Study Finds P2P Has No Effect on Legal Music Sales 294
MBrichacek writes "The Journal of Political Economy is running the results of a study into P2P file-sharing, reports Ars Technica. The study has found that, contrary to the claims of the recording industry, there is almost no effect on sales from file-sharing. Using data from several months in 2002, the researchers came to the conclusion that P2P 'affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.' 803 million CDs were sold in 2002, according to the study, which was a decrease of about 80 million from the previous year. While the RIAA has been blaming that drop (and the drop in subsequent years) on piracy, given the volume of file-sharing that year the impact from file sharing could not have been more than 6 million albums total. Thus, 74 million unsold CDs from that year are 'without an excuse for sitting on shelves.'"
Well, if they haven't lost any money. (Score:2, Insightful)
As if the world were fair.
Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
It's easy for the large publishers to complain and act as though their sales are declining due to the increasing amount of P2P networking, but you might as well say that global warming is the cause. Afterall, neither have ever been proven to have a huge effect on record sales...
Re:How bizarre... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Study is Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Because:
A. File sharing has caused RIAA lawsuits
B. RIAA lawsuits have pissed off customers
C. Pissed off customers look for other things to buy instead of CD's.
A->B->C so A->C
On a more serious note.... This reminds me of the global warming debate.. First you have those that say it's happening and those that say it isn't. Then enough studies come out that Global warming happening becomes the prevailing idea. So the next debate is Well, humans are causing it/it's natural. and so forth.
So we've seen the Cd sales are diminishing debate, CD sales ARE going down, now we're looking at why, the debate is File shareing / not file shareing / impact of file shareing.
I will be quite happy when the debate turns to "Your artists are CRAP, CD sales is dropping because the consumer is moving to buy independent artists' work, where they can find decent music."
Give us something worth buying... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I listen to music I'm partly looking to be wowed by the performance of at least some part of the piece. Current electronically generated and produced pop has no real performances to speak of, or if there is one can't be sure whether it's a sample of some old record thrown into the mix.
The point to all of this is that people now feel no reason to want to own the tracks they think they like (so that they can be listened to years down the road with fond memories) as music has become as commoditized and disposable as Gillette razors - only meant to be used for a certain period of time before being chucked in the bin.
There's a lot more to the problem of course, but the above does play an important part. The record companies need to produce artists (and they are out there) who produce real music and do it well. Fiddling with MIDI settings all day isn't producing music - it's computer programming.
Cheers
Without an excuse... (Score:4, Insightful)
Thus, 74 million unsold CDs from that year are 'without an excuse for sitting on shelves.
You mean besides the non-music industry perception that they contain music people are not really interested in or are at a price people are not willing to pay?
They're garbage... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the excuse. Sorry, people are buying less CDs because so many of the new CDs pushed by major labels are cookie-cutter copies of other CD's that sold well. Maybe I'm just getting crotchety in my old age, but all the music *does* sound the same to me.
There is an excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
There is some good indie music out there, but the major companies shun it while pushing out their canned pap. This is what is on the shelves rotting (as it should). No wonder their primary source of funds seems to be lawsuits right now.
No wonder the Police have chosen to reunite. The rockers with walkers are making a killing because the industry today is creatively bankrupt. Bring on Jagger, the Stones and their musical wheelchairs.
Rots Your Brains (Score:4, Insightful)
The music biz used to be mainly in the business of finding artists coming from the mass of people, trying them out before "focus groups" (live audiences) who selected themselves from the cultural word of mouth, and cultivating them for a decade or more. The artists getting the most continuing investment were those most successful in either a live audience, or record sales even in a regionally highly varied market, feeding back with radio play. A natural coevolution of the artists and the audience, when mediated best by the music biz people engaged into both.
Now the biz thinks it's smarter than the market. Creating fake "artitst" who are really just spokesmodels in videos for a recorded product tied in with cobranded products like so much anime breakfast cereal. The model is to create as many products that can be most controlled as possible, within a narrow range of those styles best "understood" by the marketers, pushing more money than brains through the network of middleman connections, and maximizing the profit from anything that looks like it's "hitting". Meanwhile, these "smarter than the market" marketers are dumber than ever before, especially about music and the mass of people in the market, because the smarter ones have already fled the sinking ship a decade ago.
