Most File Sharers Would Pay For Legal Downloads

An anonymous reader writes "Two separate studies from Australia and Holland give the lie to corporate entertainment industry claims that file sharers are unprincipled thieves out to rob the honest but harshly treated movie and music studios. Over in Oz, news.com.au reports, 'Most people who illegally download movies, music and TV shows would pay for them if there was a cheap and legal service as convenient as file-sharing tools like BitTorrent.' And from the EU, 'Turnover in the recorded music industry is in decline, but only part of this decline can be attributed to file sharing,' says Legal, Economic and Cultural Aspects of File Sharing, an academic study, which also states, 'Conversely, only a small fraction of the content exchanged through file sharing networks comes at the expense of industry turnover. This renders the overall welfare effects of file sharing robustly positive.'"

People will even pay for first post

[2.7182]

This one cost me in karma probably.

Statistics

[kaoshin]

Most people might, if they had the money left over from so many others competing for their entertainment dollar. I don't mean to sound stupid, but I conversely and robustly positively don't understand what that from the second study means. On the other hand, proactively quantifying the synergy facilitated by that paradigm is a win-win situation for future-proof vertical markets, and I find that quite empowering.

Re:How Cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep.

That's why I don't use Linux. Yeah it's free, but if it cost half that amount, I'd gladly pay it.

Re:How Cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

But Linux does cost half of free. And if that's too much for you, it costs half of that too!

Re:How Cheap?

[flabordec]

But it also costs ten times as much as that! Trying to trick me? I don't think so!