The music industry is always being prematurely written off. Thankfully, some people are there to point out that it is still alive and kicking. Andrew Dubber of New Music Strategies has just shared a really interesting graphic on music sales via the NY Times.

Dubber goes on to share that people are dissecting the information incorrectly, that the graph does not necessarily show the end of the line for music sales. (As Dubber states, we will not even go into the wild misconception that the record industry is the same as the music industry).

The issue that it only shows the last 35 years means that you cannot see that music sales started a lot lower than is hinted at. Add to that the fact that music sales are more fragmented than ever before; there always used to be one leading format that people collected, now there are many more options to receive your music fix (CD? iTunes? mobile download?). Lastly, any rate of decline will not be constant until it reaches zero. Of course music sales will never reach zero. It will (and has) plateau off into a more reasonable steady rate. There will be more peaks and other declines I'm sure, again possibly linked to a new format discovery and replacement cycle, similar.....

Full Article - http://leejarvis.blogspot.com/2009/08/death-of-music-industry-again.html

Please add your thoughts here or on the blog!

Lee J.

Image - NY Times