Study Says P2P Downloaders Buy More Music 158
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist posts to his site about a study commissioned by the Canadian government intended to look into the buying habits of music fans. What the study found is that 'there is a positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing.' The report is entitled The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study For Industry Canada, and it was 'conducted collaboratively by two professors from the University of London, Industry Canada, and Decima Research, who surveyed over 2,000 Canadians on their music downloading and purchasing habits. The authors believe this is the first ever empirical study to employ representative microeconomic data.'"
Bias in the study? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it curious that they would phrase their results in such a manner. From the data gathered in the study, I believe it is impossible to determine causation. To me, this throws their entire credibility into question.
Re:Bias in the study? (Score:5, Insightful)
But at least this study shows that people who download, will still buy CDs.
And people who don't buy CDs are less likely to use p2p too.
So, simply people who like music will get it, be it CD or P2P.
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Maybe Sony would start making decent hardware again....
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Re:Bias in the study? (Score:4, Interesting)
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And yes. I don't have ANY music files on all my PCs execpt for those that came with the games I installed. And I don't own an MP3 player.
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(my first car analogy on
So anyway, I would argue that
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And I'd agree
Re:Bias in the study? (Score:4, Insightful)
To take your car analogy farther, if some guy, just because he had an MBA, told Toyota they could eliminate the used car market by act of congress, and their sales of new cars would go up, prices would remain as high as they are, and the extra money required would be produced by the customers with no losses to the industry, they wouldn't work for Toyota anymore. When do the stockholders of the RIAA members get the same clue?
Since recorded music is very far from a necessity, at least compared to cars or housing, how did this industry ever entertain the nut-bar idea they could eliminate used sales and not hurt themselves in the process? Used sales help prop up their price structure, yet the RIAA is treating them as another problem instead of an ally, just like they did radio, the cassette deck and DAT.
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I tend to agree, but I am not completely content with irrationality as an explanation, my opinion is that RIAA is most afraid of the P2P internet as a promotional channel, not just as a piracy channel. They want to have a few, big, controlled outlets on the net as they have for radio and tv because they feel more in control. But, since this control actually divides the consumer for his potential fave music and so it hurts sales, I must get my tin
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All this is very different from the RIAA being fundamentally irrati
Re:Bias in the study? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't quite know how you consider my buying a
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I just download discographies. you can love me or hate me (or both)
but this is a post I made on the whole university defying the RIAA over on the 'gg' site...
"Oh really, why don't you explain to us how this artist will make money by distributing his product for free."
merchandising, gigs... you know -- what they've done for hundreds of years before the mafiaa came on the scene?
Keep in mind that most artists make NOTHING fro
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Anyway, I've been saying this for a couple years now, since I realized it: Downloading music causes people to get excited about music, resulting in them spending _more_ on music than if they hadn't "pirated" anything. When someone doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about music, that person is not going to spend time or money buying a lot of music.
I've switched to non-RIAA music anyway...here's wh
Does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bias in the study? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want evidence, just take a look into my past. When I was in high school, I lived in the country. There were no FM stations. The local AM station carried Country and Western. I didn't buy much music. LP's and 8 tracks were popular along with brick size mono compact tape recorders with fidelity good enough for voice letters. I managed to collect a couple LP's and 8 track tapes to play with, but nothing serious.
After high school, I went into the Navy. Here I became exposed to lots of great music much like a typical middle schooler or high school kid does now. I invested in great equipment, bought the best blank tapes, had a good linear track turntable with moving coil cartridge, etc and a pair of quality solenoid operated cassette decks. I made mix tapes, traded tapes, and bought albums of my favorite artists to put on tape to play in my car. Artists included Pink Floyd, Styx, Queen, Tomita, etc. My peak piracy days was my peak purchasing days. Without the peer to peer dorm life, I would not have had the exposure and would not have bought nearly as much stuff.
Now I am married and have kids and grandkids. Any band that needs to curse or have a screamer is not my idea of music contrary to what my adopted kids like. Other than volume to the wall distorted by heavy compression junk, I don't have much exposure to new music anymore. Most of my exposure to great music is often called illegal. For example, I caught the fantastic light show last Christmas with the house with the synchronized lights. By any RIAA rulings, that publication and distribution of the the song Wizards in Winter was a violation of copyright. Trans Siberian Orchestra on the other hand made a hero out of the guy and gave him VIP treatment to one of their concerts. Was he a criminal guilty of massive online copyright infringement, or a creative artist using and promoting another artist? The only reason he wasn't prosecuted was because the backlash would have been severe and swift. The artist that doesn't understand this is the artist once known as prince. See what happened when someone put a short video of a toddler dancing? The artist didn't get it. TSO and the RIAA could have been in the same boat but much worse for that Christmas light show.
