Slight decrease in CD and download album sales in the US and UK

The BPI says that album sales in the UK fel by 5.25% in in the first half of 2015 (38.1m down to 36.1m). Sales of downloaded LPs actually declined faster than their physical rivals: In the first half of 2015, CD album sales in the UK fell 5.7% from 22.68m to 21.38m. In the same period, sales of digital albums dropped 6.6% to 13.86m. 

Anbd overall album sales in the US – real album sales, not counting ‘track/streaming equivalents’ – were down 4% year-on-year in the first six months of 2015… as streaming continued to soar. According to new data from Nielsen/Billboard, 116.1 million album unit sales were clocked up versus 120.9 million units in H1 2014. The growth of vinyl album sales continued: the format grew 38.4% to 5.6 million in H1 2015, taking a 5% share of CD/digital/vinyl formats in the US. In the UK, vinyl album sales shot up once again in the Jan-June period, up 56.3% to 833,137 sales in H1 2015.

Music retailers doubt Friday global release day

Following a meeting with the BPI, the record labels' trade organisation, The UK's Entertainment Retailers Association has issued a statement this morning to say that it's not convinced by the proposed plans to switch to a global record release day of Friday.  indie record store owners in the US had previously said that they supported the idea of a consistent release day worldwide, but are not convinced by shifting to Friday, thinking that Tuesday would better. The ERA said ""A Friday release day will undoubtedly cause logistical problems and additional costs for both digital and physical retailers" adding  "Consumer research in the UK indicates that music fans prefer a Monday release day. 

Music spurs tech growth

A new BPI study suggests that Britain's desire for music has lead to increased sales of consumer technology products - calculating that music created £11 billion of additional revenue for the tech industries between 2008 and 2012. The record industry trade group's study states that UK consumers spend around 23% more on music than in other G7 countries, and this in turn correlates to increased tech sales. For every 1% increase in demand for music, for instance, there is a 1.4% correlating increase in smartphone purchasing. And that rises to 2.2% for tablets.

UK recorded sector continues to improve, but the pirates make the real money!

The BPI has announced that recorded music revenues in the UK were up 1.9% year-on-year in 2013 - that's up to £730.4 million from £716.8 million in 2012. This statistics continues a theme that has occurred in a number of markets in the last year: that the decade-plus decline of the record industry is coming to an albeit slow end.  This is largely thanks to the continued increase in digital revenues, which now account for 50% of total income. The largest increase came from streaming, with revenues in that sector up 41% in 2013 to £77 million. The bulk of this, £54.7 million, came from subscriptions, while ad-supported streaming paid out £19 million and locker services (such as Apple's iTunes Match) contributed over £3 million. Digital album sales also showed a strong increase last year, up 19.5% to £160.5m, though single track sales fell 4.4% to £121.7 million.   Revenues from physical sales, fell again last year, coming in 6.4% lower than in 2012 at £365.4 million (compared to a total of £359.2 million for digital income).

Now that's the legal market - but what of piracy I hear you ask? US consumer group the Digital Citizens Alliance, has released a report of research by MediaLink surveying 596 piracy sites and estimates that together those sites are generating about $227 million a year in advertising revenues, with the top 30 sites bringing in around $4.4 million each. And because these sites have relatively few running costs, certainly no royalty payments for either sound recordings or music rights, or payments to film companies or other broadcasters, the DCA calculates that these operations could be operating at an 80% to 94% profit margin.

In the UK, BBC Radio 1 and the Official Charts Company announced plans to include streams on services such as Spotify and Deezer in official charts.

Big growth in vinyl sales for 2013

Vinyl is back in fashion in the UK - and  the Official Charts Company and record label trade body the BPI have revealed that 2013 have now crossed the half million mark with the best sellers being:

Ten best selling vinyl releases of 2013... so far
1. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
2. Arctic Monkeys - AM
3. David Bowie - The Next Day
4. Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
5. Queens Of The Stone Age - Like Clockwork
6. Atoms For Peace - Amok
7. Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires Of The City
8. The National - Trouble Will Find Me
9. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away
10 Black Sabbath - 13

Vinyl sales declined at the beginning of the 'noughties' but have seen a revival - here is a year by year chart of the units shifted:

2003 - 579,248
2004 - 453,254
2005 - 351,224
2006 - 250,926
2007 - 205,292
2008 - 208,526
2009 - 219,449
2010 - 234,471
2011 - 337,041
2012 - 388,768
2013 - 548,142 (so far)

BPI target Pirate Bay proxy

The UK record label's trade body, the BPI, is to take action against the UK's Pirate Party for operating a proxy making it that makes it simple for UK web-users to access The Pirate Bay. Earlier this year the BPI secured injunctions forcing six major internet service providers to block access to their customers to The Pirate Bay

BPI seeks to block three more sites

The BPI is seeking web-blocks against three more file-sharing websites. Following the blocking of The Pirate Bay by all of the UK's major internet service providers earlier this year, the BPI now has its sights on Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents which, according to Nielsen, collectively enjoyed over a million unique users in September. The record label's trade body has written to the major ISPs including BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2 and TalkTalk requesting that they voluntarily block their customers from accessing the three offending sites but a legal challenge is expected of the ISPs do not comply.

