Are downloads killing off CD’s or DVD’s?
Cast your mind back (or ask your parents!) to when Pirate Radio stations were broadcasting all over the airwaves and all authorities were trying to close them down! The claim by the authorities was the Pirates were “stealing” royalties from the artists and labels everytime they played their music but who really were complaining? The artists? The Labels? Not really because everytime their music was aired, it was good publicity and attracting a wider audience hence more sales of the product itself. Why would they complain about that! Understandably it was the “official” broadcasters complaining because they of course had to pay royalties for their air time and music performance whilst losing listeners to the Pirates who paid nothing! Of course ultimately the authorities won after a while but during that time the actual music industry suffered no real losses in revenue as product sales were still on the increase.
Now consider that same scenario to downloads and the claim this time by the industry itself that they are killing the music industry. Digital Disc Duplication USA, based near Orlando, Florida have a different angle to the scenario.
Yes we all agree that simply copying and freely distributing copyrighted works via p2p sites is wrong and all possible should be done to prevent the same but lets face facts - it is near on impossible to prevent this activity altogether so maybe it’s time to look for a different approach. Well, the industry have kind of tackled this by actually promoting downloads via official sites where users pay a fee for the download and now these downloads can also count towards chart places which of course are crucial to strengthen air play time. But where does this leave the retail outlets and prior to that the CD manufacturing industry? How does this truly prevent (or go towards preventing) illegal file copying and sharing? Obviously not far enough because the industry is still complaining of falling sales and still blaming file sharing sites as a contributing factor.
So let’s go back to the Pirate Radio stations case and although they were effectively “stealing” from the industry they were also “advertising” the industry products. Hence no real complaints. Why then can’t we use the downloading as an advertising platform for our products? The same marketing strategies apply today as they did 30+ years ago - the more people to hear your music, the more likely to gain more sales. The difference today is the consumer does not need a simple CD with just a case and credits for who designed the sleeve and who owns the copyright! If that is all there is on offer to buy from shops then they simply won’t bother - they’ll be happy with the download! BUT if the consumer downloads a track to “try” it for few days, they like it more each time they play it and they learn that if they buy the CD (or DVD) they would also get bonus material such as video, exclusive back stage footage of the artist not seen anywhere alse and all packaged with an insert with more than 1 page so that there is some interesting information to read about the artist then they are more likely to be tempted to buy. Yes, we hear you say “but you could download video and everything as well” - but the more on offer (the larger the download) while high speed internet is widespread it is still not so fast in many places that you could download say 20 minutes of DVD quality video, burn to DVD-R properly so that you can actually view it on your 42″ plasma in the front room in the time it would take you to walk to the store and pick up a copy ready made for you for just a few dollars! What about bonus material including detailed instructions to learn the dance routine to the song and Karaoke version to sing along to! All possible ideas that if offered it feels to the consumer more value for money and that they would be buying something that simply would not be complete if downloaded!
The possibilities are endless for how product can be marketed today. Enhanced CD’s are still not exploited to the full potential (in our opinion) and why do we still have CD singles market and not DVD singles? It is up to the industry to create these alternative products that may prove attractive to the consumer and then the downloads could be used as advertising - maybe download the track of your choice from a legitimate site and pay the fee but if you like it and go to buy the CD or DVD version in retail outlets you will receive the download fee back as payment towards the product.
When considering your next CD or DVD product for release, try come up with something a little different. Speak to the guys at Digital Disc Duplication as they have the knowledge and facility to help reach the full potential and with the added secure knowledge that your product would be MADE IN THE USA!