A recent NPD survey cited by the New York Times' Bits blog confirms what I've suspected for a long time: the record industry's campaign against file-sharing sites is not only ineffective, but misguided. According to the survey, 19 percent of the music in consumers' collections comes from file-sharing networks. That's up 5 percent from last year--in other words, lawsuits and education campaigns have so far been ineffective.
But 38 percent of music listeners' collections come from CDs that they borrowed, then ripped to their hard drive or burned to a CD-R. (I'm not sure why NPD made the distinction between ripped and burned. I suppose it's academically interesting--ripped CDs are presumably listened to on MP3 players or computers, while burned CDs can be listened to in CD players.) In other words, file-sharing networks aren't the primary cause of declining CD sales--copied CDs are. That behavior's impossible to stamp out, and adding copy-protection software to CDs is not a viable solution--it's either ineffective or exercises too much control over the user's computer, leading to potential PR nightmares and even legal liability.
85% of the music on my Zune was recorded from a CD or LP that I legitimately own. Most of the rest comes from CDs I borrowed and ripped.
Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I took a quick look through my Zune 30, which is my primary personal MP3 player (the iPod has more family stuff on it), and catalogued my own digital music collection by origin. Here's how it stacked up:
• 2,714 songs (85 percent) from a CD or LP purchased by me or given to me as a gift.
• 439 songs (14 percent) acquired from somebody else without payment--a CD I borrowed and ripped, or that was burned for me by a friend, or given to me as digital files on a flash drive.
• 47 songs (1 percent) downloaded from an approved Internet source, such as the Zune Marketplace.
• 10 songs (<1 percent) downloaded for free from non-industry-approved Internet sources.
Obviously, I'm not a normal music consumer. I'm almost 40 years old, so much of my collection stems from the pre-Internet days, when the only real way to get music was to buy it. The question is, how does the industry make the average user look more like me? I don't know the answer, although lowering prices on CDs or promoting vinyl (which is harder to rip) with codes for one-time digital downloads might help. One area where I don't look like the ideal consumer is with digital downloads: I'm at far less than the average 10 percent. I might buy more music online if (a.) it were in a format that could be used on both my iPod and my Zune (b.) online catalogs were deeper, with more obscurities, no black-outs for long songs, and so on.
Tech blog Ars Technica says they've got their hands on an internal Apple memo that shows iTunes has topped Wal-Mart Stores in total global music sales.
The data in the memo cites a report from the month of January conducted by The NPD Group, a market research firm. NPD's numbers show the iTunes Store leading overall music sales for the first month of 2008 with a 19-percent share, followed by Wal-Mart with 15 percent, Best Buy with 13 percent, and Amazon with 6 percent.
The NPD Group, which reserves certain data for paying customers--like Apple, Wal-Mart, and others--and more general results for publication in the press, isn't taking ownership, but it's not exactly denying the numbers in the report either. NPD spokesman Lee Graham told CNET News.com he "can't comment on or confirm the information because all of that was based on a leaked memo from Apple."
Wal-Mart has long been the leader in global music sales, but Apple opening up a lead isn't a huge a surprise, as it's been on a roll lately. Most recently, the iTunes Store passed Best Buy to take up the second-place spot, according to an NPD report released in February.
Even though we're in the middle of iPhone madness, Apple has some good news coming out of its Mac department: market share went up last month.
Remember these, iPhone fans? NPD says there's more of them out there.
(Credit: Apple)According to NPD, Mac market share increased from 11.6 percent of the market in April to 13 percent of the market in May. Note that NPD tracks only the U.S. retail industry; those numbers include PC sales at places like Best Buy and Circuit City, but they don't include direct sales, meaning that Dell's totals are excluded.
Still, better to be going up than going down. Apple's notebook share is now 14.3 percent, up from 12.5 percent of the market in April. Desktop share was only up a fraction, to 10.4 percent from 10.2 percent in April. Apple trotted out new MacBooks in May and new MacBook Pros in June just ahead of the third-quarter back-to-school shopping season, traditionally one of the company's strongest.
NPD and Current Analysis, two of the more well-known analyst firms covering the PC and electronics industry, are teaming up.
NPD has acquired Current Analysis' PC, imaging and consumer electronics businesses, it announced in a press release Thursday. For now, those groups will be called Current Analysis West and maintain their home base in San Diego.
Both firms track the retail electronics industry, providing data on which PCs or flat-screen televisions are selling the most, and why, during critical periods like Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Current Analysis will maintain its own research groups on the East Coast specializing in telecommunications, networking and software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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