40% Can’t Name A Single Online Music Service
From 7 Digital to Spotify, there are 20 major music services in the UK. But a new survey says that 40% of consumers have never heard of any of them. Of the 60% who are familiar with digital music, 85% have only heard of two – iTunes and Amazon.
"The music industry is shooting itself in the foot by not promoting legal online music services," says Jill Johnstone, of Consumer Focus. "If file sharing is causing the damage the music industry claims, why aren’t they putting more effort in to promoting the legal alternatives? Before we go down the enforcement road it is only fair to ask the music industry to do more to make people aware of the legal options.”
Share on:
But why would you spend money on marketing your service when you can lobby the governments into voting laws that will do it for you ? In France, the infamous Hadopi law includes a “gov approval” mechanism by which the legal offer will be promoted by an official website from the ministry of culture… isn’t that great ? people pay taxes to pay for the advertising of the legal offer they have to buy…
They should back Qtrax. It has the successful model to put all this rest and make everyone money.
The explosion of digital music retail companies and sites over the last five to ten years is massive. I regularly assist artists and labels with their digital music consultancy and it’s a full time job just keeping track of them. If I’m researching on a daily basis then now wonder the consumer is stumped.
My counter-question is “Why should the music industry promote the legal services?” In a very real sense, it’s not its job – just like it never was its job to promote individual music retailers. Promoting each individual service is that service’s responsibility and no one else’s – as with any other business.
Going down the enforcement route is simply an attempt to ensure that the intellectual property rights that the various organisations and individuals in the music industry already have are upheld. It’s just that simple – it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that the law of the land is enforced. If it isn’t, it’s only natural for those that are affected by this to lobby for sterner Government action.
Can we finally acknowledge the fact that the job of the music idustry is to bring us new music and not ensure the prosperity of every single half-baked “new business model” that attempts to make some green from music on the net? In the current climate, their having a hard enough time with their basic area of responsibility.
I agree. I’ve been wondering why amazon and iTunes in particular haven’t marketed more aggressively. They’re both names people already know and trust…sooooo, why not take advantage of that?
I don’t think it’ll cause a radical revolution…but being reminded of legal means of doing something would (I imagine) increase the chances a potential customer would go to the site.