Millions Delete ALL Music Files?

Honig the Apothecary writes "CNN is reporting that millions of people have deleted all the music files from their computers in a story here. My question is how the hell would they know? Are they substituting "deleted" for the words "disabled sharing with other users"?"

Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[seanadams.com]

Hi, this is jim joebob from the NPD group. We're doing a little survey to find out how many households have thrown away their pot. Do you still have a stash over 1oz, or have you disposed of all your contraband since the current crackdown went into effect?

Either way, please give me your name and address, and the pattywagon will arrive in 15 minutes.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[sharkey]

the pattywagon will arrive in 15 minutes.

MMmmmmm... burgers.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[I am Kobayashi]

Actually it isn't based on a poll, but rather 40,000 voluntary computer users who allow their computers to be monitored...

Hmm I wonder if people who know their computers are being monitored are more likely to delete their digital music files... Maybe that would affect the validity of this study, you think? :p

Here is the official press release [npd.com]

Note it states:

"Methodology Note: NPD MusicWatch Digital information is collected continuously from the PCs of 40,000 volunteer online panelists, balanced to represent the online population of PC users. NPD's MusicLab survey was fielded in September of 2003 to a representative sample of 5,000 respondents aged 13 and older."

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[loginx]

Call me paranoid but I wonder if those 40,000 'volunteers' are even aware that they have agreed to install monitoring software on their computer and that someone is checking everything they do.

I wouldn't even be surprised if the monitoring was handled by Gator :P

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[Pedrito]

Call me paranoid but I wonder if those 40,000 'volunteers' are even aware that they have agreed to install monitoring software on their computer and that someone is checking everything they do.

I agreed to what??? No, you can't have my liver!

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[Archfeld]

is that 40,000 real users or just 4000, with 40x cdrom drives installed ? :)

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[Schwartzboy]

I found this on The RIAA's website [riaa.com], an article I skimmed while looking for their take on these "facts" as reported by CNN. At the bottom of the article, I saw the following (emphasis is mine):

The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[Lectrik]

In the near future, popular music will be made by robots, and the kids won't be able to tell the difference.

And by 'near future' you mean the 1990's right?
You'll never convince me the boy bands aren't sing-droids. And don't even get me started on the spice girls or brittany and her clones

Good to see someone actually looked up the source

[emkman]

Kudos to you for actually going to the NPD site and finding out the basis of their claims before bitching on /.
And to answer your question:
Hmm I wonder if people who know their computers are being monitored are more likely to delete their digital music files... Maybe that would affect the validity of this study, you think? :p

Yes; this is called voluntary response bias in statistics. People with large collections of illegal files are much less likely to volunteer to have their PC watched, as you implied. Note from the official press release [npd.com] :Eighty percent of the consumers who deleted files had fewer than 50 files saved; just 10 percent had more than 200 files.
I think most people will agree that 80% having less than 50 songs is not an accurate representation of the file-sharing population.

How does 40,000 equal a million households?

[ScottGant]

40,000 volunteers....yet the press release title says "Millions of households". And then, the survey itself was fielded by only 5,000 respondents.

I may be a little behind the bell curve here, but how does that add up then to "millions" of households. I can understand maybe millions of files deleted...but I checked and rechecked the release and it plainly states "More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August".

Or is NPD MusicWatch Digital just a puppet of the RIAA? Spreading around a little FUD and dis-information...kinda like the inflated enemy body counts of Vietnam.

Re:How does 40,000 equal a million households?

[HardCase]

40,000 volunteers....yet the press release title says "Millions of households". And then, the survey itself was fielded by only 5,000 respondents.

I may be a little behind the bell curve here, but how does that add up then to "millions" of households. I can understand maybe millions of files deleted...but I checked and rechecked the release and it plainly states "More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August".

Through the miracle of statistics, it's possible (within a certain margin of error) to extrapolate information on the behavior of a large group of people by analyzing the behavior of a small (but representative) group of people. Thus, if you know how many households are involved in music sharing, you can apply the results of your sample to the population at large and get a very good idea of how that population will behave.

Or is NPD MusicWatch Digital just a puppet of the RIAA? Spreading around a little FUD and dis-information...kinda like the inflated enemy body counts of Vietnam.

It's just statistics, not a conspiracy!

-h-

Re:How does 40,000 equal a million households?

[letxa2000]

I understand all of that but...

but when the sample is large enough (and 5000 is certainly a large sample), it is also representative of the population whose behavior is being examined. Yes, there is some bias, but if the sample is large enough then that bias is small.

... I would disagree that the bias in this case is going to be small because it seems to me that my prison analogy IS correct. Specifically, the population that is willing to be monitored and/or answer honestly about their possession of pi

Re:How does 40,000 equal a million households?

[HardCase]

... I would disagree that the bias in this case is going to be small because it seems to me that my prison analogy IS correct. Specifically, the population that is willing to be monitored and/or answer honestly about their possession of pirated music is going to be SIGNIFICANTLY differen than the population as a whole, specifically those that share music.

Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree. You are making an assumption about the behavior of how people would answer a survey without having any data

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[laird]

'I wonder if clicking "I Agree" in any of thier software installations made them become "volunteers".'

NPD doesn't sneak software onto people's computers. People on NPD's panels know that they are panelists. They are recruited, surveyed (gender, age, etc.) and qualified into specific surveys, and are compensated for participating in the panels.

Of course, since the panelists know that they're on the panel, NPD has control mechanisms and statistical models to compensate in this surve, as they do when surveying what magazines people read, what food they like, and so on.I don't know the details of their methodology, but their research is trusted in a huge range of consumer surveys, and they've always had good answers to my questions, so my starting assumption is that they did a pretty good job on this survey as well, unless someone picks out specific flaws.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[The_K4]

And half and hour after then monitoring software is uninstalled, they can get all their digital music files back off of the iPod. :)

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[laird]

"Good answers? Usually I like correct answers more..."

OK, I'll elaborate on their answers to my questions, and why I found them satisfactory. For example, when I asked them about whether people tended to read the first questions on a survey more closely, and skim the later ones, they said that they knew that, and permute their question sequence across the sample set, so that the bias would average out. This also compensates for any sequencing artifact, where one question will affect the answer to the next question, because the questions will appear in the opposite sequence 1/2 the time. They've also mentioned compensating for people's desire to please surveyors by saying "yes" more often than "no" to questions, by phrasing test questions both positively and negatively (i.e. "yes" to one means "no" to the other) so that they can model the difference compensate across other questions. And they make sure that their panel mirrors the general public in terms of age, gender, income and geographical distribution. Heck, I saw one survey where they made sure that the panelists had a representative distribution of computer configurations and modem speeds so that they didn't bias the sample by having too many panelists on broadband and fast PC's...

So I can't say that I've talked with them about this study, but I'm pretty sure that they thought of obvious factors like "people deny doing illegal things".

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[shotfeel]

What I want to know is why did they delete them?

The fact that people feel they need to delete all the music files on their computer is downright scary.

Why scary?

Its not illegal to have music files on your computer! Did they delete "legal" and "illegal" ones alike? If so that means the RIAA has scared people into believing they aren't allowed to have music on their computer.

To me it means the RIAA, MPAA, FTC, courts and elected officials have us afraid to fully use technology in a way that is beneficial to us. We're now afraid we may be dragged into court and fined $millions for having music on our computer. We're being told more and more what we can't do, and not what we can do.

Sorry for the ranting, but its sickening to me to think that so many people may be deleting "legal" music from their computer all because of FUD.

Whatever happened to the pursuit of happiness?

Re:Lies, damned lies, and dumb polls...

[ghost-hacked]

Q:Whatever happened to the pursuit of happiness?
A:Hallmark finaly caught it, broke its spirit, and put it on a greeting card.

That's the same number of people

[Anonymous Coward]

that downloaded the new britney cd. Coincidence?

They're Right!!

[MrCaseyB]

Well Duh! Of course we are deleting all the music files from my computer. How else am I going to have enough disk space for all the pirated HD broadcasts [slashdot.org] I will be downloading?

HD TV rips make me sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Because even heavily compressed, they look so much better than anything I get via regular TV/cable.

Of course, were reinstalling Windows

[dnoyeb]

This happens every 6 months as we all reinstall windows...

On a less serious note, these stories are very important for helping us to understand the credability of the agancies that report them. ;)

Me too

[NickDngr]

Yeah, I did too. In fact I deleted everything. Prove I didn't.

Re:Me too

[Anonymous Coward]

I deleted all the music files from my machine when I reinstalled the OS. Of course, then I loaded them on again from my backup, does that count?

I'd like to see...

[Da Fokka]

How they measure 'file deletions' consumers' PCs... Spyware?!

Re:I'd like to see...

[way2trivial]

See the press release at npd
http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_031105.h tm

it's done via telephone survey apparently

Re:I'd like to see...

[IWorkForMorons]

Suuuuuurrree now...I can just picture it:

SurveyGuy: Yes, hello. I'm calling in regards to a survey we are conducting. We would like to know if you have deleted all the illegal music files from your computer since the recent RIAA legal proceedings started?

HipHopFreak: Uh...YEAH! I deleted them all, because I really want to pay for all the music I listen too. Really...believe me. I don't have any more illegal music files. REALLY! You don't have to send the cops here...

SurveyGuy: Sir, we're

Re:I'd like to see...

[rhombic]

Yeah, that's my point-- I'm pretty well familiar with sampling, given it's my job. And a truly random 40,000 sample would be plenty to give you 95% conf. in a 1e8 population (actually, it'd give you well over 99% for a yes/no question, probably with a margin of 1-2% depending on where the responses landed). IF the sample was properly selected.

The technique is called random sampling, and it hasn't been applied here. This is a self-selecting (or at least voluntary response, they didn't indicate how they got

Better check my server...

