It’s obvious that pirating music is the cheapest way to obtain music. Pirating because you’re interested in the band or just don’t want to pay the money. Buying an album usually costs around £8 for a digital download (in my latest experience of harddrive crashes I’m rejecting these unless they’re pirated), £9 for new CD or… £3 for a second hand CD.

I want to know, what does the record industry think of second hand sales, and how do they equate these sales into the ‘falling CD sales’ profit losses.

We often hear the music industry is in dire problems and losing money because of illegal downloading. But how much of these lost sales are going to second hand sales. These second hand sales don’t pay any further royalties to the music industry so i guess the music industry would consider this to be in the same category as an illegal digital download.

I gather this because:

Some guy buys the album for £9, then realises it’s not his cup of tea. He can’t sell/swap it from the shop he bought it so his only option is to re-sell it. He puts it on Amazon where many others have done the same. To compete with the other second hand sales, he has to drop his price to well over half what he bought it for, £3. Someone else buys it, sells it again. And so on and so on. Music industry only sees the initial sale of £9.

Now, same goes for the pirate. Some guy buys a copy of the album for £9. Uploads it to thepiratebay. Users x 10 download it for free. Music industry still on sees £9.

To me I see no problem of either downloading illegally or buying second hand. People would tend to think it’s more moral to buy the second hand copy – however the music industry doesn’t see a penny more from either. If you like your artist, support them by buy tickets to see their gig – buy limited edition tee’s or records that come with DVDs etc..

Check out all the second hand copies on Amazon or steal you some music today. Same thing really…