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Originally Posted by ianathuth
I think that the article implies that copies sold, both physical and downloaded, has increased, not revenues. Look at the quote
There are a couple of points to take into consideration though. Would the record companies have sold more than 237 million if there was no internet downloading whatsoever. We will never know and can only theorise.
Secondly, how true is the 237 million figure? Is it based on copies sold by the record companies to wholesalers of which many may have never been sold on to customers. Is it extrapolated from sales of a sample of retailers which may be nothing like the truth. How is the figure arrived at as I know of no means whereby an accurate figure can be determined.
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Either way you read it, punters buying hard copies are not paying more then
I used to work in record shops and the record companies offer generous returns policies (5% of orders in my day I think) plus they will offer sale or return deals (particularly to the volume retailers). So I would guess the figures are a fair picture - besides as long at they're comparing like with like historically then it matters not. Conversely the one thing that is damaging creativity is the low prices at which supermarkets offer CDs because they only focus on high volume safe bets (and even then protected by generous supply agreements) as opposed to the wider yet necessarily more expensive offerings of the specialist retailers. Record companies are less willing to take risks because of the way retailing is going.