[OS24Ever]

...wait, no, all 40GB of files are still on there. Of course they're all legally ripped from the CDs I purchased since I was a kid that are all stored in a nice box in my TV room...

What's the difference?

[r_glen]

As far as the RIAA is concered, deleting and 'unsharing' are same thing.
Their goal is to stop filesharing, not convince users to pay for what they already downloaded.

Re:What's the difference?

[Pingular]

As far as the RIAA is concered, deleting and 'unsharing' are same thing.
I'm sure they're not AS bothered if you're not sharing them, but if they had a way of finding files on your computer WITHOUT you connecting to a P2P network they'd try and sue you if you had a sufficient amount.

Re:What's the difference?

[Mattcelt]

Believe you me, if there was a feasible way for them to do just that, they would. Remember the legislation they were trying to get passed which would allow them to legally hack into people's computers?

Don't ever underestimate greed as a motivating factor.

They may not be unsharing

[Sycraft-fu]

Kazaa Lite has a feature that allows you to block listing of your files, but not sharing. So, if someone it trying to download a file, your computer would oblighe them if it has it. However, if someone tries to get a list of what you have, it reports nothing. I guess the reasoning is you can still share, but the RIAA et al can't find a list of all the shit you have to go after you with.

Deleted or Burned?

[Gr33nNight]

Take out deleted and add in burned. With cd writers being under $50, and with blank cds being damn near free, it makes a lot more sence to just burn all your mp3s instead of archiving them on your hard drive.

Re:Deleted or Burned?

[uberdave]

I don't have a burner, and I am unlikely to get one. They are too small nowadays. A 120G hard drive costs about as much as a burner + 120G worth of media and would give me online access to my entire collection, not to mention the space savings. Why switch?

Re:Deleted or Burned?

[G27 Radio]

For people that actually leave their computers, burning music onto a CD can be handy ;)

Ya, right.

[Mullen]

They're just like me, they burn them onto CDROM instead and then delete the files...TO MAKE ROOM FOR MORE PIRATED MUSIC! [Evil laugh...]

Correction

[sulli]

RIAA member Time Warner is reporting that millions of people have deleted all the music files from their computers.

Also on the page (I'm not kidding, look yourself):

RELATED
Music swappers sued, amnesty unveiled
Why I've stopped sharing music
Study: CDs may soon go the way of vinyl
12-year-old settles music swap lawsuit
Why suing college students for music downloading is right
Details of RIAA's amnesty program: Musicunited.org

CNN: The Least Trusted Name In News.

Re:Correction

[Casshan-Robot Hunter]

I actually read the article entitled 'Why suing college students for music downloading is right'

I wonder if the writer's RIAA masters gave her a nice treat when that article was finished? Here you go, nice reporter, good reporter, would you like a tummy rub?

Of course, it's not like I actually believed that there was some un-slanted journalism out there, but come on! Surprise me once in a while.

Re:Correction

[gregmac]

I actually read the article entitled 'Why suing college students for music downloading is right'

As did I. How does such bad journalism make it to cnn.com..

Was it not for copyright's ability to build fences around intangible goods such as lyrics and melodies, a performer like Loretta Lynn would not have been able to leave Butcher Holler, Kentucky, and share her gifts with the world.Was it not for copyright's ability to build fences around intangible goods such as lyrics and melodies, a performer like Loretta Lynn would not have been able to leave Butcher Holler, Kentucky, and share her gifts with the world.

So without copyright, they never would have made it. Oh, ok. I guess I'll just take your word for it, since you didn't provide any reasoning or proof behind that statement - which the rest of the article is based on, I might add.

Re:Correction

[Datasage]

Yup, cnn is own by time warner. They also own all of these music labels.

Warner Music Group - Recording Labels
The Atlantic Group
Atlantic Classics
Atlantic Jazz
Atlantic Nashville
Atlantic Theater
Big Beat
Blackground
Breaking
Igloo
Lava
Mesa/Blu emoon
Modern
1 43
Rhino Records
Elektra Entertainment Group
Elektra
EastWest
Asylum
Elektra/Sire
Wa rner Brothers Records
Warner Brothers
Warner Nashville
Warner Alliance
Warner Resound
Warner Sunset
Reprise
Reprise Nashville
American Recordings
Giant
Maverick
Revolution
Qwest
Wa rner Music International
WEA Telegram
East West ZTT
Coalition
CGD East West
China
Continential
DRO East West
Erato
Fazer
Finlandia
Magneoton
MCM
Non esuch
Teldec
Other Recording Interests
Warner/Chappell Music (publishing company)
WEA Inc. (sales, distribution and manufacturing)
Ivy Hill Corporation (printing and packaging)
Warner Special Products

Source: http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/timewarner.asp [cjr.org]

Re:Correction

[BJZQ8]

I love these lines from another CNN Story... "In a culture without copyright, only the rich, or the government-sponsored, could be this culture's full-time creators. Poor artists such as Loretta Lynn would have to flip burgers long into their music careers -- and might even give up on music entirely." So, instead, in a culture WITH copyright, only the rich and government-sponsored (through government-protected monopolies) are this culture's full-time creators. Poor artists flip burgers even though they have multi-platinum selling albums, while the music companies get billions.