I went to buy the album, but with the current litigation, I am directly avoiding RIAA labels. Unfortunately that album is on an RIAA label. Sorry TSO.
http://www.riaaradar.com/search.asp [riaaradar.com] Search for Trans-Siberian
Peer to Peer is how people find out about new great bands. It's advertising.
The band is coming to my local area this fall. Unless they drop their label, I am not going to the concert.
If my dorm tape recordings could have resulted in the same $222,000.00 settlement, than I want no part in the industry that is suing their best customers.
In a nutshell, I am not legally exposed to new good music. Stuff on the radio is payola and off limits RIAA, ASCAP, BMI on my reject list. I don't buy music I don't know about. I do know about the litigation. I am voting against it as much a possible. Anybody tainted by it is someone to not do business with. I don't pirate it. I simply don't accept it.
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Re:Bias in the study? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what they've shown here is that P2P sharing does not decrease CD sales. That is, there is not a negative correlation. In fact, there may even be a positive correlation. But claiming that one causes the other strikes me as a politically biased conclusion. In other words, they set out to prove a position, and interpreted the facts in order to support that conclusion.
In addition, I think part of their hypothesis is flawed:
Again, I'm not disputing the statistical results of the study. I believe it is a reasonable conclusion that P2P file sharing does not have a significant negative impact on CD sales. What I am disputing is the conclusion that P2P sharing increases sales of CDs. It may or may not actually be true, but that fact simply does not appear to be supported by the evidence.
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How, exactly, have they shown this? The people who are using P2P and also buying CDs, might very well be buying more CDs in the absence of file sharing. You might not believe (or like) this possibility, but I don't see anything (in the data) to suggest that it's a less valid possibility than your conclusion.
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The people who are using P2P and also buying CDs, might very well be buying more CDs in the absence of file sharing.
And yet, in the very first conclusion in the Summary of Findings, the authors write:
In the aggregate, we are unable to discover any direct relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchases in Canada. The analysis of the entire Canadian population does not uncover either a positive or negative relationship between the number of files downloaded from P2P networks and CDs purchased. That is, we find no direct evidence to suggest that the net effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchasing is either positive or negative for Canada as a whole.
An awful lot of people in this thread are jumping up and down as if the correlation between CD purchasing and P2P use somehow supports the theory that P2P is good for music sales really. It doesn't, and in fact the study explicitly examined the overall effect across the wider population and found no clear impact either way.
This could be explained in several simple ways. For example, one possibility entirely consistent
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You stopped reading a paragraph too soon. In the Summary of Findings is this:
However, our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing.
Doesn't seem any way to interpret that as anything other than "P2P is good for music sales". I have a simpler explanation. CDs aren't bought when music isn't on the brain. P2P file-sharing keeps music on people's minds.
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At least it is a refreshingly novel bias. We have seen too many biases in the opposite direction.
Re:Bias in the study? (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe the relevant quote starts something like "He who fights monsters..."
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"I think what they've shown here is that P2P sharing does not decrease CD sales. That is, there is not a negative correlation. In fact, there may even be a positive correlation. But claiming that one causes the other strikes me as a politically biased conclusion. In other words, they set out to prove a position, and interpreted the facts in order to support that conclusion"
They have shown nothing of the sort. To do that, they would have to show that people who download purchase the
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"Actually, this study just confirms common sense. People who are interested in music both DOWNLOAD and BUY CD's. Duh. One would EXPECT a very strong correlation between the two. All this study has down is to show that the positive correlation driven by interest is larger than the negative correlation of p2p (presumably) decreasing CD sales. It has not in any way shown that this correlation does not exist."
Great point. To amplify this, there's the factor which researchers call "social desirability", in w
Re:Bias in the study? (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is, this debate is not particularly relevant. It's latched onto by Slashdotters in part, I think, to assuage their guilt for pirating music and prove how the RIAA is composed of nothing but greedy, self-serving bastards.
They aren't wrong. The problem is that the people who are opposed to illegal P2P file sharing of copyrighted music don't care what happens in bulk. They care whether or not an artist is getting paid when you receive that artist's music. The fact that you download, three CDs worth of music and purchase five CDs, for example, doesn't matter to them unless three of those five purchased CDs are the ones you've downloaded.
