Still pretending record industry revenue being halved in a decade wasn’t because of piracy?

It’s not “pretending,” it’s true.

The record profits that labels had in the late 1990’s was due entirely to CD sales. Prior to the introduction of the CD, the major labels weren’t making any more money than they are now.

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, the SRP of retail CD’s was $17-$19. These prices were artificially inflated (and subject to a lawsuit by the FTC). Labels were pushing “hit-song-friendly” artists, and you had to pay for the full album to get that hit song; the labels were deliberately eliminating CD singles, for exactly that reason.

But even if piracy was eliminated tomorrow, people still wouldn’t buy full-length CD’s. They’d buy MP3’s off of Amazon, iTunes, etc. Most would buy single songs.

In fact, people already are doing this – in record numbers. Music purchases have done nothing but increase in the past ten years. The fact that those purchases make less money for the labels is the primary reason why they are failing.

When the labels did try to enter the realm of digital sales, their “efforts” (Pressplay and MusicNet) were spectacular and colossal failures. Outrageously expensive ($3-$4 per track), and hobbled with outrageous DRM (some songs would “expire” after a month), consumers avoided them like the plague. It’s also worth noting that those services are the subject of yet another class-action lawsuit for price fixing (Starr v. Sony et. al.).

There are other reasons, of course. DVD’s didn’t exist in the 1990’s, and the decline in CD sales just happens to coincide with the rapid rise in DVD sales. Video games also came into their own since then, so they have even more competition for consumer dollars from them.

Plus, the actions labels took to “stop piracy” didn’t actually stop piracy, but did eliminate any claims of higher moral standing they might have had. From suing grandmothers and teenagers for hundreds of thousands of dollars, to drafting SOPA and PIPA, the labels have done nothing but make themselves the most hated industry on the face of the planet. (This, on top of their widely-known tendency to fuck over artists whatever chance they got.) There’s no question that most people will take any chance they can get to make sure RIAA clients never get a dime from them.

Piracy probably did have some impact. But it isn’t the primary reason the labels are failing – not even close. They’re failing because they’re incompetent businessmen.

Eliminating piracy will do nothing to fix that.