Competencias del área de educación religiosa

The Australian music industry association ARIA (2012) explained the downturn by

the unauthorised copying and communication of music by CD burning and music

file sharing. In 2003, ARIA commissioned Quantum Market Research (2003) with a

representative study (based on 1,001 telephone interviews) entitled “Understanding CD Burning and Internet File Sharing and its Impact on the Australian Music Industry”. According to this study 21 % of the general Australian population have used file sharing services at least once; 11 % have used these services in the last month. Among the subgroup of file sharers a net decrease of 12 % in the CD purchasing behavior as a direct consequence of the file sharing use was reported.

This decrease in sales is greatest in the under 18 age group.2

However, these findings cannot be confirmed by ARIA’s unit sales statistics. In contrast to Quantum results, the unit sales of CD singles increased by about 11.4 % and CD albums by about 13.1 % between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, the unit sales of CD singles increased by 8.3 % and of CD albums by 5.5 %. In 2003, however, the CD album unit sales increased once again by 7.9 %. Unlike CD albums the unit sales of CD singles continued to decline by 16.1 % in 2003.

In the following years CD album unit sales stabilised on a high level. From 2003 to 2004 the sales modestly decreased by 4.8 % and a further 4.3 % in the next year. In 2006, however, the unit sales of CD albums even increased by 7.9 % (+ 3.6 m units). In this year more CD albums were sold than in 2001. The dramatic slump in unit sales in the album segment occurred not until 2007. From 2006 to 2007 the sales figures showed a decrease of 11.6 % and a further drop of 12.2 % for 2008. In 2009, more CD albums were purchased than in the previous year (+2.3 %). It is striking that the most serious decline in CD album sales was measured in 2010. Within a year the market volume decreased by 6.4 m units ( 16.2 %) – the highest loss ever. Again in 2011 the market shrank by a further 2.9 m units and by 8.7 %. The CD singles segment developed totally differently. After a slight fall between 2003 and 2004 of 1.9 %, the CD singles market (on a unit basis) was literally

demolished: 20.4 % (2005); 41.4 % (2006); 42.3 % (2007); 47.4 % (2008);

61.0 % (2009); and 92.8 % (2010). Whereas in 2001 more than 12.4 m copies

were sold, in 2011 the CD singles segment was more or less non-existent with 46,000 copies sold.

These figures indicate that file sharing is not the (main) cause for the recession in the recorded music market. If this were true, the CD album sales would have had to decline earlier than 2006. Napster boomed also in Australia in 2001 and it is evident that the followers – KaZaa, Limewire and others – had been heavily used before 2006. However, the unit sales of CD albums show a relatively stable development

2_{The respondents were asked: “Would you say the amount of music CDs you buy has increased or}

decreased as a direct result of your downloading music files via file sharing services, or has it stayed the same?” The respondents, thus, had to assess if they have bought less CDs (in units) because of P2P file sharing. The question did not differentiate between single and album formats.

until 2006. Actually in 2006 more CD albums were sold than in 2001. The unit sales dramatically dropped since then.

If we compare unit sales and revenue figures it becomes evident that the wholesale price of a CD album decreased by 33.9 % on average from 2000 to 2009. In the same period the nominal revenue from CD album sales declined by 39.7 %. Thus, price cuts accounted for the bigger part of the sales decline in the album market. Only 5–6 % of the decline cannot be explained by price reductions. In the following years the transformation from a physical to a digital market proceeded and, thus, the drop in CD album sales accelerated. It is, therefore, just

a question of time, when the digital sales outperform the physical ones (see Figs.2

and3)

The dramatic slump in CD singles sales cannot be supported by the ‘file sharing hypothesis’ either. The annihilation of the CD single started not earlier than 2005 and accelerated afterwards. File sharing systems had by then long been introduced. Instead another hypothesis should be taken into consideration. As I pointed out

in my article “The recession in the music industry” (Tschmuck2009) we are faced

with a change from an album-based to a track-based music consumption behaviour. The development of the Australian market of recorded music therefore is a good example. Whereas the physical album sales showed a downward trend in the last 5 years and the digital album sales only grew moderately, the single track download numbers have been exploding since 2005, when they were published for the first

time by ARIA (Fig.4). However, the boom of the digital music market, which is

0 100.000.000 200.000.000 300.000.000 400.000.000 500.000.000 600.000.000 700.000.000 CD -Single 44.571.000 46.659.000 37.460.000 28.509.000 26.670.000 20.353.000 12.002.000 6.711.000 3.570.000 1.314.000 159.286 151.000 CD -Album 531.972.00 576.484.00 528.401.00 539.609.00 509.807.00 444.729.00 421.941.00 363.061.00 323.800.00 320.900.00 252.747.62 222.698.00 Digital 7.907.000 27.857.000 39.964.000 54.190.000 79.244.000 104.558.40 140.541.00 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005** 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Fig. 2 The Australian physical and digital wholesale sales 2000–2011 (value in AUD) (Source: After ARIA (http://www.aria.com.au/pages/statistics.htm))

mainly driven by the sales of single tracks, cannot compensate for the loss in the

physical market segment (Fig.5).

Price cuts and changing consumer behaviour are most likely responsible for the sales slump in the Australian recorded music market. This hypothesis is also

supported by a music file sharing study conducted by Jordie McKenzie (2009)

that is also published in this book. The economist from the University of Sydney highlights for the period from November 2007 to February 2008 that there was no statistically significant impact of music file sharing over Limewire on physical and digital single track sales (using chart success as an instrument variable) in Australia. However, he identified two different groups of mobile and online music users. Whereas one group consists of younger, computer savvy music consumers with a low disponible income, the other group is represented by the older traditional type of music consumer with a relatively high income. This might also be a good explanation for the relatively stable development of the albums market, which strongly relies on the traditional music consumer type in contrast to the singles market, which is driven by the younger generation. However, since the consumption behaviour of the older generation is changing too and since a younger generation of music lovers starts to dominate the music market, the traditional record business will become less important and the CD will be a relic of a former era. 0 10.000.000 20.000.000 30.000.000 40.000.000 50.000.000 60.000.000 70.000.000 80.000.000 CD-Single 11.099.000 12.367.000 11.343.000 9.464.000 9.286.000 7.394.000 4.331.000 2.498.000 1.315.000 513.000 37.000 46.000 CD-Album 43.917.000 49.670.000 46.954.000 50.640.000 48.234.000 46.174.000 49.818.000 44.045.000 38.659.000 39.529.000 33.114.000 30.223.000 Digital 4.465.000 17.190.000 24.041.000 31.051.000 41.886.000 55.296.828 75.579.000 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005** 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Fig. 3 The Australian physical and digital wholesale sales 2000–2011 (units) (Source: After ARIA (http://www.aria.com.au/pages/statistics.htm))