I'm sure anybody who has pirated music can point to a situation where they did indeed buy the CD (or specific tracks in the days of iTunes and the like) after pirating some or all of the tracks from it. I'm sure, if they are being honest, that they can also admit times when they downloaded songs that they never ended up buying. I think that in most cases, the latter situation would be the more common one.
I'm not meaning to imply that the RIAA is the champion of artists; they're not. They are the champion of record labels who historically have done whatever they can to screw the artists. I'm saying that if somebody opposes illegal downloading, they care whether each artist is compensated for their music and not whether artists as a whole are compensated.
And thus why the debate is really useless. Those people are not going to be swayed by any of these reports, whether they are truly concerned about the artists or using them as distractions for their own financial gain.
The debate worth having, as always, is how "we" get the people who download music and don't pay for it to become paying customers. You'll never get everybody, of course--at least not without giving it away free--but various approaches have their own benefits. The lower the price point, the higher the demand is a fairly obvious one. That site that just popped up with prices that fluctuate based on demand is an interesting experiment, though I think it goes the wrong way (prices increase as demand increases). I think the best experiment was the group that allowed you to name your own price for the CD.
All of these ideas likely need to be refined, but that is the direction we should be focusing our intellectual efforts in. As a nice side effect for the Slashdot crowd, the likelihood is that as systems such as those become more and more successful, the RIAA dies a little more and more. Artists and consumers both stand to win.
I don't think it will be long now.
OT response: Not all Slashdotters pirate music! (Score:2)
The thing is, this debate is not particularly relevant. It's latched onto by Slashdotters in part, I think, to assuage their guilt for pirating music and prove how the RIAA is composed of nothing but greedy, self-serving bastards.
Sorry to disappoint you, but the union of the sets of Slasdotters and those who pirate music isn't exactly one to one. Many here have posted at one time or another that they don't DL music at all, either legally or otherwise. I fall into this category. Many others have said that they only use legal services of one sort or another. How large that total fraction is I have no way of telling, of course. However, based upon the number of comments that I've read in the past I'd say it's at least a sizable
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They aren't wrong. The problem is that the people who are opposed to illegal P2P file sharing of copyrighted music don't care what happens in bulk. They care whether or not an artist is getting paid when you receive that artist's music. The fact that you download, three CDs worth of music and purchase five CDs, for example, doesn't matter to them unless three of those five purchased CDs are the ones you've downloaded. The problem with that is that they want the downloader to pay for the three they downloaded, when they only listen to one of them. They listened to all three, didn't like two of the three, liked the third and went out and bought all five CDs that artist had out.
The various music anti-piracy groups claim that illegal downloading music costs them sales. Studies such as this one demonstrate that,in fact, the evidence better supports the argument that illegal downloading supports their sales.
I would argue that the reason that the RIAA companies see a decline in music sales is that instead of producing music that meets customer demand, they try to shape customer demand to call for the music they think people want to hear.
I will make two arguments to support that last point.
First, everyone knows that the record labels reward radio stations for playing certain songs (using certain shell games to get around the anti-payola laws in the US). Every time one of the radio stations I listen to has a "listener request" weekend where they play only songs that listeners call in for, the play list for the next couple of weeks includes a bunch of songs that they almost never play ordinarily. After a couple of weeks these songs stop getting air time and it is back to the tired old play list, until the next listener request weekend when many of the same songs get requested again. This makes it seem obvious to me that these songs are well liked by the listening audience, but are not as well compensated for by the record companies.
Second, a couple of years ago Lenny Kravitz came out with a new CD. On the CD was a cover of "American Woman", the only song to get airplay. I really like the original, I didn't care for the cover. I have never heard any other song off that CD on the radio. However, a friend of mine who has similar musical tastes to mine downloaded the CD (illegally). He played it for me. I like every other song on the CD. If not for illegal downloading, I would never have heard those songs because the record company thought that the "American Woman" cover was the hit song. Based on the other songs on the CD and the fact that I am a fan of the original "American Woman", I am pretty sure that my musical tastes represent the target audience for the CD, yet the record company is not marketing the CD to people with my musical tastes, why not?
And thus why the debate is really useless. Those people are not going to be swayed by any of these reports, whether they are truly concerned about the artists or using them as distractions for their own financial gain.
