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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-is-it-worth dept.

Bloomberg:

When Vivendi SA took over Universal Music Group in 2000, the industry was riding high on bumper sales of CDs, though the investment soon soured as illegal downloads surged. CD revenue plunged by two-thirds over the next decade, and by the early 2010s, unloading Universal would’ve been a tough sell; who would pay a premium for a company whose main product—pop songs—was widely available for free? But today, Vivendi is considering the sale of a stake in Universal that could value the label at more than $25 billion.
...
The rebound can be traced to the same boogeyman that almost killed the business in the first place: the internet. These days, music fans have largely shifted from illegal downloads to paid streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime, and Pandora, which generally charge $5 to $10 a month for unlimited access to millions of songs.

Have record labels, like zombies, really returned from the dead?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:39PM (1 child)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:39PM (#797454)

    The record labels don't understand the business they are in.

    Everyone who ever dialled up to the net on their 56k modem to look for mp3's to download has always known that the music labels could have made an absolute killing if they had just offered their customers what they wanted at a reasonable price, but they never have. Instead Limewire and it's ilk gave people what they wanted for free. Instead of buying Limewire and turning it into a pay-for service, they ran around screaming with their hair on fire.

    The Bloomberg piece says:

    Just as problematic for the labels, the services that have revived them are now trying to reduce their take, both by trimming the royalties they pay and by forging direct ties with musicians.

    However, as long as the labels own the artists, they will own the content, and the streaming services will just have to pay up.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:21AM (#797650)

    They have no interest in the being a system in place to quickly and definitively show who owns the copyright for content.
    People are ignorant. If they knew and could see what has been done they would be horrified.