BPI chair calls for Google to treat the music industry with respect

BPI Chairman Tony Wadsworth has told the record label trade body's AGM that the UK government's love affair "with big technology and big telecoms has cast a shadow over our home-grown creative success and it's time to redress the balance. We have earned the right to be treated seriously and fairly by government. The technology world has to also come to the party either willingly, or kicking and screaming" with Wadsworth saying Google had failed to do enough to remove links to unlicensed content for its search results, and to ensure copyright infringing websites do not benefit from its ad networks. The BPI Chair continued: "When consumers are encouraged towards illegal content by search engines, where reputable advertisers plough millions towards websites that make their money from our music and return not a penny to the creators, the government needs to step in". Also calling on the current government to do more was guest speaker Harriet Harman MP, the Shadow Secretary Of State For Culture, Media And Sport, who called for more action in getting her party's DEA enacted, and also added "Google and other technology companies need to do more with the content creators to better signpost legitimate search and block illegal sites. Search engines like Google are highly trusted, and there's no way of telling, as an average consumer, what is an illegal site. They could also do more to stifle the income of pirate websites by stopping advertising on illegal sites. And I want to see the government getting on with implementing Labour's Digital Economy Act. And while I'm pleased that OfCom published their code for consultation [on three-strikes] last week - it will still be 2014 before any warning letters are sent out".

Digital pushes past physical in the UK

Digital revenue from sound recordings have surpassed physical product revenue for the first time in the UK  in the last quarter, with download, streaming and other digital services accounting for 55.5% of recorded music income. A continued decline in CD coupled with the continued growth of digital, including an almost doubling in subscription revenues from streaming platforms, led to the change. Overall digital made £86.5 million for the British record industry in the first quarter of 2012, with physical sales taking overall recorded music revenues to £155.8 million. In good news for the record industry, overall sales were slightly up on the same period last year - by 2.7% - with the BPI's Geoff Taylor saying  "the industry's prospects for growth look brighter than for several years" although adding "We will need to see this trend repeated for several quarters to say we have turned the corner - demand for physical CDs remains strong in the UK, especially in Q4. However, the creativity, investment and digital expertise of the British music industry point the way forward for growth in the UK economy". The top five dgital albums came from Lana Del Ray (Born to Die), Emeli Sande Our Version of Events), Ed Sheerhan (+), Adele (21) and Coldplay (Mylo Xyloto) and top selling digital singles were Goyte ft Kimbra (Somebody That I Used to Know), David Guetta ft Sia (Titanium), Jessie J (Domino), Flo Rida ft Sia (Wild Ones) and Emeli Sande (Next  to Me). 

UK record sales continue their downward slide

The BPI has released figures showing that despite a growth in digital sales, overall record sales in the UK continued to decline. It was another record breaking year for singles sales which were up 10%, the vast majority being sold digitally, with just one million CD singles sold in 2011 accounting for less than 1% of the singles market. Digital albums also saw significant growth, up 26.6%, though that wasn't enough to compensate for the continued slump in CD sales, with album sales overall down 5.6% to 113.2 million. The figures do not include revenues from either the performance of sound recordings (from PPL), from band’s own sales or from the new and growing streaming services.

Top Ten UK Singles Of 2011
1. Adele - Someone Like You (Beggars/XL)
2. Maroon 5 feat Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger (Universal/Polydor)
3. LMFAO feat Lauren Bennett & Goonrock - Party Rock Anthem (Universal/Polydor)
4. Jessie J feat BoB - Price Tag (Universal/Lava)
5. Rihanna feat Calvin Harris - We Found Love (Universal/Mercury)
6. Pitbull feat Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer - Give Me Everything (Sony/J)
7. Bruno Mars - Grenade (Warner/Atlantic)
8. Ed Sheeran - The A Team (Warner/Atlantic)
9. Adele - Rolling In The Deep (Beggars/XL)
10. Jennifer Lopez feat Pitbull - On The Floor (Universal/Mercury)

Top Ten UK Albums Of 2011
1. Adele - 21 (Beggars/XL)
2. Michael Bublé - Christmas (Warner/Reprise)
3. Bruno Mars - Doo-Wops & Hooligans (Warner/Atlantic)
4. Adele - 19 (Beggars/XL)
5. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto (EMI/Parlophone)
6. Rihanna - Loud (Universal/Mercury)
7. Lady Gaga - Born This Way (Universal/Polydor)
8. Jessie J - Who You Are (Universal/Lava)
9. Ed Sheeran - + (Warner/Atlantic)
10. Rihanna - Talk That Talk (Universal/Mercury)

Two arrested in Counterfeit CD raid in UK

Two men have been arrested after a large CD and DVD counterfeiting operation was discovered in a flat above a shop in Bognor in the United Kingdom. 150,000 CDs and DVDs and 100 computer hard drives containing 25,000 music, movie and software files were seized as part of the raid. The arrests followed a long investigation which began in North West England: investigators from the BPI's Anti-Piracy Unit were also involved in the raids.

UK digital sales still growing

The BPI has announced that more digital albums have already been sold this year than last year, with two months still left to go. According to Official Charts Company data released by the trade body, over 21.3 million digital albums have been sold so far this year, meaning 2010 sales levels have already been beaten. Digital albums now account for 26.2% of all album sales, up from 17.5% in 2010.