fieldy1269

Just wanted to pop in and say Trouty . . . you're a beast. A lot of
people have come and gone from this group, but you've been posting
interviews and the like for the past forever long. I haven't
contributed to this group for since mirror came out.


Speaking of which . . .


Does anyone have sales figured for how the band did? I always
entertain the sales figures versus criticism of the band before the
release of a certain album. Particularly, I would like to get a
comparison going between the time of Untouchables and Mirror. There
was a lot of shit said about the band and their sound prior to Mirror,
more negative then positive. And rather than assume that any sales
figures are directly affected by internet downloads, I want the
figures so that I can attempt to measure negative press versus the
illegal download.

I'm not completely convinced that Korn as a group are particularly a
largely downloaded and uploaded group. Or at least not as highly
advertized as many of the other downloaded groups (speaking
specificaly of Metallica, who have benefited from their negative press
with napster). Reason being; Untouchables. The music was avaliable
prior to the launch for some time, yet at release the first weeks
sales were over 400k albums sold. The album recieved loudly bad
press, but a lot of air-time. I remember reading that it's lack of
success was partially blamed on illegal download. And I hardly call
four-hundred thousand albums sold in one week lack of success.


my point?


The whole record company vs. the internet thing is quite possibly the
biggest bullshit story concieved. Looking over the sales figures of
the highly advertized and reported anti-download artists (metallica,
brittany spears, etc.) they are hardly what I would call "hungry for
an audience".

Let's use four-hundred thousand as a base sales figure for joe
schmoe's garage band. The bands music has been out seven months prior
to the initial release of the album. There are at least one-hundred
and twenty thousand logged downloads of their music. If we take an
estimated price of an eighteen song cd at $14.99, it would put the
initial first weeks sales at $5,996,000 (excluding sales tax).
Assuming that the one-hundred and twenty thousand people who
downloaded didn't buy (which is an extreme estimate on any stage), joe
schmoe's band and recording label would have lost out on $1,798,800
(exluding sales tax). That is a 30% loss of record sales. Something
to cry about? Yes, of course. If you account for the mark up on the
actual cost to make "cd's" versus the proposed loss, the record
companies actually produce an eighty percentile gain in cash.


my second point?


Yes, artists are probably losing money because of internet downloads.
Unlike their big budget, cheap expense record companies . . . they are
limited to a contractual ammount of money which is tied into record
sales.


So in short, I'm bored and I'm playing the percentage game right now
trying to see how much money a band stands to lose to their own record
companies because of "supposed" lost sales due to illegal downloads.


Not exactly a "korn" topic, but something definately relative . . .

I think . . .




-Kade
*kicking ass in elvis' place.
np: confusion - new order