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 | | Tuesday, 21 August, 2001, 12:10 GMT 13:10 UK Music sales slump in world markets  Germany and the US have seen drops in sales Slumps in music sales in two of the world's biggest markets have been blamed on the rise of CD-copying. Sales of all formats in America dropped by 10% over the last year, and the number of CDs sold in Germany fell by the same proportion, new figures show. The British market has gone against the trend, with recent figures showing strong growth in the albums market. Music industry officials in America and Germany have pointed the finger at the rise of CD "burning" - or copying songs onto blank CDs - as a cause of the problem. Security devices Their criticism comes after a victory in the online arena, after record companies blamed free online song-swapping service Napster for harming CD sales. Record companies are now preparing to launch their own paid-for music download services after crippling Napster through legal proceedings.
US figures showed a dip of 5% in CD sales and a drop of 43% in the sales of music bought on cassette. An industry study found that half of those questioned had downloaded music from the internet in the last month, and 70% of those had burnt the songs onto CD. Hilary Rosen, head of the Recording Industry Association of America, said she expected the figures to improve by the end of the year. 'Fear' In Germany, Peter Zombik, head of the country's phonographic industry federation, said the decline in sales was the worst for 20 years. "CD burners were the best-sellers in last year's Christmas sales and we fear it'll be the same this year," he told the music business's Popkomm conference, according to Handelsblatt.com. Some 133 million blank CDs were used to copy music in the last year, compared with a total of 109 million CDs, tapes and records that were bought, he said. Earlier this month, British figures showed that album sales have risen by 18% in the first half of the year. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Music stories now:  Links to more Music stories are at the foot of the page. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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