The debate worth having, as always, is how "we" get the people who download music and don't pay for it to become paying customers. You'll never get everybody, of course--at least not without giving it away free--but various approaches have their own benefits. The lower the price point, the higher the demand is a fairly obvious one. That site that just popped up with prices that fluctuate based on demand is an interesting experiment, though I think it goes the wrong way (prices increase as demand increases). I think the best experiment was the group that allowed you to name your own price for the CD.
All of these ideas likely need to be refined, but that is the direction we should be focusing our intellectual efforts in. As a nice side effect for the Slashdot crowd, the likelihood is that as systems such as those become more and more successful, the RIAA dies a little more and more. Artists and consumers both stand to win.
I don't think it will be long now.
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Look, this particular debate, in one form or another, has been taking place since the birth of the Industrial Revolution. The new continually displaces the old (usually a rather painful process for the old, to be sure) but it is inevitable. It's about history, about change being the only constant. The studios are in the same position that untold thousands of businesses have fo
I wouldn't buy *ANY* CD without hearing it first (Score:2)
Even for things I know I like I've been jerked around. One of my favourite CDs got scratched and I went and bought another copy (this was back in my foolhardy youth). The copy had been re-engineered or something and was all distorted compared to the original (audio samples on request). Now I have two legal copies of the CD, neither of which is fit for purpose.
If it wasn't for
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The debate worth having, as always, is how "we" get the people who download music and don't pay for it to become paying customers.
The answer to that is relatively simple; Radiohead figured it out, and so did Saul Williams and Trent Reznor [niggytardust.com]. Put your music online and ask people for money. The Niggy Tardust record is a great model, I think -- download 128 kbps mp3s for free or buy a 320 kbps download of the entire record for five bucks. I sent my five bucks in a week before the record came out and I've been blasting it since it came out on thursday. iTMS and emusic and beatport have shown there are other ways to do this as well. Of
Statistician-speak (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe that the language quoted is typical of statisticians talking about the data (think "graph") rather than the underlying observed system. In other words, I believe one should read it as short-hand for
I believe that professional statisticians and researchers understand the difference between describing 'the effect" of moving around on the graph of results (correlation) versus claiming cause and effect in the underlying system.
However, quibbling over statistician-speak is irrelevant to the key point that people who were observed to download more music were also observed to buy more CDs. This result drives a stake in the heart of the RIAA argument that people download music instead of purchasing CDs.
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Also, as I said before, this doesn't really prove anything. It could be that people who buy more CDs are just more likely to engage in file sharing because they are music lovers. Put in economic terms, P2P sharing and CDs can be considered substitute goods. People
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"The segment of the sample which downloads X + 1 times per month was observed to purchase 0.44 CDs per year more than the segment of the sample which downloads X times per month."
Dude...I want some of what you're on. If it lets you interpret someone saying they observe
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Cause and effect - Why 2 Buy (Score:2)
The correlation here is that the more you download via P2P the more you buy CDs or legal downloads to the tune of 100 (more) downloads to 44 (more) CDs. But does that mean that the act of P2P downloading causes, or enables, buying more CDs? NO! The data does NOT show this at all. It MAY be that a particular segment of the population that would have purchased 72 CDs and done no P2P downloading at all, had P2P downloading never happened, has reduced their number to 44. My choice of 72 here is fictional f
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Except that then you'd find that as people download more music they buy less music, which is exactly the opposite of what the data indicate. Rather it would seem to be that as people gravitated to doing P2P downloading they bought significantly mo
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The data is NOT showing a causal relationship between doing downloading and doing CD buying. It merely shows a relationship. The cause could be the reverse. Or the cause could be something else not shown (and both doing downloading and doing CD buying are effects of that cause).
What the data does show is that there is a relationship between those who do downloading and those who buy CDs. It also shows that those who download more also buy more. But the cause could simply be that some people like music
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"What the data does show is that there is a relatio
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But this only shows that the same people who buy music also download. It doesn't show anything to support or refute the claim of the music industry that P2P is the cause of reduced CD sales. It merely shows that there exists a segment of the population that is more into music. Yet there is a true de
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"My point was that some people used to buy more music by taking risks in buying things they had no idea if they liked or not."
But that isn't a point, it is a proposal. There is no data that backs up such a scenario. It fits your model, but your model doesn't fit the data. And that is my point
Conclusion : Don't piss off your best customers. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is : users who happen to download a lot, happen to buy a lot too.
No matter which causes which, there's an important conclusion to be drawn for media companies :
Stop harassing downloaders, because currently, you happen to be pissing off you best buyers.