Re:Correction

[(trb001)]

The funny part is, Loretta Lynn didn't get bubkus because of copyright, she got where she was because she worked her tail off performing live and distributing her music to every radio station around, usually by hand. People weren't trying to copy her music...in fact, while she was 'rising to the top' she would have been only too happy to have someone play her music and make it more famous.

--trb

Re:Correction

[sharkey]

CNN: The Least Trusted Name In News.

Ahem [foxnews.com]

Re:Correction

[BrynM]

Seems there aren't many to trust in news. In the spirit of the poster above [slashdot.org], these are the assets of News Corporation, Fox's parent company from the Columbia Journalism Review [cjr.org]:

Television
Fox Broadcasting Company Fox Television Stations
WNYW - New York City , WWOR - New York City , KTTV - Los Angeles , KCOP - Los Angeles , WFLD - Chicago , WPWR - Chicago , KMSP - Minneapolis , WFTC - Minneapolis , WTXF - Philadelphia , WFXT - Boston , WTTG - Washington D.C. , KDFW - Dallas , KDFI - Dallas , WJBK - Detroit , KUTP - Phoenix , KSAZ - Phoenix , WUTB - Baltimore , WRBW - Orlando , WOFL - Orlando , WOGX - Ocala , WAGA - Atlanta , KRIV - Houston , KTXH - Houston , WJW - Cleveland , WTVT - Tampa , KDVR - Denver , KTVI - St. Louis , WITI - Milwaukee , WDAF - Kansas City , KSTU - Salt Lake City , WHBQ - Memphis , WGHP - Greensboro , WBRC - Birmingham , KTBC - Austin
BSkyBFOXTEL , SKYPerfecTV , STAR , Stream , Fox News Channel , Fox Movie Channel , FX , National Geographic Channel , SPEED Channel , Fox Sports Net , Fox Sports South , Fox Sports Pittsburgh , Fox Sports Southeast , Fox Sports Midwest , Fox Sports Rocky Mountain , Fox Sports Arizona , Fox Sports Northwest , Fox Sports West , Fox Sports West#2 , Fox Sports Detroit , Fox Sports Bay Area (with Rainbow Media Holdings) , Fox Sports Chicago (with Rainbow Media Holdings) , Fox Sports New England (with Rainbow Media) , Fox Sports New York (with Rainbow Media) , Fox Sports Ohio (with Rainbow Media) , Fox Sports Intermountain West , Fox Sports Southwest , Sunshine Network , Madison Square Garden Network
Film
20th Century Fox , Fox Searchlight Pictures , Fox Television Studios
Newspapers
United StatesNew York Post
United KingdomNews International , News of the World , The Sun , The Sunday Times , The Times
AustraliaDaily Telegraph , Fiji Times , Gold Coast Bulletin , Herald Sun , Newsphotos , Newspix , Newstext , NT News , Post-Courier , Sunday Herald Sun , Sunday Mail , Sunday Tasmanian , Sunday Territorian , Sunday Times , The Advertiser , The Australian , The Courier-Mail , The Mercury , The Sunday Telegraph , Weekly Times
Magazines
InsideOut , donna hay , SmartSource , The Weekly Standard , TV Guide (partial)
Books
HarperCollins PublishersHarperCollins General Book Group , HarperCollins , Perennial , Cliff Street Books , The Ecco Press , Quill , HarperAudio , Regan Books , Amistad Press , Zondervan , Morrow/Avon , William Morrow , Avon , HarperTorch , Eos , HarperEntertainment , HarperSanFrancisco , HarperInformation , HarperBusiness , HarperResource , Access Travel , William Morrow Cookbooks , Branded Books Program
HarperCollins Children's Book GroupGreenwillow Books , Joanna Cotler Books , Laura Geringer Books , HarperCollins HarperFestival , HarperTrophy , Tempest
Other
Los Angeles Dodgers , New York Rangers & New York Knicks (20% - Through partnership with Cablevision) , Los Angeles Kings (NHL, 40% option) , Los Angeles Lakers (NBA, 9.8% option) , Staples Center (40% owned by Fox/Liberty) , News America New Media , Fox Sports Radio Network , Broadsystem , Festival Records , Fox Interactive , Mushroom Records , National Rugby League , NDS , News Interactive , News Outdoor , Nursery World
last updated 7/21/03

Re:Correction

[dabadab]

I think the worst of them all is:

Why suing college students for music downloading is right

It is, because it explicitly says the downloading is illegal. It is NOT. In fact, no one has been sued because of downloading.
Downloading is legal.
RIAA sues people because of uploading (i.e. distibution - because that is what copyright regulates).
I think they are spreading misinformation purposefully (as this article is coming from a law expert) and I guess we should counter this FUD as much as possible.

