Internet Good for Record Sales?!?!

Well, I've been scavenging the net to find some of the positive aspects of Indie Music. Surprisingly enough, I found that the internet is actually helping record sales of independent artists! It seemed to me that the internet would hurt profits since you can just download media for free. This following Article I think helps explain this point: "

The Changes in What Was Being Sold

The profile of what was being sold was also changing.

While speciality retailers carried inventories of 2,000 – 10,000 titles in their larger stores, Big Box stores carried fewer selections, focussing on the 200 titles that represented the bulk of music sold. The result of the shift in market share to the Big Boxes has reduced the variety of titles available not only in the Big Boxes but, because of the changed economic model due to the loss of volume sales, in the specialized retailers as well.

Summarizing the situation then – in today’s world of physical sales, fully half of the retail volume is accounted for in destinations that carry limited inventory and where inventory selection does exist, it is in the aisles of retailers who are struggling to survive.

With time, as more and more specialized retailers either disappear or scale back on their operations, the scenario for choice at brick and mortar retail will probably worsen.

The specialized retailers who continue selling music today often have relegated music to a secondary position within their stores as a matter of survival. Prime retailing and display space is given over to DVDs and Gaming – the Hail Mary pass for those retailers – at least for now." http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/pubs/music_industry/3_e.cfm