The Scene

MusicDetour.com’s commentary on music, performances, and the DC metro area music scene

Do people still listen to music? I raise this question rhetorically because I just read another article about how music industry profits have declined over the past decade. While I don’t expect much from CNN Money, the content of that article seems as irrelevant as ever and does not touch on any of the implications of what the RIAA is saying (maybe the RIAA shouldn’t have sued its consumers). In fact, the article just made me think: “so what?”. The article never mentions that the RIAA’s data is only about major (and their subsidiary) record label sales and it is only discussing revenue – how much profit are the Big Four Record Labels making? Is that more or less than what they made a decade ago?

Furthermore, the article makes me wonder about other reasons the RIAA’s revenue could be down and other ways people listen to music. It could be the case (more…)