Digital Download Survey 1

Operating a successful psytrance label in today’s market is not an easy thing. Among many other business realities, labels must contend with the widespread availability of illegal downloads–which are often cited as the primary cause for slumping sales figures. But one could not simply say that the psytrance industry is in trouble because people are downloading music illegally–that would be a gross oversimplification. I would argue that psytrance labels have been slow to adapt to changing listener habits. Many people no longer use CDs or other physical media–they have gone completely digital. Are psytrance labels catering to this emerging marketplace? In order to assess the situation I have performed an informal survey to find out how many new CD releases are also available for purchase from some of the major digital download shops. Continue reading the rest of this post »