Music Sales on the Rise for the First Time in Seven Years

Those of us who have been saying all along that the Internet could be the salvation of the music industry, and not the ruination that some record executives claim it to be, got a big boost in the arm with last week's news that new music sales rose by 8.5% last year.

Claims of piracy destroying its business model are certainly nothing new in the recording industry. Since the dawn of recorded music it seems that executives were extremely sensitive to consumers getting a hold of their artists' intellectual property illegally. Cassette tapes faced the same hurdles that burnable CD-ROMs faced, and ultimately that MP3 files faced. Say what you will about the music business, but they've always kept a keen eye on their profit margins.

Digital album sales are on the rise, accounting for nearly a full third of all album sales. Anyone with an iTunes account is probably not shocked or surprised by this news. Digital distribution has revolutionized the industry at nearly every turn. While there is no doubt that the availability of pirated material is certainly much more prolific than it was before the Internet, the numbers are seeming to show that good artists can still sell. Adele's album "21" is expected to sell a million "digital units" some time this year.

The lesson for the industry perhaps is a very simple one: Quality will amount to profit. While executives were probably hoping for more than an 8.5% bump in sales, any upswing should be considered an absolute miracle. The market is stabilizing and it's very apparent that consumers want and will continue to purchase their music digitally. On an interesting side note, however, physical album sales, while still on the decline, only were down by about 6%, as opposed to the 18% average of years past.

If digital sales can actually push the physical sales higher, than the proof is there for any record company to grab onto. Perhaps instead of spending millions upon millions searching for people who are pirating their material, they should focus that same amount of money on further pioneering the digital distribution model. At some point would it not make more sense to consider that piracy will be an operating loss of your business. If a particular record company were savvy, the final tally on its balance sheet will be a green number, and not a red one.

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SingersRoom Article