Harvard: 'File sharing doesn't hurt music sales'

[MacBytes]

Category: News and Press Releases
Link: Harvard: \'File sharing doesn\'t hurt music sales\' (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20040330131257)
Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)

Approved by arn

[RHutch]

From the article:

[QUOTE]"While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing."[\QUOTE]

I have always thought this. If people like something enough, usually they will buy it. I think that a lot of downloading is people checking out new stuff or getting songs that they like but don't like well enough to buy.

[winmacguy]

very interesting article from two informed points of view

[mrsebastian]

i think they're right on the money! to put it in a sentence or two, the recording industry has essentially shot itself in the ass. against the research presented and if they were actually losing money, what can they expect when they completely alienate their customers, an out-dated marketing and distribution system, and general greed.

[svenr]

Prof. Oberholzer was UPenn faculty until last year. I had a macroecon class with him and he was one of the best profs I ever had. Too bad he left us... :-(

There are more profs on our school though who share this view, the most vocal one probably Peter Fader. Here's one of his articles:
"Peer-to-Peer Music Trading: Good Publicity or Bad Precedent?"
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articles.cfm?catid=4&articleid=635
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[shamino]

It's about time some studies have been able to put facts behind my assertions :)

The world economy has been in a slump for years now. Record sales have declined. Surprise surprise. So have sales of everything else. People are out of work or working at reduced wages. People with less money stop spending it on luxuries. And regardless of what the RIAA would like to believe, recorded music is a luxury, not a necessity.

Does anybody seriously believe that a couple struggling to pay the rent will give their teenage daughter money to buy a pile of $18 CDs every week? :rolleyes: Only Hillary Rosen and her cronies could believe such complete nonsense.

Now combine this with the fact that this isn't the first time the recording industry has blamed an economic slump on piracy. During the recessions of the 70s and 80s, they were saying the same thing. Back then, they were claiming that their lost sales were because of people copying albums to cassettes. They were lobbying Congress for a tariff on blank tapes in order to compensate them for these imagined acts of piracy.

They didn't get that tariff, but they did manage to get a similar one on blank CDs. This is why consumer-audio CD recorders won't record on "computer" media. The media is identical to the "audio" media, but audio media has a code pre-recorded indicating that the tariff has been paid. Firmware in consumer-audio recorders looks for this and rejects media that doesn't have it.

And of course, this measure does nothing to actually stop piracy, because pro-audio CD recorders and duplicators can record onto any kind of media, and real pirates (those selling illegal copies for profit) are going to be using pro equipment, not the junk sold in Wal*Mart.

But never let the facts get in the way of a good lawsuit. You wouldn't want to put all of those underpaid lawyers out of work? How would they pay for their BMWs? :p