The death of CD's?!

With cheaper methods of buying music whether it is illegal or not people are now starting to predict the death of CD's in the next 5 years, however how correct is this hypothesis?

Will CD's eventually die out? An NME writer johnny Davis found that up to six out of ten under 24 year olds believe physical formats will decline as people turn to digital methods.

This is very staggering as 85 percent place the reason they are downloading illegal or legal on the fact it will help save the planet- which is a much argued debate especially nowadays. With sea levels rising and renewable sources running out will CD's have a future? or will they just be scrapped?

Additionally with the rise of Youtube, 68 percent said they would rather buy a video than an audio download of a track if they were the same price- this has prompt video downloads to count towards the UK singles chart from january.

The IFPI said worldwide music market revenues shrank by 7% last year.This was blamed on falling CD sales, while the increase in digital sales failed to make up for this

According to the music industry, legal downloads have tripled during 2005.

In the first half of 2005, some 10 million songs have been legally downloaded.

There are several factors as well as piracy that effect the demand for CD's:

1. prices;

2. country-specific environment of the music industry, including offline commer-

cial piracy, taste for music, the distribution of income of potential users;

3. income and economic environment;

4. substitution with other media and other forms of entertainment; new distri-

bution channels; new media such as DVDs.

5. the “quality” of music.