[Commons-Law] Anti-piracy moves `hurt sales`
Via: "Prashant Iyengar"
Anti-piracy moves `hurt sales`
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson / London November 21, 2007
Retailers are urging the music industry to drop piracy protection for
online downloads.
Retailers are urging the music industry to drop piracy protection for
online downloads after new figures showed the average Briton has
bought fewer than three digital tracks in the past three years.
Incompatible proprietary technologies, aimed at defeating rampant
piracy in the digital music era, are instead "stifling growth and
working against the consumer interest", said Kim Bayley,
director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
Her warning comes as high street retailers and digital music
specialists watch pre-Christmas sales trends nervously. The music
industry makes at least 40 per cent of its revenues in the fourth
quarter, but the traditional sales build-up has started later than
usual.
Although Leona Lewis — the X Factor winner backed by Simon Cowell's
Syco label — this month notched up the highest first-week album sales
for a debut artist, album volumes are down 11 per cent, or 12 million
units, for the year to date, according to the Official UK Charts
Company and Music Week.
Recorded music companies had been "quick to complain" that the slide
in CD sales had not been offset by growth in digital music, Bayley
said, but their embrace of digital rights management (DRM) systems
"might have added to the slow take-up of legal digital services".
Just 150 million tracks have been downloaded legally in the UK over
the past three years, she added. "Sadly, that amounts to an average of
less than one 79p per download per head of population per year."
The ERA's appeal comes as more companies experiment with the DRM-free
MP3 format, following a pre-emptive challenge in February by Apple's
Steve Jobs. Most recently, Universal Music this month began offering
its classical and jazz catalogue in MP3 format.
In April, EMI "unlocked" its catalogue, charging consumers a premium
for DRM-free versions of its music on Apple's iTunes store, and has
since signed deals with other digital retailers for MP3 files encoded
at more than twice the quality of standard audio files.
"There are certainly experiments, but there's still a certain element
of resistance within the music industry," Bayley said. "At the moment,
[DRM] just puts consumers off," she said, adding that confusion about
formats was driving people toward illegal downloads.
She cited research this month that found consumers were almost four
times as likely to choose an MP3 file as a DRM-protected track when
the two were offered alongside each other.
The ERA, which represents high street retailers and online sites, said
it was making the appeal now in the hope that music companies would
drop DRM protections before the Christmas season and the January sales
rise, when consumers load up the iPods they receive at Christmas.
Anti-piracy moves `hurt sales`
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson / London November 21, 2007
Retailers are urging the music industry to drop piracy protection for
online downloads.
Retailers are urging the music industry to drop piracy protection for
online downloads after new figures showed the average Briton has
bought fewer than three digital tracks in the past three years.
Incompatible proprietary technologies, aimed at defeating rampant
piracy in the digital music era, are instead "stifling growth and
working against the consumer interest", said Kim Bayley,
director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
Her warning comes as high street retailers and digital music
specialists watch pre-Christmas sales trends nervously. The music
industry makes at least 40 per cent of its revenues in the fourth
quarter, but the traditional sales build-up has started later than
usual.
Although Leona Lewis — the X Factor winner backed by Simon Cowell's
Syco label — this month notched up the highest first-week album sales
for a debut artist, album volumes are down 11 per cent, or 12 million
units, for the year to date, according to the Official UK Charts
Company and Music Week.
Recorded music companies had been "quick to complain" that the slide
in CD sales had not been offset by growth in digital music, Bayley
said, but their embrace of digital rights management (DRM) systems
"might have added to the slow take-up of legal digital services".
Just 150 million tracks have been downloaded legally in the UK over
the past three years, she added. "Sadly, that amounts to an average of
less than one 79p per download per head of population per year."
The ERA's appeal comes as more companies experiment with the DRM-free
MP3 format, following a pre-emptive challenge in February by Apple's
Steve Jobs. Most recently, Universal Music this month began offering
its classical and jazz catalogue in MP3 format.
In April, EMI "unlocked" its catalogue, charging consumers a premium
for DRM-free versions of its music on Apple's iTunes store, and has
since signed deals with other digital retailers for MP3 files encoded
at more than twice the quality of standard audio files.
"There are certainly experiments, but there's still a certain element
of resistance within the music industry," Bayley said. "At the moment,
[DRM] just puts consumers off," she said, adding that confusion about
formats was driving people toward illegal downloads.
She cited research this month that found consumers were almost four
times as likely to choose an MP3 file as a DRM-protected track when
the two were offered alongside each other.
The ERA, which represents high street retailers and online sites, said
it was making the appeal now in the hope that music companies would
drop DRM protections before the Christmas season and the January sales
rise, when consumers load up the iPods they receive at Christmas.
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