Re:Correction

[Epistax]

The article is from reuters, not CNN, you silly, silly bastard.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August, a sign that the record industry's anti-piracy tactics are hitting home, research company NPD Group said. ...

Re:Correction

[sulli]

Even counting Fox News?

On this issue, yes. CNN has a much worse conflict of interest.

They're all crap though. This is just a really good case in point.

BBC, NPR, PBS

[sulli]

Your (or some Brit's) tax dollars at work. Sometimes they suck too but I find them to be slightly more "fair and balanced" than the corporate networks.

Re:So boycott them

[NanoGator]

"If you buy CDs you're paying the RIAA to sic lawyers on 12 year old girls."

If you don't buy CDs the RIAA sics lawyers on 12 year old girls.

Wanna get their attention? Buy a CD then return it unopened and in re-sellable shape. When a million dollars materializes one day and disappears the next, they'll have to notice.

Delete, yeah thats what I did.

[Coyote67]

Thats right horribly evil RIAA lawyers, I deleted my mp3s, so please don't sue me. Its not like I just moved them out of the shared folder or anything. Wait....oh crap.

my how far they've fallen

[SubtleNuance]

Its sad that modern american corporate media can be such obvious tools.

How can they publish such obvious self-serving corporate propaganda? Did CNN, or the author ever stop to think "hey, maybe they're assumptions are rigged in order for them to recieve some personal gain?" You'd think that they'd question the source of the information they'd base such a story on.

Re:my how far they've fallen

[mahdi13]

How can a million file deleters be wrong? Delete all YOUR mp3s now!
If you don't all the kids at school are going to make fun of you!

Why yes, non-affiliated research company, ...

[burgburgburg]

I have deleted all music files on my computer. Therefore, I should not be sued by the RIAA. Not that my answers to you would directly effect their decision as to whether to sue me or not, because you are an independent research company, not corporate flunkies who'd narc me out the second I get off the phone.

Where do they get these numbers?

[l810c]

Has anyone on Slashdot ever participated in a survey that asked if you had deleted mp3's?

I took a couple of marketing classes and I understand the principals involed in calculating marketing data, but where are they getting their data?

In May, 606,000 households deleted ALL mp3's. 1,400,000 in August. Let's just say that 1mil/month for 4 months. 4,000,000 HOUSEHOLDS(not people) in 4 months. At that rate mp3's will be wiped from existence sometime next year. It just doesn't add up.

whoops!

[wo1verin3]

>> Millions Delete ALL Music Files?

I delete my thousand music files once a month when I reinstall Windows because the damn OS is so unstable. Over the past year I've deleted 12000 music files, the same ones twelve times.

Methodology

[Snot Locker]

The original press release is here [npd.com]. In it, it states:

Methodology Note: NPD MusicWatch Digital information is collected continuously from the PCs of 40,000 volunteer online panelists, balanced to represent the online population of PC users. NPD's MusicLab survey was fielded in September of 2003 to a representative sample of 5,000 respondents aged 13 and older.

Still, you have to believe their volunteer panelists wouldn't fess up to having any downloaded music given the current RIAA intimidation tactics.

Re:Methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

This note completely explains the situation. These people volunteered to be monitored. They had big MP3 collections and thought "Eh, maybe legal, maybe not, but who cares, nothing will come of it." Then they hear about lawsuits.

Now, since they *volunteered* to be monitored, of course they want to delete all their MP3's. It's kind of like saying "100% of drug dealers who volunteered to have their houses searched with several hours notice have been found to have NO DRUGS!"

Yeah, sure, of course. But that number isn't going to be representitive of all drug dealers.

Ah, useless survey data

[freeweed]

Yeah, this reminds me of "surveys" we would take in high school.

Half the kids (the 'good' ones) would never admit to having done drugs, or had sex, even if they had. They were worried that the school would tell their parents somehow, that it wasn't truly anonymous.

The other half of us.. well let's just say that at 14 I was having sex at least twice a day, drinking probably 40 ounces of alcohol a night, and had done crack twice in the past week alone. Oh, and I was also a gay transvestite horse-buggerer (for the surveys that had write-on options).

Since when?

[grasshoppa]

Since when has been ok to post stories and articles without backing it up with proof?

Now, were this a link to The Weekly World News, that'd be different. ( I love that rag )

Re:Since when?

[pmz]

Since when has been ok to post stories and articles without backing it up with proof?

I'm pretty sure they teach this as a fundamental strategy in the journalist training camps.

That's simple...

[the_skywise]

We asked 2 people if they had deleted all their files. 1 said yes, the other said no. We factored that in against the population of the US, # of computer users, # of estimated song downloaders, and then against a .5% factor of error...

Voila 1.4 million people have deleted their music drives. That'll be 5 cents please.