It's like the factory farms that breed mad cow. No wonder the music sounds like a soundtrack to the cows' death dance.
albums vs. songs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:excuse me, but this is plain bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How bizarre... (Score:5, Insightful)
I download a shitload of music and movies. Yet, I buy the music I want. The availability of filesharing has not affected the amount I spend on culture each month. If I bought everything I download, I would probably have to pay some $2000/month.
When you say Everytime a new study come yet the results differs., take a look at the sources. All independent research has always shown that filesharing has not and does not affect record sales. All information that comes from the record companies says that they do. Who do you trust?
Re:There is an excuse (Score:3, Insightful)
I ask you to go look at the charts and see what is selling. While I agree much of it is radio fodder the bottom line is that Justin Timberlake or 50Cent or whomever outsold Pink Floyd last year. Pink Floyd is timeless and will continue to sell long after Timberlake and his ilk are worm food but that still doesn't make it deniable that pop outsells classic rock. The industry had it good when we classic rock fans were busy replacing our wax with CDs, either they don't want to fess upto this truth or they're too stupid to see that the format change was a bubble that was going to bust once guys in their 40s and 50s re-bought their Steely Dan on CD. I know I personally sold a ton of old vinyl to walk out of the local music store with a handful of CDs. Once I replaced most of my LPs my buying went from a floodgate to a trickle. I have over 1300 CDs in my collection, the vast majority of them were bought between 1990 and 1995. Today there are a few new releases that still get me shelling out the dollars but the back catalogs that I don't own I have no intention of buying. And no, I don't download music and play it in heavy rotation. That's not to say I don't sample but the downloads are no replacement from me supporting artists I like.
in fact last night I turned him on to... the Cars!
Please, God, NO!!! (I kid, I kid)
The rockers with walkers are making a killing because the industry today is creatively bankrupt. Bring on Jagger, the Stones and their musical wheelchairs.
No, these guys are making money from people like us who have the expendable cash that a 15 year old can't swing to see Nelly in concert.
I'm not that old, 34. When I was a kid in school it was all I could do to collect my change to buy the new Rush album. I went to very few concerts until I became employed. Even in the early days it was mostly cheap punk concerts (5 bucks for 5 bands is a good price for a kid in an old pair of Chucks with beat up skateboard). Since I landed my first real job in 1996 I've seen Rush 13 times before that? only twice. I now have the cash to see them 2-4 times on tour. I love every minute of it but feeding my Rush addiction has less to do with the music of today than my ability to finally be able to pay out to see it. I would have loved to have seen Rush back in the 80s. I just didn't have the funds.
Re:The Original Report (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can't Say I'm Surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rots Your Brains (Score:4, Insightful)
RIAA company: "We'll distribute your CD and songs on iTunes, but we get 70% of the take."
New band: "Whatever, I can use something like CDBaby [cdbaby.com] and do the same for only a 20% take."
RIAA company: "Buh... uh... won't you think of the children? And by that, I mean our children. How will they ever afford a new Hummer?!"
Songs from (good) indie bands that do a lot of exposure are then picked up by the indie stations, and eventually make their way to the various ClearCrap stations who don't want to lose listeners to the stations that play more than the top 40s.
Re:How bizarre... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give us something worth buying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on. The 60s and 70s didn't have fodder music? Please.
When's the last time you listened to your Soft Machine albums? When's the last time you listened to Wendy Carlos? Or how about Iron Butterfly?
Every era of music has trash and time washes it away to expose what of value is left. The Beastie Boys are the Rolling Stones of tomorrow. Bands like Iron Butterfly and Canned Heat are only selling on Ryko comps today. In another 20 years we'll be seeing the commercials for comps that have crap on it like "Whoop! There It Is" and "Who Let The Dogs Out" and people who are the same age as you are today are going to buy them and say the same thing about the music of 2027.
It always bothers me that people claim there is no good music "like the stones" because they can't be bothered to give other music a try. I know if I only listened to my classic rock station the newest good music I would be hearing is The Clash too.
Fiddling with MIDI settings all day isn't producing music - it's computer programming.
Really? How about telling that to Tangerine Dream or Kraftwerk or Ash Ra Tempel? This type of thing has been going on for over 30 years, don't act like it's new. And if "fiddling with midi" is all it takes to sell an album you'd be doing it too. Just because a music is made with electronics doesn't make it easy. Granted that doesn't make it good either but there are tons of guys that "just decided to pick up a guitar" too. Some of them did well (like The Ramones and BTO*) and most ended up playing a few gigs for beers. It's really no different.
