Music Sales Climb 25% In Canada

[adrian]

It's an advocates dream come true. News that sales have never been better in a country where the record industry associated with labels like EMI is in a "moral vacuum." Many would say that this is living proof that downloading music for free not only doesn't hurt the record industry, but stimulate growth in music sales. That is, of course, according to a report recently published by Canadian Heritage. This is coupled with another recent report that the Bare Naked Ladies sales on the latest album sky-rocketted under a new business model.

The latest report states, "Canadian artists have seen their sales increase since 2001. Sales of Canadian albums have increased from 6.8 million units in 2001 to 8.5 million in 2004, an increase of 25.3%1. In contrast, foreign artists have seen their sales fall 20.2% over the same period. The result is a remarkable increase in Canadian artists’ share of sales in Canada from 16% in 2001 to 25% in 2004."

Source and complete article

Hey, if it can happen in Canada, there's hope for people here.

[Konaguy]

Re: Music Sales Climb 25% In Canada

News.com article

Canada's debate over file swapping flared last December, when the country's Copyright Board, which regulates intellectual property issues, ruled that downloading songs from a peer-to-peer network for personal use--but not necessarily uploading--appeared to be legal.

The regulators cited a long-standing rule in Canada, in which most copying for personal use was allowed. To repay artists and record labels for revenue lost by this activity, the government imposes a fee on blank tapes, CDs and even hard disk-based MP3 players such as Apple Computer's iPod, and distributes that revenue to copyright holders.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Music Sales Climb 25% In Canada

That's not too different from what was done in the US with blank cassette tapes and I think blank *music* CDs.

I'm not sure as I agree with this as it sounds like a payoff for some suits, not the artists.

In fact I need to dig up something. I don't think the artists themselves are really all the worried about things. It's the suits that are the middlemen that are all upset and they see their control going away. I'll have to dig up that site.