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Here's another article on the subject that does not require a subscription.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/15/8419567/digital-physical-music-sales-overtake-globally
I think the lead here is the crucial statement:
"Global revenue from music downloads and subscriptions has overtaken sales of physical formats for the first time. In 2014, digital revenue grew nearly 7 percent to $6.85 billion, while physical sales — of which CDs make up the vast majority — fell 8 percent to $6.82 billion."
So CD's still bring in nearly $7 BILLION annually. CD's aren't going anywhere for some time to come.
And here's another interesting graph:
"The report by the IFPI also shows just how varied the markets for music sales can be. Despite the rise of digital, for example, many countries still prefer physical formats. In Japan, 78 precent of the music industry's revenue comes from CDs and the like; in Germany the figure is 70 percent, and in France it's 57 percent. By comparison, some countries have overwhelmingly moved from downloading music to streaming it, with nations like Sweden — the home of Spotify — generating 92 percent of its digital revenue from subscriptions."
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Digital downloading does have some desirable properties, if exploited, such as:
1. No hard-wired upper limit on the quality level—whereas of course CD quality is capped at 44.1KHz/16-bit
2. No music programs capped at CD length of 80 minutes for economic reasons—think THUNDERBALL and how that was capped to a single CD length
3. No waiting for postage—especially problematic for those of us who don't live in the USA
4. The end to physical storage space problems
For those four reasons, we may yet learn to embrace digital.
That said, I, like many of you I'm sure, do like a physical product I can pick up with my hand, like a CD. I like CD. I want to be able to continue to buy my music on a physical CD.
But, if things do slide increasingly towards the digital domain, at least it does have those four advantages and that's what there'd be to love about it.
Cheers
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