and the fact is; if record companies really wanted to curb flea market and bodega sales, they would open outlets in the countries they say are hurting sales. There are no legit record stores in Belize, so how can they claim that sales are being eroded, when they don't "sell" here...?? When I want a CD, I must order it from itunes or online retailers like Amazon, which means that I must have an address, a computer, and a US credit card...a triple threat that most music fans in Belize and most third world nations don't possess. Can you blame the masses for wanting to buy the band they see on tv (yes, we have HTV, MTV and BET) and then buying it at the street stalls down at the fishmarket in Belize City? Where else could they buy it?
EDIT: I would completely approve of every last CD sold in 2nd/3rd world markets being write-protected, natch.

<--- sticking with the CDR deck with analog inputs.

Can you tell the difference between one of these pirated discs and the real thing? I've never seen these knock-offs - are they a good approximation of the real thing? Because if so, I highly doubt most people, especially those in an area where they don't see the real product, would be able to judge that what they're buying is a pirated disc. And even consumers here in the US - I highly doubt most buyers would pay that much attention that they'd know they're holding a pirated disc when they don't have the real thing to compare it to.

Most people, I would guess, would just look at the price and if it was cheaper, that's what they'd buy. These pirate-markets just show something the industry doesn't want to point out: that people ARE willing to buy - they just don't want to pay what the industry wants them to pay. And that's a perfectly valid complaint to make.

i hate seeing record companys like sony lose money to cd-r's :

I believe it was Hitler's propagandist Goebel (?) that said: If you repeat something enough times, people will eventually believe it. If you repeat something enough times, and with enough emphasis, people will eventually believe it. If you repeat something enough times, with enough emphasis, and with enough reenforcement...etc.

NP: Lusine, Serial Hodgepodge -- blippy goodness

Also the motto of both sides of America's political spectrum.

Steve

...and the advertising industry.

...and this one chick who keeps calling me. Same thing over and over and over again. "Oh, woe is me, my life sucks."