Yes we know you **AA hate people who "illegaly steal" your stuff, but those people happen to be those who buy most of your CDs anyway, so be nice with them.
Re:Conclusion : Don't piss off your best customers (Score:2)
The RIAA has failed to adapt to a changing technological landscape. Whether or not they are actually losing sales to P2P sharing, they are nonetheless alienating their customer base by attempting to control it. In the end, I think they are shooting themselves in the foot.
We are already starting to see the backlash against them, and not just from the music buying public. We need look no further than the spate of artists who are experimenting with alternative distrib
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"I'd also be careful of any of the "statistics" the RIAA puts forward, especially when they consider "lost revenue" to mean "the money we could have earned if every tune downloaded was paid for" - this reasoning is as flawed as it is irrealist."
Can you cite an example? I've seen plenty of examples where Slashdotters incorrectly claim that such a study makes such an assumption (ie. Straw Man fallacy), but what I'm looking for is an actual study that was based on this flawed reasoning.
Re:Conclusion : Don't piss off your best customers (Score:2)
What we also know is this study and any like it will be ignored by the MAFIAA and the lawmakers they have in their pockets. Hell, if studies showed that downloading caused their profits to go up 600%, they'd still stick their fingers in their ears.
Re:Conclusion : Don't piss off your best customers (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes we know you **AA hate people who "illegaly steal" your stuff, but those people happen to be those who buy most of your CDs anyway, so be nice with them.
Yep. I'm off shortly to a concert by a band I've seen 3 times before. A band I only went to see the first time because I really liked their CDs. A band whose CDs I only bought because I really liked what I downloaded.
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Re:Conclusion : Don't piss off your best customers (Score:2)
Until you can say yay or nay to these questions the RIAA will not see a profit in ceasing their activities beyond no longer losing the money they're paying the lawyers. Until now keeping that money hasn't been enough of an incentive.
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If CDs are a cause of illegal file sharing I motion they should be outlawed! Let's cut the supply line of those pesky pirates!
Re:Bias in the study? Or bias in reporting (Score:2)
Seriously -- nearly every study showing harm of cannabis is done using correlational studies showing that various 'ills' increase with use, when, more often than not, there's already a connection showing cannabis being used to treat the 'ill'... (so of course, one finds more use of it in a
Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Insightful)
However, this does reinforce the fairly obvious conclusion that the recording industry has chosen to use strongarm tactics on its best customers. It does not seem like the best of business models.
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I am not so sure we can't do a controlled experiment. My situation was simple, prior to internet downloading I had about 50 or so CDs. I just didn't have the opportunity to discover new music because the one I like is never played on radios, so it was a very slow CD collection building process by friend suggesting bands by word to mouth. Now all that changed with mp3s from ftp, newsgroups, Napster and torrents. From about 1998ish my CD collection skyrocketed, I went from about 50 CDs to about 500+ today. Money was never an issue, I attribute my sharp rise in CD buying to the fact that I had access to a "try before you buy" system. A few of my friends are in the same position as me.
Maybe it's possible, but anecdotal evidence from a clique of closely related persons aka your friends, is roughly as far from a controlled experiment as it gets. For example, if I were to take the computer game market from my friends then PC gaming is king bar none, followed by Wii with GC/xb360/xbox on a third and nobody has ever heard of PlayStation - neither one, two or three. Sound like an accurate description? Not exactly. Part coincidence, part groupthink, part wanting to borrow games, part exposure
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And it's just as plausible that the opposite would happen, due to the easy availability of free music. I know people who buy more now because they get to try before they buy, and I know people who haven't bought a CD in years because they no longer have to.
Hell, some days it seems like the whole systems department where I work does nothing but trade stuff they've downloaded...
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First of all, have a sales prediction for a new record. Check if the record is leaked before publication and if not, check how fast the music appears on p2p. Then model the effect of appearance in p2p to sales (if it has any.) If the availability in p2p has a major effect then the sales go down with the availability. If p2p has a positive (or neutral) effect then the sales go up. If the leak time has no effect then the p2p availability doesn't affect sa
Smarter shoppers? (Score:2)
It could very well be that P2P downloaders are sampling their music to make better buying decisions. As a result of that, they now know exactly what they like (and buy only that) and what they don't like (and don't buy that). The question here is how many CDs they would have bought without access to P2P and found they did not like ... vs. ... how many CDs they never would have bought on speculation but discovered the music through P2P.
