The Ongoing Collapse of Digital Music Sales...



The music industry has had a knock back after the bad news that digital music sales have fallen by 2.3 percent compared to last year in North America. And, in the UK sales have fallen by even worse... 5.6 percent

Digital has been attempting to compensate for the decline in physical sales over the past decade, so the year over year trend of dropping sales means that the industry will be looking out for 2013 results on streaming income to see if digital revenues will level out by the end of the year.

Streaming services like Pandora, Spotify, Rdio and more, have seen widespread adoption this year, so there's hope that the music industry can continue to claw back fans from piracy websites and convert them into paying customers - even if it's at relatively low streaming subscription rates of $5 or $10 per month.

But digital streams are often criticised for their low royalty rates, and even Pink Floyd stepped into the debate last week when they accused Pandora of taking sneaky steps to reduce musician royalty payments by 85 percent - ...an accusation that Pandora denies.

What do you think will happen if digital music fails to save the music business?

Will the industry move underground?