RIAA: Digital Music Reaches Record 47% of US Music Shipments

Year-end shipment statistics report says that digital music now accounts for 47% of total music shipments in the US, up from a mere 9% back in 2005. Digital downloads continued a double digit annual growth pace reaching $2.2 billion, a 10% increase from 2009′s total of $2.0 billion.

The RIAA has released its “2010 Year-End Shipment Statistics” report and the data gives further proof that consumers are willing to pay for digital music.

Digital downloads continued their double digit annual growth pace reaching $2.2 billion, a 10% increase from 2009′s total of $2.0 billion. Digital single sales grew 2.1% while digital album sales grew 8.8%, and the dollar value of each rose 12% and 9% respectively.

Where it gets interesting is how digital music now comprises a record 47% of total music shipments in the United States. The figure was only a modest 9% back in 2005. In fact, the total US digital music market grew to $3.2 billion in 2010, up 3% from 2009.

The figures make the music industry’s arguments about the harm caused by piracy and illegal file-sharing seem all the more nonsensical. If people are able to download music for free then wouldn’t digital music sales be in decline rather increasing in the double digits?

The real reason for the decline in CD sales is evolving consumer tastes. Is there anything more unsightly or cumbersome than a physical CD? I admittedly even look at people that lug the things around a bit differently. Don’t you? It’s not like vinyl which has a distinct and warm sound, they’re cold silicon discs that have outlived their usefulness.

Additionally, music fans have a number of FREE music alternatives like YouTube, Pandora, and Last.fm. Increased use of these services is another reason for declining CD sales.

Stay tuned.

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Jared Moya
I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus

I bought a DVD box set recently. The price was right and I wanted to have it forever in a physical format... the bigger thing though was that the price was right. It was on clearance at Big Lots (double clearance, I guess) for $3. No brainer, I'd buy EVERYTHING that way if it was priced like that. The RIAA also likes to gloss over the billion-plus dollar market in ring tones. There is so much money being spent, and they are really and truly getting it, they just have to start admitting it.

Ringtones?

Seriously? My phone plays mp3's as ringtones. But even if it wouldn't, there are always free alternatives!

theinfamousone

As a hard core file sharer since the Napster days, I realized recently I haven't downloaded any music in years (legitimately or otherwise) just because of all of the alternatives, and because there's such little music worth listening to.

Boomer The Dog

I don't think that CDs are all bad, they're a self contained package of one artist, with liner notes, like a vinyl album. It's good if you want to focus on one artist with less distraction. You'll always get the direct track order with a CD, even in the different devices that play them, which doesn't always happen when you play the same set of music files on different players. Some players look for the track number in the file's meta tags, some organize by file name and others play back in the order that the songs were copied to the player. The listener might not care about track order, but what about album rock, where part of the concept is based on track order, the idea of a suite of music. There's another problem. While CDs always play with the correct timing between tracks, file players insert gaps or overlap wrong, depending on player or settings, and it always sounds off beat. Oh, and more players need to support lossless files like Flac, so that we can continue to hear the same uncompressed audio quality as CD has. Boomer