Hmmm

[boschmorden]

If you go to NPD Group's website and click on their press release, they had this to say: "Methodology Note: NPD MusicWatch Digital information is collected continuously from the PCs of 40,000 volunteer online panelists, balanced to represent the online population of PC users. NPD's MusicLab survey was fielded in September of 2003 to a representative sample of 5,000 respondents aged 13 and older." How were those volunteer panelists chosen? Perhaps they were provided by their client the RIAA from people who signed their on-line forgiveness document. It's hard to believe any of this information when their clients spend a lot of money to get the answer they want. I could probably produce a study showing that music-swapping is up 400% by monkeys in Nepal.

Re:Hmmm

[OzPhIsH]

information is collected continuously from the PCs of 40,000 volunteer online panelists

Ok, so all this really says, is that there are 40,000 people who know that information is collected continuously from the PCs, and of these people, millions of mp3s were deleted. This means NOTHING. Come on now, if you volunteered to have your system monitored 24/7 wouldn't you delete all those files too? People are pretty wise now to the actions of the RIAA and the whole legality issue surrounding mp3s. I wouldn't tr

Deleting music files?

[jon787]

I just deleted Windows so I would have more space for stuff like that!

Obligatory Penny-Arcade Link

[FrEaK7782]

Ya, they deleted it all... [penny-arcade.com]

Windows & HD crashes

[FJ]

That is probably true if you count all of the users who accidentally delete a critical file or Windows being so screwed up a re-install is the only option. Not to mention the occasional HD crash or scratched CD.

typical bad journalism...

[Fooknut]

There is no way they could know that.... but the RIAA probably loves them saying it... "Look ma, we're winning!"
Some probably have deleted everything our of fear... but those are the users who simply don't know the difference between a bark and a bite from the paper tiger.
I haven't deleted a single music file, and I doubt most have...

This is just another PR story for the RIAA.

Its obvious

[Lord_Dweomer]

(conspiracy theory cap on)
Well, I think its obvious how CNN knew this. The RIAA probably uploaded one of those viruses to Kazaa that delete all your music files. They also have a team who keeps track of every machine it affects, along with the persons name, street address, and credit card info (for automatic billing of the $90B fine). CNN simply said they wanted to do an article about how the RIAA was winning their battle against the EVIL pirates. So they supplied them with the info showing how many peo

all music files are not illegal music files

[Zed2K]

So basically all this is saying that they've needlessly scared enough people to delete anything with a .mp3 extension on their computers whether they ripped them from owned cd's or not.

There's a reason I haven't bought a cd in almost 3 years.

I regularly wipe my music

[ItWasThem]

Because my hard drive only holds so much! You go through a cycle of fill the drive, burn them all off to a bunch of CD-Rs, wipe it, rinse, repeat :)

Seriously though, the genie is out of the bottle. They can quote all the surverys and statistics they want. If you tell me though that this month Kazaa usage was down 10% I'll assume eDonkey's went up by at least that.

These people aren't stopping, they're just moving on to the next safe haven the same way they all moved from napster (cough sellouts cough) to k

Don't forget that CNN is...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

owned by Time Warner who also puts out a lot of music. Here's the RIAA members list [chaozation.com] BTW. Warner Brothers is a member.

Yeah, I deleted all my MP3s

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

AFTER I burned them to CD

I can't help it

[jlechem]

My PC went beep beep beep and suddenly all my mp3's were gone!

*ducks*

Threadkilling since 1992

Other possibly misinterpreted numbers

[TrekkieGod]

From the article:

NPD also found that the number of households acquiring digital music via peer-to-peer file-sharing services declined by 11 percent from August to September, during the traditional summer holiday for college students.

What exactly would attribute this to a success of the RIAA's anti-piracy tactics rather than the fact that students are leaving their T3 connected dorms and returning to their parents dial-up?

To be fair, the article didn't state any connection of these numbers to the RI

Uh oh

[Trolling4Dollars]

Are they substituting "deleted" for the words "disabled sharing with other users"?"

GEEZ!!!! Will you shut up!? We're counting on the fact that the RIAA doesn't know the difference. ;P

People I've talked to

[aliens]

I don't know about millions, but I've talked to a couple of people who have deleted all their music before I explained to them sharing.

You have to understand 95% of people using Kazaa and such have Zero idea what happens. All they know is that they can get free music and now people are getting sued.

Destroying music

[Dust Puppy]

Anyone else reminded of the communist "Cultural Revolution" in China?

Well, using RIAA logic

[GreenCrackBaby]

...wouldn't this mean that RIAA member companies should see their CD sales soar again. Afterall, every time you download an illegal MP3, you're taking away the money you would have spent on CDs from RIAA. With all those MP3s gone, people will have no choice but to go out and buy all those songs.

Recount...

[VivianC]

Dear NPD,

I would just like to inform you that I have not deleted any of my several thousand music files. I have simply deleted Kazaa and moved over to *CENSORED*. Please adjust your count accordingly.

good grief.

[Lumpy]

Nothing like reading a RIAA paid INFO-tisement.

and I really love how they still paint ANY music file as illigitimate and EVIL.

