日本宅男宅女絕非全球CD銷售的綠洲

In the past 10 years, CD stores have more or less disappeared from the American landscape. Tower Records had hundreds of locations across the U.S., and was once the place for American music fans to go if they wanted a deep selection from their favorite artists. But that all went up in smoke in 2006, when the company filed for bankruptcy and closed all of its U.S. stores.

過去十年間，CD店基本上已在美國本土銷聲匿跡。淘兒唱片公司（Tower Records）曾在美國各地設有數百家分店。對美國樂迷來說，如果想深入地淘一些自己心愛歌手的唱片，這個連鎖唱片店一度就是他們非去不可的聖地。不過到了2006年，該公司申請破產並關掉了美國所有分店，往日的盛況頓時化爲過眼雲煙。

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But as a recent New York Times article points out, Tower Records is alive and well in some countries, especially Japan. The piece describes the Japanese as “CD loving,” noting:

但正如《紐約時報》(New York Times）近期刊發的一篇文章所指出的那樣，在有些國家，尤其是日本，淘兒唱片不僅沒有消亡，而且還經營得相當不錯。這篇文章將日本人稱爲“CD愛好者”，它寫道：

Japan may be one of the world’s perennial early adopters of new technologies, but its continuing attachment to the CD puts it sharply at odds with the rest of the global music industry. While CD sales are falling worldwide, including in Japan, they still account for about 85 percent of sales here, compared with as little as 20 percent in some countries, like Sweden, where online streaming is dominant.

日本可能一直都是全世界最早採用新技術的國家之一，但日本國民對CD持之以恆的熱愛卻讓這個國家成爲全球音樂產業中的異數。儘管全球各地（包括日本）的CD銷量都在持續下滑，但日本的CD銷量還是佔據各類音樂總銷量約85％的比重，而在瑞典這類流媒體音樂已佔據主導地位的國家，CD銷量只佔音樂總銷量的20％。

The article offers other statistics that purport to show the Japanese love for CDs, noting that there are still 85 Tower Records stores in the country that pulled in $500 million in business last year. But, of course, large revenue doesn’t say anything about the health of the business. In 2005, the final year that a Tower Records was open in the U.S., it operated 89 stores and did $430 million in sales. The next year, there were no Tower Records in the U.S. whatsoever.

該文還提供了其他數據，旨在表明日本人對CD是如何情有獨鍾。它指出，日本全國仍有85間淘兒唱片連鎖店，去年的銷售額高達5億美元。不過，我們當然不能根據這些鉅額收入證明音樂產業的健康指數。2005年，也就是淘兒唱片在美國運營的最後一年，它在全美還有89間連鎖店，銷售額高達4.3億美元。但到了第二年，淘兒唱片就在美國無影無蹤了。

Meanwhile, CD sales in Japan continue to decline at a double digit pace, falling 17% from last year. What’s unique about Japan is not so much that they like buying their music in physical form, but that buying music digitally, either in mp3 form or through streaming services, never really caught on. That likely has more to do with the Japanese music industry’s stubborn refusal to make buying music or subscribing to streaming services easy.

與此同時，日本的CD銷量也一直在以兩位數的速度下跌，去年就下跌了17％。日本樂迷的獨特之處其實並不在於他們喜歡購買有物理載體的音樂產品，而在於數字音樂，無論是mp3還是流媒體，從來就沒有在這個國家真正流行過。這可能主要是由於日本的音樂產業始終固執地拒絕讓樂迷輕鬆方便地購買數字音樂或訂閱流媒體音樂。

iTunes launched in Japan in 2005—four years after its U.S. debut, and Sony Music Japan didn’t allow its titles to be sold via iTunes until 2012. That means until just two years ago, a large section of what the Japanese would want to buy online couldn’t be purchased on the world’s most popular digital music store. Meanwhile, the big, global players in streaming, like Spotify, Deezer and rdio, have all been unable to reach agreements with the Japanese record industry to offer their services there. Some domestic streaming services are now starting to pop up—total streaming service revenue in Japan was up 204% last year—but the streaming industry is still playing catch up with the West because of its late start.

iTunes於2005年正式登陸日本，此時距離這個音樂平臺在美國亮相已過了整整四年，但直到2012年，日本索尼音樂公司（Sony Music Japan）才允許該公司出品的專輯通過iTunes發售。這意味着，僅僅兩年前，日本人還無法在全球最流行的數字音樂商店裏購買他們心儀的相當大一部分音樂專輯。與此同時，像Spotify、Deezer和rdio這些全球流媒體音樂巨頭始終無法跟日本唱片產業達成協議，從而無法在日本提供服務。一些日本本土流媒體音樂公司現在剛開始冒頭——去年日本流媒體音樂銷售增長了204％——但由於起步晚，它們還需要加倍努力，纔有可能追趕上西方同行。

Meanwhile, the practice of renting CDs is still quite popular in Japan, as copyright law there makes such an industry legal there, unlike in the U.S. This makes it quite easy for listeners to rent an album at 10% of the price of buying it and just rip it to their computer. And, of course, just like in the West, music piracy is very popular in Japan. The Japanese record industry estimates that for every song legally downloaded in the country, 10 are stolen. The problem is so bad that in 2012, Japan passed one of the strictest anti-piracy laws in the world, in which violators can be subject to a 10-year prison sentence and a roughly $100,000 fine.

與此同時，許多日本人依然保持着租賃CD的習慣。這是因爲，與美國不同，日本的版權法允許這一行業合法經營。在這種背景下，樂迷只需花上買張專輯10％的錢就能租到它，再把音樂輕鬆地存入電腦。當然，跟美國一樣，盜版音樂在日本非常普遍。日本唱片業估計，在日本，每合法下載1首歌，就會出現大約10首盜版。由於這種情況過於猖獗，日本於2012年通過了全球最嚴格的反盜版法，該法規定，盜版者可被判處10年徒刑，罰款約10萬美元。

And finally, we shouldn’t look past the fact that Japan has the highest median age in the world. Even in much younger America, it’s the older folks who buy most of the CDs. As people age, they tend to become set in their ways when it comes to purchasing decisions. And since Japan has a higher percentage of older people than any other country, it follows that it would have a larger market for physical music.

最後，我們不應忽略一個事實，即日本是全球中位數年齡最大的國家。就算在人口結構年輕得多的美國，絕大多數CD也是被年齡較大的人買去的。一般來說，隨着年齡增大，人們在購買決策上更容易墨守成規。由於日本的老齡人口遠多於其他國家，它擁有最大的實體音樂市場也就不足爲怪了。

But make no mistake about it, Japan’s music industry is shrinking, just like the one in the U.S. The convenience of listening to music online is too great, and with the ease of streaming songs on YouTube for free, or outright stealing it, the Japanese public is increasingly questioning why it should pay for CDs. The Japanese record industry might have helped keep CD sales higher than in other developed nations for a few years longer by resisting digital music sales and streaming services, but it can’t delay the inevitable forever.

不過不要被這一現象所迷惑，其實日本的音樂產業也和美國一樣，正在不斷萎縮。網上聽音樂實在太方便了，在YouTube上免費下載或直接盜版流媒體音樂也很容易，因此越來越多的日本民衆也開始質疑，爲何要花錢買CD呢。通過抵制數字音樂銷售和流媒體音樂服務，日本的唱片業也許能讓CD銷量比其他發達國家更高的情況再延續幾年，但它無法永遠阻擋這一無可逆轉的歷史潮流。