Icon Digital Entertainment, the company that owns the brands and rights to Blockbuster and Sounds Music in New Zealand has gone into voluntary liquidation. The reason? Illegal music downloads, apparently. Never mind failed business models or management problems – the easy route is to blame music downloads.
Critics have lashed out at ICD for making excuses for the failure of its business. The problem with ICD is that it’s actually cheaper to buy CDs online or even to have them shipped over from the US.
Illegal music downloads are not the cause of ICD’s liquidation, but rather the company’s inability to move with the times has resulted in it going bust. The fact of the matter is that other companies are still thriving off music sales, so why couldn’t ICD?
Let this be a wake up call to music stores around the world: filesharing and music downloads are not the source of your problems – it’s your inability to see changing trends in the market.
Illegal music downloads aren’t the root of all evil. No doubt the RIAA will be all over this one.