So it could be the case that much of the decline of CD sales is the re
obvious Logic (Score:2)
Well of course! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course. This study makes it perfectly clear that P2P downloading leads to CD purchasing, so P2P is obviously helping the music industry.
Wait a minute. Before P2P some people liked to buy a lot of CDs and some people didn't like to buy CDs at all. Those people who liked to buy a lot of CDs are now buying fewer CDs and downloading music illegally instead. Those people who didn't care much about music before are not downloading musically illegally because they don't want it very much. So P2P is obviously hurting the music industry.
Oh wait. I can come to two different opinions based on the same evidence depending on what mood I'm in and the people I listen to. Maybe I should recognize that it's totally possible to make a convincing argument for a statement that isn't true. Maybe I should re-evaluate some of the things I'm dead certain about.
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Living Example (Score:3, Interesting)
Same with downloads. I'll gladly pay $5 for the new Saul Williams when it comes in DRM-free FLAC lossless and with all the album art. Money isn't the issue, neither is motivation. I just don't want to - in any way, shape or form - support the dying record companies.
That's all good and well, but... (Score:2)
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I refuse to give money to the record labels. It really isn't more complicated than that. Whether you think that automatically means I pirate it is up to you. I know what I do and what I don't do.
Can I say "me too"? (Score:2)
The fact that I could buy from CDBaby, which tells you right there on the site how much of the money from the sale is going to the artist (in this case $6) was icing on the cake.
Actually, this story isn't 100% true....
The album I wanted wasn't on CDBaby, it was on Amazon, etc. CDBaby only had the artist's most recent album and I didn't
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I hear you on that. The other day I heard a song by Harvey Danger on the radio (give me a break, my CD player is broken). I liked it, so I went online to possibly find some torrents for it. I was pretty surprised that I couldn't find much on the major torrent sites, but when I searched google, it actually linked to their website [harveydanger.com]. On that page, you can download their 2005 album either directly or via bittorrent in either m
Ignoring Causality (Score:3, Insightful)
seems rather obvious, and what should it prove? (Score:2, Insightful)
i hardly download any music, but neither do i listen to it often, or buy it. i do download lots of anime, and i've also got a good manga and anime collection i bought
besides it being pure logic that people downloading more are also more likely to buy (you don't download crap you don't care about), i fail to see what it's supposed to prove. that downloading completely inhibits buying is obviously not true. the claims are rather that people d
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This is indeed part of the original rationale for copyrights. However, this is not how the law actually works, and those who infringed are fined per infraction regardless of how P2P may reasonably have influenced their buying.
Such as in the recent case of the woman with several thousand dollars invested in music, presumably mostly from the RIAA, who got fined for approx. half a million dollar
My Experience (Score:2)
I'm a heavy user of Pandora Radio, and what I can tell you is that when it suggests songs and plays them for me, many times, I'll pop over to Amazon and buy the CD.
Now, much to the record company's dismay, I will buy them used most of them time, since it's usually 50% cheaper, but I t
Well no shit! (Score:3, Insightful)
People who have a greater interest in music buy more of it than those who don't? God Almighty, I hope my taxes didn't pay for this "study".
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Are you from Canada?
Personal Experience (Score:2)
In fact, I wouldn't even buy music if I hadn't heard the band through sharing.
The last 100 or so CD's I've bought have been only because I'd heard samples downloaded on the file shari
It helps the non-RIAA labels more (Score:4, Insightful)
My CD purchasing has vastly increased since I've been able to try before I buy using p2p... but I've mostly been discovering wonderful but tiny non RIAA labels, and unsigned bands who put out their own CDs, instead of blindly buying whatever lowest common denominator act the RIAA cartel is pushing with a recoupable advertising budget in the millions.
Without p2p, I'd never have risked buying a CD by Kattoo for example, but after a recommendation on OiNK, I bought all 3 Kattoo albums (hear them at http://www.myspace.com/kattoo [myspace.com] - stunning classical/IDM crossover music, but sales figures in 3 digits). I'm concentrating on obscure indie CDs not because it's not because I'm ethically opposed to the RIAA (even thought I am) but because I prefer it.
The truth is that the cartel only want people to buy their heavily hyped CDs, not CDs in general. It's not p2p's loss of revenue they have a problem with (they know p2p boosts CD sales), it's p2p's loosening the stranglehold they have on the market thats their problem with it.
The same goes for net radio, it's less susceptible to payola and features indie labels too much, that's why the RIAA want to tax it into oblivion.
