New Music Sales Approach?

[Dave/Scott]
Recommended Reading: “Labels Halt Downloads to Increase CD Sales.” The New York Times. 9 Mar. 2006.

Here’s a necessary snippet from the article:

But there's one big difference: even though fans could hear "So Sick" on the radio for the last two months, they couldn't buy it at popular online services like iTunes or Rhapsody, or anywhere else for that matter. Breaking from the music industry's current custom, the singer's label — Island Def Jam — decided not to sell "So Sick" as an individual song before Ne-Yo's album hit stores last week. Label executives worried that releasing the track too early might cut into sales of the full CD — a fear that figures heavily in the music world's lumbering entry into the digital marketplace.

The results of fans' pent-up demand for Ne-Yo are now clear: his CD "In My Own Words," burst onto the national album chart yesterday at No. 1, with sales of more than 301,000 copies, easily ranking as the biggest debut of the year so far. And just as eye-popping: the digital single of "So Sick" sold almost 120,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Here are a couple of my thoughts on this. Like the article says, delaying digital sales after initial CD sales could prove to boost CD sales. However, what’s to stop CD buyers from ripping CDs and sharing songs themselves, possibly stunting sales of the digital versions of the songs found on something like iTunes?

♪…KICKING AT A DEAD HORSE PLEASES YOU
NO WAY OF SHOING YOUR GRATITUDE
SO MANY THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO DO
WHAT IS IT? WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE?...♪

Song of the Moment: “The Struggle Within” by Metallica