www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/column...a/article7001975.ece

and my letter to the paper

An excellent article by Sathnam Sanghera (Times2 p5, 26/1/10) warns that nobody apart from established stars makes any money from music anymore but then reaches the wrong conclusion; that this will mean less good music. In my experience the quality of music produced is in direct negative ratio to the profits made. The bigger the star, the worse the music gets. In nearly all cases, the less successful the artiste, the better the music. Real art does not depend on public acclaim. The desire to make great music transcends the desire for luxury.

Maybe we'll get back to music being created out of love and enjoyment rather than for profit. The we can weed out the crap and focus on the quality.

The biggest mistake the writer makes, is to take the IFPI-report at face value, without a little bit of research.

Two examples:

And if you think this prediction of future artistic blandness sounds as it if is scaremongering then I’d like to recommend that IFPI report again, a section of which shows how falling revenues are affecting the music industry. In France, the number of local repertoire album releases dropped from 271 in the first half of 2003 to 107 in the same period of 2009. In Brazil, releases of local full-price artist albums from the five biggest music companies slumped 80 per cent between 2004 and 2008. And in Spain the number of local artist album sales fell by 65 per cent between 2004 and 2009.

These numbers count only the releases by the IFPI-labels. (Which reduced local repertoire years ago, to make room for the big profits earned with global sellers). Most likely, there are lots of local (non-IFPI-) labels in these countries, which release lots and lots of local artists.

And why is "artistic blandness" the result of fewer releases? Shouldn't the relation be the other way round: fewer realeses / more quality control / higher standards?

And it explains in clear English what “free” has done for the music industry. Basically, it has been decimated. Even though legitimate digital sales have grown nearly ten-fold in the past five years, overall the music industry’s global sales have fallen 30 per cent over the same period. Illegal downloads still account for 95 per cent of music downloads worldwide.

Legal downloads of single tracks (unbundling) contribute significantly to the lost revenue. Maybe more than illegal downloads.

Using "local full-price album releases" is no longer a very good yardstick, given the phenomenal quantity of self-produced material being released. I currently recommend producing shorter, more frequent bundles of tracks, like EPS.