The BBC reports that despite the scads of chavvy iPods sold, not many people are downloading music from the iTunes Store and the average is 20 tracks. Most of the music is therefore ripped from CDs or illegally acquired.

Speaking for myself, I’ll add my name to the list of the (unintentional) iTunes music store shunners. I have about 20 GB of tunes, of which only 4 tracks are from the iTunes music store, and those were all purchased via the free Pepsi iTunes giveaway a while back. The vast majority of my collection is ripped from CDs I own, and probably about 30 CDs borrowed from other people. No music downloaded by other means.

I do believe the numbers are skewed by extremes, however. Apple has sold millions of songs via iTunes. I know some who are addicted to the iTunes music store and purchase lots of music online, and if I were to analyze their reasons, it’s either a real music geek who must have every permutation of single song by a particular artist (a collector), to whom the iTunes purchase-by-song angle is a godsend, or the impulsive new music fan, that hears a new song once and has to own it now.

But I can only really speak for my own buying habits (or lack of). I have browsed through the iTunes music store looking to purchase music and have even filled my shopping cart with multiple albums only to abandon it. I think the biggest sales deterrent is that I already own scads of music I haven’t yet listened to in depth.

It could be said that another unmentioned competitor to new music sales is old music. Through digitizing a back catalog of CDs sitting on the shelf, old tunes are suddenly more accessible and granted new life. Putting a huge number of songs on shuffle or filtered through a creative playlist can often be more entertaining than a new CD.

Disclosure: I own a tiny amount of Apple stock.

 Please subscribe to the Webomatica RSS Feed!

Categories: Apple, General, Technology :: Tags: :: Trackback URL
Previous Post: Movie Notes: Little Miss Sunshine
Next Post: YouTube and Copyrights
Related Posts: My iTunes Widget: Look To The Right :: Apple iTunes: Music Subscription No, Movie Subscription Yes :: Apple Event Predictions: New iPods, Beatles :: How To Get An RSS Feed Of Your Recent iTunes Purchases ::