Reminds me of the Vintners Assoc. Publican says its because of the smoking ban. Customer tells him its because of the price of a pint. Publican says its because of the smoking ban, still. People are shopping around, as we are told to do.

I actually went out to buy an album in a shop not 30 minutes ago (for the record, the rather excellent Sufjan Stevens "Illinoise" which I had the pleasure of listening to last night). However, I just couldn't bring myself to pay the HMV price when Play.com have it for 8.99 sterling. Point is, I reckon that other than the odd dabble impulse purchase in Road Recs, tis about 3 years since I've bought an album other than on the web. Virtually none of this would have been on the radar of IRMA. I do think the wind has been taken out of the music industry's sails now that there are credible figures for downloads, iTunes etc etc. Still, it will be interesting to hear the exact details of these cases. In the early days of Napster/Dozens of other file share apps, you could claim cluenessless in relation to this sort of stuff. However, it's been pretty clear for at least 3 years that uploading music for distribution is illegal. Organisations like IRMA were always going to make an example of someone, even if it is symbolic.

People who download music happen to buy more CDs than those who don't. The fact is, for most people, downloading music is supplementary listening, rather than the core of their collections. It allows people to explore music more widely without wanting their money back, and choosing what to buy from that. 99% of the musicians I speak to don't have a problem with downloaders, in fact, most of them recognise that it actually plays a massive part in their popularity.

PS Vent My Spleen, was just introduced to that Sufjan Stevens album today - great stuff

Some good points made there. I have to go on the Fanning show in a couple of weeks to talk about downloading music and I'll have plenty of ammunition.

Another thing to mention with regard to buying online and it's effect on record sales on a global level is that as buying CD's online is cheaper than buying them in a shop. Even if the same number of CD's were being sold revenue from them would be down.

I spend a ridiculous amount of money on records (Over 10 grand a year) and I still end up downloading tunes the whole time. Here are the main reasons why; 1. I already own the music in some format. I'm an obsessive collector of vinyl. If I've already purchased an album or single on LP, 12" or 7" then I see it as my right to copy it onto CD. However this involves hooking a turntable and mixer up to my computer, saving the track as a WAV file, running a clean up program to remove surface noise and then converting the file into an MP3. To be honest It's a lot easier and quicker to just download the MP3 from Lime Wire (and the sound quality's usually better too). 2. The music isn't available to buy in the shops yet. Many songs receive loads of airplay on TV and Radio long before they are available to buy in the high street. I can remember at the start of last summer when Can't Stand Me Now by the Libertines was getting played on the telly every five minutes, yet it didn't get released as a single until 6 weeks after it was first placed on heavy rotation by MTV2. The same thing happened with Slow Hands by Interpol and In The Morning by The Coral. I'm a DJ so it's my job to be up to date with the music I'm playing and to try and keep one step ahead of the punters in the club. If 10 people come into a club where I'm playing and ask for a tune that's been in the public domain for a fortnight and which they already have a copy of, what am I supposed to do? Tell them to come back to me in a month when I'll be able to pick it up in HMV? In any case if the tune's any good I'll buy it on 7" when it come out so the artists will still get paid eventually. 3. The music is deleted. If the music is out of print then it's not the fault of the downloader but the fault of the record company for not re-issuing the records to satisfy public demand. If you want to get a copy of Vindicator by Arthur Lee or Star Sailor by Tim Buckley you have two options. Go on to Ebay and pay a small fortune for an original copy (remember that the actual artist and record company will see none of this money) or download it for free. These extortionate rates apply to more recent releases too. The Artic Monkey's debut 7" was only released in May and it's already changing hands for over €30. Yet as the tune isn't on i-tunes there's no inexpensive legal way of obtaining a copy. And this isn't an obscure record, it got single of the week in NME for f*ck's sake. 4. The Music was never commercially released. Some of my favourite songs are mash-ups, live concert bootlegs, alternative unreleased versions and radio sessions that aren't commercially available anywhere else but online. If record companies want to increase sales why don't they try to sell some of these tunes? 5. I've heard about the band but I've never actually heard them. If I read a load of good comments about an obscure album I'm not going to buy it without listening to it first. It's all well in good going into a record shop and asking to listen to an album that your curious about but what if the record's not in stock and has to be ordered in specially? If I discover something online that I like than I'll always make the effort to buy it afterwards. But it's just too expensive to buy albums blind. I don't see anything wrong with trying before I buy. 6. The band release an excessive number of singles before releasing an album. The Rakes are set to release their debut album this month. Of the 11 tracks on the album four have already been released as singles. If I had bought all these singles for €3.99 each I would have spent a total of €15.96, That's nearly €3 more than the album costs on CD Wow. The Rakes aren't the only band who’ve done this (Razorlight and Bloc Party are two more examples). Rather than get ripped off by paying double the money for these songs I prefer to download them and buy the album when it comes out.

all good points Stroller. I notice that most of the stuff I download is unreleased, bootlegs or live mp3s, which I can't buy anyway.