http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/washpost/20040330/tc_washpost/a34300_2004mar29

Internet music piracy has no negative effect on legitimate music sales, according to a study released today by two university researchers that contradicts the music industry's assertion that the illegal downloading of music online is taking a big bite out of its bottom line.

Songs that were heavily downloaded showed no measurable drop in sales, the researchers found after tracking sales of 680 albums over the course of 17 weeks in the second half of 2002. Matching that data with activity on the OpenNap file-sharing network, they concluded that file sharing actually increases CD sales for hot albums that sell more than 600,000 copies. For every 150 downloads of a song from those albums, sales increase by a copy, the researchers found.

Just thought you might be interested.

yeah, I think we call this in the real world "free advertising"

I've always said that file swapping increases CD buying since people have more exposure to music that way, but you'll never convince the music industry of that. I don't think a million studies will change the big record companies' minds.

:chuckles evily:

A friend of mine got a WARNING from Comcast about having stuff on his Kazaa account. Beware, people. They are definately out to GET YOU.

here's the study in PDF

http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSh ... ch2004.pdf

The grin on my face couldn't be bigger!

If any free music hurts the industry, it would be from burning and sharing CDs. If you download a song and like it, you buy the CD, thus increasing sales. But if you burn a CD and like it, unless you want better quality, there's no need to buy the CD. And it would be a lot harder to stop burning than file sharing.

Exactly.

Ya know...i've just really waited for someone with half a brain to be like...oooo we need to shut down radio stations too...and movies...and commercials....cus damnit they play songs too. (well ok the artist gets a cut from tv and movies....but what do they get out of radio?)

what do they get out of radio

they get free advertisement
and a kick back from ascap

we need to shut down radio stations too...and movies...and commercials....cus damnit they play songs too

this will never happen

radio stations are payed off buy the bands label
to play the bands
you say payola is illegal
i say they found a loophole
most corporate record companies these days are owned or are in bed with other corporations who pay the stations for advertising
one big one is seagrams who owns interscope records
who in turn owns
nothing records
and death row records
the corporate advertisers have their own agenda political moral financial and other wise
i think you see where this is going


most movies are backed by large coporations as well
where do you think these guys get these budgets to shoot these films
so the corporations that not only back the movie
do product placement
and get the corporate bands and the soundtrack
and then of course get kick backs from all the merchandising that comes after that

it's a big vicious cycle
and the only people who will really win anything from any of these law suites will be the lawyers

Interesting that this study is not a poll, but is based off of songs downloaded over a particular period vs albums purchased over that period. The studies conducted by the RIAA are all based on that tred and true scientific method, polling.

The argument is that downloading MUST affect record sales because that is what was happening while record sales were in decline. Here's a couple of other things happening during that period:

The concept of the single was tossed. You remember those? 45's, single cassettes and CDs? The rationale was why give people the option to buy a 3 dollar disc as opposed to the full 18.00 dollar album? People are not going to pay that much for an album and never were. That is why they will download a radio friendly pop tune for free. They NEVER WERE interested in buying an album, they just wanted a single song.

Price gauging. I got my check for the settlement - about 10 dollars. For 5+ years of price gauging by the record industry, that's all they figure we are entitled to? Yet they claim that a few years of file sharing by an individual costs them tens of thousands of dollars? That shit does not fly.

Like most people I know who download and file share, I buy way more music than the average consumer. People who share music, by and large, do so because we LOVE music. We support our favorite bands, if we download something we like, we generally buy the music.

Also, for people that do large amounts of ripping and downloading, our computers have become our stereos. Most of what I have on my computer, I have purchased as a cd. But I would rather have the music on the computer. I hook it up to my receiver and can shuffle through so much more than I could popping discs in and out of the cd player. It's the way of the future, the recording industry needs to wake up and smell the ipod.

Audiogalaxy RIP

so IS file sharing/ downloading music OFFICIALLY illegal now? thats what i heard last time i checked. and i know people are getting in trouble over kazaa, and all the file sharing programs are charging a monthly fee now. i have kazaa lite and winmx, and currently don't pay for either because i've had them for years. anybody know anything about those? had problems? are they gonna put me in a pattywagon and wheel me down to the county jail?

My advice, cover your tracks. Don't share huge numbers of files. Be selective about what you share. I generally only try to share the really hard to find stuff. Just be smart about it and don't make yourself a target.

I have not heard of a case being prosecuted in several months, but that does not mean it will not start up again. Oh, and emule is nice too

Cases are now being brought by the international version of the RIAA in Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and a few other countries.

The RIAA cites major improvement in sales, and the creation of "legal" file sharing services. I find myself wondering how many individuals are switching to not buying CDs because of this lawsuit activity, concentrating on minor labels not part of any of these groups (sorry can't remember the international's name) or buying used (though I may quit that if I find out they're getting a cut from used cd sales).

Onibubba wrote: I generally only try to share the really hard to find stuff.

amen. we need more people like you sharing. I'm always looking for out of print stuff and rare vinyl rips.

I subscribe to a binary news server to look for most of my stuff.

I'm always looking for out of print stuff and rare vinyl rips.

do you use soul seek
if so what is your user name

mine is
travismorgan

you all can add me if you want i have a lot of rare and vinyl rips
as well as other random shit

Probably shouldn't discuss stuff like actually sharing in a forum guys. Some RIAA lawyer might snap up your name and put you on a suit.

Just a thought.