I'm educating my daughter and her friends, they spend at least 2 days a week surfing on www.iuma.org for new indie bands to download and they have cince stopped listening to RIAA music on the radio. My daughter has asked if I could buy her a few of the CD of artists she likes, they ALL are unsigned bands from IUMA.

when you discover that there is an alternative source that only takes a bit of effort to get better quality music.... I can see why the RIAA is extremely afraid of music files.

Remember

[Metaldsa]

The RIAA represents big record labels such as Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment, Vivendi's Universal Music and Time Warner's Warner Music. Time-Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.

So one of the companies underneath the RIAA is reporting something they find favorable. Its not surprising. I'm sure if some 10 person company came out with a survey that people loved the RIAA's new tactics they would publish that too.

Journalistic integrity is not always held to a high standard. This comes up when they can pass the credibility to another company. This time its the "research company NPD Group" or whoever the fuck they are.

Well sure I'm deleting them ! ...

[bushboy]

I need space for my divx screener collection dammit !

Deleted, but not defeated!

[gorfie]

I personally deleted all of my mp3's as well as all traces of said mp3's in the registry because I didn't want to chance being harassed. However, I also have not purchased a CD since then nor will I ever purchase one in the future.

The music industry stifles musical creativity by picking up the latest britney clones and telling the masses that they are popular. Even the artists that are lucky enough to be chosen don't make anything from the CD sales. It's all about some old man somewhere making 90% profit from each CD sold, just because a group of those guys controls what gets sold to stores, what plays on the radio, and what is seen on MTV.

I can safely say that I've given up on the music industry and the only time I am exposed is when I'm in the car and the radio happens to be on. Good riddance Recording Industry Ass. of America. You can take your pop music and shove it up your ass.

My bad

[Cyno]

I'm sorry about all the confusion. I deleted millions of songs off my computer. I work for Time Warner, so I guess some of my coworkers might have noticed. Sorry about that.

Harnessing the power of groupthink via propaganda

[DwarfGoanna]

In other news:

Um...millions of hot cheerleaders have had sex with ME! They obviously had a good reason, and you would hate to upset the status quo, right? In fact, many cheerleaders that have refused to have sex with me have been sued by large faceless corporate conglomerates.

(whoo-hoo!)

RIAA

[bs_02_06_02]

The RIAA is a political organization, looking to ban technology to save their business model.
The recording industry fatcats want their money, and are scared of new technology. No one wants to split from the group and try selling music in any other fashion than the current model. They feel threatened. The industry is behaving exactly like they did during the cassette tape scare, just like the motion picture industry was scared of the VCR and video tape. Remember movie rentals? VHS videos were frequently $100 or more until used movies became available... and movie houses started dropping their retail prices down to the current prices.
Movie rentals threatened the movie industry, until they realized that it actually developed new markets for their material.

The RIAA is not filled with innovative, bright individuals. The RIAA throws money at weak-minded, spineless senators and congresspeople like Conyer, Fritz Hollings, and any politician from California (Berman, Feinstein, etc.). The recording industry sees technology as the end of their business. They are in denial. The emperor has no clothes.
What's really funny is that they also profit from the downloaders. They research what the downloaders' are trading, and call the radio stations to increase air time, which sells more CDs. Hypocrites! They profit from the very process they're trying to stop.
I don't fault them for researching the downloaders' behavior. That's the bright people helping the record biz survive.
The political side of the biz is what I can't stand. This is why most people can't stand politicians or the courts.

Politicians choose not to understand the technology, they choose to listen to those with the biggest pocketbooks. Ostriches... with their heads in sand.
With the RIAA and Fritz Hollings' old method of thinking, the school systems should only be using chalkboards and chalk. The police will be stopping by later to pick up your VCR, computer, and cassette tape recorder.
"No new technology, it ruins our business."

I doubt its a coincidence...

[TerminalInsanity]

The RIAA represents big record labels such as Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment, Vivendi's Universal Music and Time Warner's Warner Music. Time-Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.

I wonder how much influence RIAA has on CNN... With other storys titled " Why suing college students for illegal music downloading is right [cnn.com] " and " Why I've stopped sharing music [cnn.com] ", im guessing alot.

If im counted in the 'millions' statistic, they are wrong... i, and many people i know have stopped publicly sharing, and started sharing to people we download from and know :)

I can't speak for the statistics, but

[SplendidIsolatn]

I know of more than a few non-technical people who still were able to figure out Napster/Kazaa/etc and download songs who deleted EVERY .mp3 the second they heard about RIAA lawsuits/etc. They didn't understand that the RIAA was going after sharers--they heard 'mp3' and 'lawsuit' in the same sentence and freaked out. Granted, this is just anecdotal and not representative of the whole population, but I think it's an attitude more than just a few people had.

I have a feeling a good number of other people did the same thing, even if they did just rip the music from their purchased CDs. To the uninformed, it must look really scary.

RIAA on winning back our hearts ...

