Music Industry in Aust tries to hide record-breaking sales
Posted: Wed May 12, 2004 7:40 am
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1080605291.html
Recording Industry in Australia works to conceal record-breaking sales
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note: this isn't the RIAA, it's Australia's version of it.
Recording Industry in Australia works to conceal record-breaking sales
the article speaks for itself and makes me so freaking acefaced, GRRRThe Recording Industry has spent a prodigious amount of effort on manipulating statistics in order to shroud the industry in the shadow of doom and gloom. In recent years, the push has been to villainize P2P users, often to such an extent that the serious career criminals are ignored when the discussion of piracy is brought up. To make matters worse, the industry has been caught playing fast and loose with consumption data, all the while ignoring the opportunity that's been in front of their face. Sadly, the trend continues. The Australian market has had its best year ever, but they're trying to cover it up to rhetorical ends.
This kind of behavior is simply unacceptable, and it's not limited to Australia. The BBC recently reported on a record year in the UK, too. If this is going out of business, then I want to be going out of business! It's all about the nuance, and the recording industry hates nuance. They need some simple propaganda: "sales are being killed by piracy." You, your neighbor, and little children can understand that. Politicians can, too. It sounds just awful, and if you listened to what the RIAA and friends tell you, you'd be under the impression that the industry is dying, and that every single person who has ever downloaded a copyright file online is a criminal worthy of incarceration in Oz. That's what they'd like you to think.ARIA's press release was slugged with a bizarre headline: "Music DVD continues its rise whilst CD singles slide further". A mixed year, you might think. Not so. It took a canny finance reporter, SBS's Peter Martin, to decode the spin. He had access to ARIA sales figures going back to the early 1980s. He worked out what ARIA knew but decided not to share: when sales cracked 50 million albums for the year it was the first time this had happened. And combined sales of all formats for last year climbed to more than 65 million for the first time.
...article continues (lots of hyperlinks in article text too)...
!note: this isn't the RIAA, it's Australia's version of it.
, one day 
