Legal Research

Digital Music Growth

Another interesting metaphor for change:

Canadian Digital Music Sales Growth Beats The U.S. For Third Consecutive Year

Nielsen Soundscan released the Canadian music sales figures for 2008 on Jan. 7th, and for the third straight year it Canadian digital music sales are growing faster than the United States but both are growing rapidly. What's interesting as Michale Geist points out is that digital music sales in the market without the DMCA has grown faster each of the past three years than the US home of the DMCA. Despite the economy, overall music sales grew faster in Canada than in the U.S. (11.5% to 10.5%).

The digital track sales growth for the past three years:

Year Canada United States

2008 58% 27%
2007 73% 45%
2006 122% 65%

Canada also beat the U.S. for digital album growth in 2008 (69% to 32%) although traditional album sales dropped 8.5% in both countries. Part of the growth is attributable to the late launch of iTunes and iPhones in Canada as well as Canada's greater broadband penetration and internet access.

It appears that the movement from albums to songs is continuing apace.

This mirrors the library situation where we have moved from serials subscriptions to article level databases and can see the movement from non-fiction books to a chapter orientation in Google Books and the OCA.

How are libraries handling the needs for music collections? If CD ends and we can't provide a free download central ...?

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on January 08, 2009 (boomark / email).