(Disclaimer: I do have 1 on my own tracks on a compilation CD released on a non RIAA label myself, but I'm not slashvertising it here, go try that kattoo link instead, his stuff is amazing!).
Kattoo reminds me of Darwinia.. (Score:2)
and what if there was no P2P? (Score:2)
When I buy CDs... (Score:4, Insightful)
The last time I bought a CD without seeing a band was several years ago before they started this whole 'kill internet radio' game. Once these hobbyists stopped spinning their tunes, due to the government backed racket set up to collect fees for playing, I stopped hearing music I enjoyed. So I stopped writing down band names & songs I liked. So I stopped purchasing their music. I would say there is a strong causation that the RIAA causes me not to buy music.
Not in my case (Score:3, Insightful)
However, with the way they have been treating customers, and now knowing how little the artists get, in my case i stopped buying anything that is tied to the industry, and only buy indie music.
Correlation and causation (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether P2P boosts CD sales won't be proved or disproved that way. What this study proves without a doubt, though, is that the strongest buyers of music are also the heaviest users of P2P. In other words, the content industry is getting on the nerves of those that are their best customers. People who don't use P2P also don't buy many CDs.
So suing those people is a lot like slaughtering the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Correlation is not causation. (Score:2)
Ive been saying that for years (Score:2)
Misleading summary, as usual (Score:3, Insightful)
If I'm looking for something popular, chances are it will be all over P2P and I can get it in a matter of seconds. If I'm seeking a full album, or something less mainstream like an older release, Amazon might be my best bet. If I don't feel like buying online (and waiting for the mail), I'll stop by the mall on my way home from work. Either way, the moment I get home, the disc gets ripped to MP3 (SQ freaks, get off my lawn!). Every player I own is MP3, heck I still have my old MPTrip in a box somewhere, god bless that piece of shit!
The fact that the record store is my last resort says a lot about the industry. The concept of piling a ton of albums in a store is just dumber than dumb; it's like a warehouse, because you can't glean much information from the sealed package to help you in your purchase. The kid at checkout is little more than a cash jockey, he/she doesn't know shit about anything older than last week. Even Costco at least tries to demo the goods before you buy that big bland bulk box. Those listening stations with a half-dozen rap albums don't help either! Amazon has preview clips for a large number of albums. Vinyl stores will let you audition just about any record in stock, on a good set of headphones too - not the dollar-store junk they have at HMV or Music World.
I like the concept of iTunes, but it's wrapped in DRM and Apple's megalomania and I don't have an iPod, so to me it's more trouble than it's worth. I play most of my music in the car, on an MP3 deck that I've owned for years, and spent dozens of hours setting up and tuning for the tightest sound. If someone were to make a high-end iTunes-compatible car deck, it would be a step in the right direction (to me).
I know there are lots of smaller MP3 peddlers on the net, but I'm not after the indie stuff (sorry!), I want the big labels to grow a brain and offer the products I want to buy. Lucky for me, I'm into house music and Beatport is a godsend for that stuff... it's pricey at $1.99+ per track, but their model is great, you can preview almost every track, and download as a 320kbps MP3 or even uncompressed WAV for an extra dollar. Beatport is great, but they only cover house/techno. If someone would apply that model to mainstream music, I would be all over it.
True for me (Score:2)
The RIAA is killing themeselves (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong Order of Operations (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Let us also take it for given that many of these downloads would be sales if they could not be had via p2p. There is not really any evidence for this but its what the RIAA would like to think so we will work with it.
It follows from one and two that their best customers are P2P users. In the RIAA view all p2p is piracy. So RIAA does it makes sense to
A) Relentless go after pirates who are also your best customers creating all sorts of ill will and hostility to your organization. Only after having eliminated piracy (good luck) do you offer your own products to people who now do business with you because you're still the only game in town and will be constantly seeking the next opportunity to shift things to formats you can't control and retun us to the current situaiton all over again.
OR do you
B) Try to offer products the digital customer wants. Downloads at a reasonable price where you can profit without profiteering. The customer having payed you fairly for your wares can then enjoy them how they wish. Their happy to do business with you because you provide a quality, safe, and reputable service they can't get p2p. These people become you best customers. The hold outs are really just the "pirates" who never buy any thing anyway and you then can go after them without alienating your good customers having separated the two groups.
one thing you can't expect to do is
C) Remain in business without offering any new products, especially products people want, know are possible, serve as competition to your own, and can be had at least in part for free elseware.
