Pretty amusing commentary on the state of digital music via Wired:

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry recently reported that global digital music sales tripled to $1.1 billion in 2005. About $400 million came from downloads of cell-phone ringtones. As for songs, people downloaded 420 million single tracks from the internet last year, about 20 times more than two years earlier.

[Four hundred million for ringtones? For like 20 seconds of a song? Am I missing the point here?]

But, according to Joanna Glasner, if you put them into perspective, “these are actually piddly sums.” She compares the 1.1 billion with reported box office receipts:

You’d think the global online music business would at least be able to outdo the combined take of No. 5, a remake starring a giant ape and No. 4, a Tom Cruise flick about alien invaders with all the visual appeal, according Roger Ebert, of an “ungainly erector set.”

And then she (ahem) digs deeper:

Even cat litter is selling better. In the United States alone, people spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year on the stuff, according to Information for Industry, the corporate sponsor of Business Trend Analysts. Granted, cat litter is a much more mature market, having been around since the 1960s. But still, what does it say when the global download business doesn’t even exceed the amount Americans spent to fill boxes that collect feline feces?

I have a few suggestions, but never mind.

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
on February 07, 2006 - 2:41 pm

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