* Before anyone bitches, let's at least be honest enough to admit that bands like BTO and Grand Funk were simple "good times" music and not really the height of talent.
Re:How bizarre... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, until you actually RTFA and tell me why they're wrong, I'll stick with the only person who has developed a point so far: TFA.
Re:How bizarre... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How bizarre... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why does the RIAA still dominate, then? (Score:3, Insightful)
Market economics will quickly provide competition for short-term profit, but I suspect that markets don't innovate so well when the timescales are longer and the risks appear higher. The established market probably has to collapse in some way first, and some new bottom-up models emerge to fill the gap.
Sort of like an ecosystem that has ecological niches. You can't compete with the quick creatures that are already established if it takes you longer to get there, even if you would be bigger than them if you were allowed the chance.
Re:How bizarre... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the RIAA isn't about music. It's about money.
Artists hate dealing with business. Businesspeople know this, so they'll gladly flock to the "aid" of artists, telling them, "You just go and be artistic. We'll handle the business end for you." The trouble is that this lack of business savvy on the part of the artists attracts the bottom of the business barrel, the least scrupulous, most ambitious, laziest get-rich-quick bastards ever to earn an MBA.
They don't give two shits if you listen to music. They just want you to buy it, for as much as possible, as many times as possible.
Re:How bizarre... (Score:3, Insightful)
And you seem to buy into the RIAA fascists' doctrine that the creators have some kind of God-given Right to profit from their so-called "IP." Here's a news flash: they don't. Copyright only exists "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts," yet it has mutated into an abomination that hinders that progress instead. Therefore, it should be abolished with prejudice.
Perhaps what's immoral is upholding copyright, not violating it!
Re:The Original Report (Score:3, Insightful)
No kidding!
Q: What's the only advantage radio still has compared to my iPod?
A: Traffic reports.
Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not so sure. CD's are lacking any sort of copy protection or DRM, as were LPs before them.
The legislation to support DRM was put in place primarily with the DMCA which predates any sort of file sharing on a large scale. My guess is DRM was put in place primarily because of the *fear* of unauthorized file sharing, not from any losses.
But even if what you're saying is true, what do you propose? If people didn't commit crimes, we wouldn't need the police. If people at healthy, our health care costs would be lower. If people paid more attention on the roads we wouldn't need all those safety features in cars, etc etc.
But none of those things are true. The record companies can go one of two ways.... they either tighten down restriction on copying even more, or they remove it, lower prices, and go for higher volumes; at least change what they're doing somehow. It will be interesting to see what path they go down and if they fail or succeed.
I'm SHOCKED! (Score:1, Insightful)
In fact, I think it helps INCREASE it. I caught up on Futurama thanks to Usenet when I got into it toward the end of the first season, have since downloaded every episode, then bought the DVD sets, including the extra "Monster Robot Maniac" DVD. Ditto for Stargate; I got into it after it moved from Showtime to Sci-Fi, and am still working on buying the DVD sets.
I think the reason there has been no net gain in MUSIC sales is twofold:
- Most of today's music targets the lowest common denominator, and as such the quality suffers. In fact, it sucks. If you invest tens of millions into a few pop acts which you want to go multi-multi platinum, rather than a bunch of really, really good, but not cross-genre bands, you are digging yourself into a rut when people get sick of seeing Britney's mug everywhere
- Backlash for RIAA's lawsuits. I for one avoid exposure to new music. I shifted my entertainment dollars from buying up to 15 CDs per month to buying 5 to 15 DVDs per month. I do not download music, and my music collection is fairly large because I was buying CDs like mad when Napster let me conveniently try music before buying. I do not expose myself to new music any more because I do not want to be tempted to buy new material from large labels. Oh, I bought a couple of albums in recent years (Pink Floyd's In the Flesh, Gilmour's On Island), and will likely buy anything new The Police produce, but aside from the few bands I follow really closely, I'd just as soon skip it entirely.
For radio, I listen to talk, classical, and classic rock. I have pretty much all the classic rock one can own on CD (I still buy it, but only USED CDs), and pretty good renditions of standard classical pieces can be had for free from various Creative Commons web sites.
Fuck the RIAA, and fuck the MPAA.