[fygment]

To quote the original release:

The music industry's success in reducing file-sharing activity has been impressive, but now the real work of winning back the hearts and minds of consumers must begin," Crupnick said. "To capitalize on this success, the industry must re-double efforts to educate the file-sharing public about how illegal file sharing affects not just the industry's bottom line, but also the artists themselves and the ability of the industry to continue to offer a wide range of new music to consumers. New legal ways to purchase digital music on the Web can work hand-in-glove with these education efforts and help to improve the public's perception of the music industry."

Not a single mention about winning our hearts and minds with better content, fairer prices, or better treatment of artists. No. They want to reemphasize how BAD the public has been. Yes, the floggings will continue until morale improves!

The RIAA so profoundly does not get it ...

of course I deleted mine...

[julez]

I have 15GB to fill on my iPod and that frees up a heck of a lotta room on my hard drive for more games!

The world according to RIAA statistics

[azaris]

If 1.4 million deleted all their MP3s and we assume the average P2Pirate had 100 illegal MP3s with the well-known value of $2,500 per track, this means RIAA member companies just made a net profit of:

1.4 * 10^6 * 100 * 2500 = 350 billion USD

WHAT THE FUCK

[greymond]

I think CNN's interpretation of "Deleted" is actually just wishful thing. Although I bet a lot of kids have been yelled at by Mom and Dad and probably grounded from "web use" for having kazaa installed.

On a side note (sorta related) I saw the Matrix Revo- last night and before the movie was this ad about software piracy and why it's wrong because lot's of people work hard to make good movies. This was laughed at, booed, and general flaming comments shouted by the audiance at the ad.

RTFA

[phreak03]

I read this is the wall street journal the other day.
A company has got 10,000 people to install monitoring softward on their computers, and they use that to gague internet behavior.

How many pirates would volenteer to have monitoring software on their computer?
Heck it was probebly a spyware tool used to check for this... Most of the people only had a few
songs that stoped shareing, hardly cutting down on the masses

Price of Policy

[_Sprocket_]

Everything has a price. In this case, what is being described as a successful strategy also has a price: public perception. CNN's bit touches on this:

A related NPD survey of consumer perception, however, found that consumers' overall opinion of the recording industry is suffering due to the RIAA's move to sue hundreds of people alleged to have illegally shared music online.

Which makes sense. But it misses some subtle and interesting points highlighted by NPD's press release [npd.com]:

A MusicLab survey fielded by NPD in September noted that consumers' overall impressions of the recording industry were negatively affected by threats of litigation. Two-thirds of consumers who had recently shared files on P2P networks reported that the lawsuits caused them to have a "much more" or "somewhat more" negative opinion of record companies in general. Just over 40 percent of consumers who had not downloaded music in the previous four weeks felt similarly.

It should not be a shock to anyone that file traders might find the RIAA's actions distastefull. After all - they're the ones either directly affected or threatned by it. But what's interesting is that it appears that the same negative reaction is being expressed by those who are either casual traders or not involved in file trading at all.

This aludes to the often-expressed opinion that it is dangerous to sue one's customer base. It will be interesting to see if the Industry is able to manage this increasingly negative opinion and, if not, if it will affect the bottom line.

On Reuters and the AP

[Captain McCrank]

These news services have people who are on staff that are paid to create content. My Aunt is actually a writer for the AP and I learned something very interesting a few months back that has totally improved my perspective on articles like this.

Editors ask writers to create content on subjects that they think will be picked up by other news services. The union rules state that the writer retains the right to withold their name on a story if they feel the story is inaccurate or if they disagree with what they've been asked to write. Editors hate when writers do this because those in the industry know what a authorless article implies. This is why you will sometimes see stories from the AP or Reuters that do reference the author:

Move Over Beauty Queens, Italy Seeks Miss Digital [yahoo.com]

And others that don't:

Dog Shoots Man [yahoo.com]

So what does this mean to you, the critical consumer of news? If an article carries the author's name, it means they endorse it's content - they believe in the validity of it. If it does not, it means the writer was either forced to create content that they didn't agree with or believe was accurate or that the writer was up against a deadline and failed to provide content that they were proud of.

The cnn article, interestingly, does not provide an author. Any thoughts on why? The question of how they know content was deleted is awfully vital to getting the point of this article across. It really doesn't seem to stand up to scrutiny.

All of a sudden.......

[blankmange]

I deleted all the illegal things off of my PC and then all I saw was

/C:

what the hell is that????

Re:Deleted?

[digitalsushi]

yeah, but they'll only have the copy on their machine for 2 hours after it gets finished downloading...

Re:Don't forget...

[Thud457]

"I felt a great disturbance in the kazaa, it was like millions of files cried out at once and then were silent..."

Re:Another possibility

[rhombic]

The study measures deletion of songs off users' hard drives, not pirated music only. I have an actual social conscience, and an aversion to lawsuits. Yet, I have several gigs of music on my harddrive. Every song on the machine is from a CD that I have stacked in my closet, from which I've ripped the song as per my court-approved fair use rights. On a regular basis, I space-shift those songs off the HD onto a memory card to listen to in flight. None of this is even a little illegal, despite the RIAAs telling