Digital Music Sales Grow

But Overall Sales Still Falter

Although music sales as a whole have declined, digital music sales grew to $2.9 billion in 2007 (compared to $2.1 billion in 2006), according to reports from The New York Times and The Economist (handy graphs in the latter link… especially if you fancy Beyonce). Once again, the fall in overall sales is being blamed on piracy. Understandable. I only hope a) we find better ways to curb this piracy other than DRM (or even worse, the Sony debacle of 2005) and b) this transforms music companies, which, for years, have basically served as mammoth loan sharks… with exorbitant overhead.

Interestingly, there appears to be a demographic divide between those who buy CD’s and those who download their music, according to a list of the top ten artists of 2007.

So Much For Consumer-Generated Ads

Subway is suing Quizno’s over a contest the latter company held, where users were encouraged to make commercials depicting Quiznos’ sandwiches as “superior” to Subway’s. A breakdown of the suit thus far can be read here. If you’ve been thinking of working in copyright and defamation law, now would be a good time to do so. Unfortunately, consumers may find themselves liable, not the advertisers or companies.

Wow.