Brussels – The Computer & Communication Industry Association has released the latest economic study it commissioned, “The Sky is Rising,” just ahead of this year’s MIDEM music business conference in France. The latest study from Floor 64, co-authored by Mike Masnick and Michael Ho, is a follow up that broadens last year’s U.S.-focused analysis of entertainment industry economic data over the past decade. Using data from the entertainment businesses in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and the UK, the study illustrates how the sky is not falling for the entertainment industry, but actually rising.
Some findings from the report:
From gaming and digital music to e-books and video, adoption trends have steadily increased. Despite some country and market-specific variations, the economic report on entertainment over the past decade has found that overall entertainment industry revenue and offerings growing for the countries examined. Among the findings this year:
- Books: the number of published books has almost doubled between 1995 and 2011. Ebook market growth is exploding.
- Games: in only 2 years the total European gaming population has more than doubled from 40 million in 2008 to 95 million in 2010. Between 2006 and 2011 total video game industry revenues grew by more than 50 percent.
- Music: the number of authorized music services has increased five-fold between 2007 and 2011. For most countries, revenues are increasingly driven by digital music sales. Markets for live music continued to grow in France, Russia, Italy, the UK and Spain.
- Films: Between 2005 and 2009 the amount of European films produced has increased by a cross-country average of 31 percent. With a gross box office revenue of EUR 6.4 billion, up .7 percent from 2010, 2011 was a record year for the European film industry.
Masnick, who authored the report said, “This data clearly shows that the Internet and the creative industries do not stand in opposition to each other. The digital age has undoubtedly created a new reality that is far more disruptive and therefore harder to adapt to. However, this disruption brings more opportunities and policymakers should make sure not to slow or choke off these processes. The key is to understand the challenges and successes of the content industry before considering policies that would cause a huge collateral damage for the digital economy as a whole.”
“The Sky Is Rising studies attempt to give an unbiased and neutral picture of the economic state of the entertainment industry. In the process, the numbers revealed one consistent message across the whole industry: it has been continuously growing, particularly in the last decade — despite the disruptive change brought by the Internet,” Masnick said.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Brussels director Jakob Kucharczyk:
“Policymakers no doubt hear complaints from the entertainment industry about their profits, but have had little data to determine if the Internet is helping with new distribution models or killing the industry.
Having statistics like the data in this report could help policymakers in various countries examine what policies are really needed and how to tailor them so that they are effective.”