Independent Music - Competition Between Independent and Traditional Publishing

Competition Between Independent and Traditional Publishing

Independent music sales volume is difficult to track, but in 2010 independent retailer CD Baby claimed to have sold over 5 million CDs during its lifetime. CD Baby no longer reports its number of CDs sold, but in 2010 claimed to have paid a total of $107 million to artists over its lifetime and currently claims that this figure is now over $200 million.

Apple has announced the they have sold over 16 billion songs through their iTunes service. Most of this is “mainstream” music, and doesn't reflect access by new content producers to the market, but it does indicate significant competition with traditional CD sales.

Whether the sales from non-traditional sources come mostly from tapping into an expanding market or from siphoning sales away from traditional CD distribution is difficult to assess in the face of the RIAA's claim that music piracy causes 12.5 billion dollars damage to the US economy annually.

Read more about this topic:  Independent Music

Famous quotes containing the words competition, independent, traditional and/or publishing:

    The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
    Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)

    The ex-Presidential situation has its advantages, but with them are certain drawbacks. The correspondence is large. The meritorious demands on one are large. More independent out than in place, but still something of the bondage of the place that was willingly left. On the whole, however, I find many reasons to be content.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    The traditional husband/father has always made choices concerning career, life-styles, values, and directions for the whole family, but he generally had another person on the team—called a wife. And his duties were always clear: Bring home the bacon and take out the garbage.
    Donna N. Douglass (20th century)

    While you continue to grow fatter and richer publishing your nauseating confectionery, I shall become a mole, digging here, rooting there, stirring up the whole rotten mess where life is hard, raw and ugly.
    Norman Reilly Raine (1895–1971)