A non-theft explanation of decline of sales (Score:2)
The decline in sales of CDs (beyond just what is made up for in legal download purchases) could very well be the result of people being more selective about what they buy. In the past, people didn't have much opportunity to sample music in advance. They could hear a small subset of highly promoted music on the radio, or get suggestions from friends. But in the end, lots of people bought lots of music they discovered later, after playing it, that they didn't like. Now we have a way to sample just about e
Another news: people who listen to music buy it (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it obvious? Those are people who listen to music. I don't listen to music, so I am not a P2P user and I don't buy music either.
How to discredit a report (Score:2)
'There is a well-established government procedure for suppressing -- that is, not publishing -- unwanted reports.'
Stage one: The public interest
1) You hint at security considerations. 2) You point out that the report could be used to put unwelcome pressure on government because it might be misinterpreted. [Of course, anything might be misinterpreted.] 3) You then say that it is better to wait for the results of a wider and more detailed survey over a longer time-scale. 4) If there is no such survey being carried out, so much the better. You commission one, which gives you even more time to play with.
Stage two: Discredit the evidence that you are not publishing
This is, of course, much easier than discrediting evidence that you do publish. You do it indirectly, by press leaks. You say: (a) that it leaves important questions unanswered (b) that much of the evidence is inconclusive (c) that the figures are open to other interpretations (d) that certain findings are contradictory (e) that some of the main conclusions have been questioned. Points (a) to (d) are bound to be true. In fact, all of these criticisms can be made of a report without even reading it. There are, for instance, always some questions unanswered -- such as the ones they haven't asked. As regards (e), if some of the main conclusions have not been questioned, question them! Then they have.
Stage three: Undermine the recommendations
This is easily done, with an assortment of government phrases: (a) 'not really a basis for long-term decisions...' (b) 'not sufficient information on which to base a valid assessment...' (c) 'no reason for any fundamental rethink of existing policy...' (d) 'broadly speaking, it endorses current practice...' These phrases give comfort to people who have not read the report and who don't want change -- i.e. almost everybody.
Stage four: If stage three still leaves doubts, then Discredit The Man Who Produced the Report
This must be done OFF THE RECORD. You explain that: (a) he is harbouring a grudge against the government (b) he is a publicity seeker (c) he's trying to get his knighthood (d) he is trying to get his chair (e) he is trying to get his Vice-Chancellorship (f) he used to be a consultant to a multinational company or (g) he wants to be a consultant to a multinational company.
Reference: (The Complete Yes Minister, pp. 257-9)
Survey != Facts (Score:2)
I skew them in the direction where the survey takers will believe what I want them to so they will behave a certain way.
Credit card statements and receipts are facts.
I hate Riaa. I just don't trust people. I don't trust Riaa. I don't trust most human beings either. They are nice enough-- but they lie... a lot. And they are illogical... a lot.
The ones that do not lie are generally unpleasant to deal with. And they *still* lie by warping their perce
CDs are obsolete. Who cares how many are bought? (Score:4, Insightful)
they are outclassed on a number of fronts by simple digital files,
as far as a consumer is concerned.
1. The digital file isn't tied to any particular physical object,
or player, or location. It's simpler. If I know part of its name,
I can be playing it a few seconds later.
2. The digital files can be more flexibly arranged in groups to different
tastes and purposes.
3. They can be stored on the Internet and communities of people
can review them, collate them very flexibly.
4. They don't encourage the production of cruft to fill extra
tracks on a CD album.
So why are we talking about CDs at all. That was so 80s.
The discussion should be how music artists should be compensated
in the post CD world.
I think Radiohead demonstrated the way forward.
The traditional music industry, by fighting an inevitable change,
is driving a stake into its own heart by guaranteeing its irrelevance.
Its really a simple concept but the music ind... (Score:2)
The concept is try before you buy...
But since its illegal to try before you buy......
It all reminds me of the childhood story about a dog with a nice juicy steak in his mouth.
He trots across a small bridge and sees his reflection. His greed motivates him to take the steak away from his reflection.
Of course he drops the steak in his mouth into the running stream and loses...
I'll continue to avoid buying from industry organizations and search for independen
Are you sure? (Score:2)
I will play the devil's advocate here... (Score:2)
The correlation may simply be because people who like music download it more and buy it more. But I don't think this shows that downloading music makes you more likely to buy it.
Re: (Score:2)
I still use P2P, but mostly because it will be a cold day in hell before I jeoparadize my beloved PC with a potentially infected music CD to transfer MY music to my car's MP3 player.