Worldwide spending on recorded music will actually decline—falling from $31.8 billion in 2006 to $26.2 billion in 2011.
That’s not just CD’s, that’s ALL recorded music, including digital music.
And that’s despite lots of new digital ways and forms to buy music. No doubt because of the new ways and forms to steal it.
What about the infamous Radiohead experiment, where the band took the unprecedented step of issuing its latest album, “In Rainbows,” in digital form and allowing its fans to determine the download price.
Says eMarketer:
The results of the Radiohead experiment are discouraging for the industry and the value that music fans place on recorded product. According to comScore Networks, worldwide only 38% of those who downloaded the full-length album chose to pay for it. And even then the average price paid by each downloader for “In Rainbows” was merely $2.26.