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Study finds P2P sales effect virtually zero
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 12th February 2007
Yet another study shows P2P has no actual effect on record sales.
Now that we have that out of the way, let's get to the story at hand. Has everyone noticed that the first thing the RIAA goes for when it discusses piracy is lost sales? Often, those who pirate argue that if they didn't, they wouldn't buy it anyway. Apparently, they aren't lying. A new study released takes a look at empirical sales data over a couple quarters in 2002, following over 1.75 million songs through both sales and illegal downloads.
In order to conduct the study, researchers tackled the problem in an unusual way. Rather than just following US markets, they followed German downloads and uploads from students on holiday. Germany is the #2 provider of illegal music shares, accounting for 1 in 6 downloads - when German student upload traffic increased, US sales should have decreased.
The findings? P2P network activity has a whopping 0.7% negative effect on sales - well less than the margin of error for the study. Even taking the most negative figures (counting the margin of error in favour of the RIAA's claims), the study can only account for 6 million out of the 80 million units of lost sales the RIAA blames on piracy in 2002. This means 74 million units just plain didn't sell, and that had nothing to do with piracy - even if everything that could have gone wrong with the study did.
According to the study, much of the loss of sales has to do with how the RIAA chooses to account for units in the first place. Rather than counting units sold to consumers, it counts units shipped to retailers. Therefore, since many retailers have reduced how much they order as stock to sit on shelves, the RIAA says "sales are down" and blames the numbers on rampant piracy.
Before online shopping became such a big thing, stores that carried music would order a plethora of stock and let it sit - since there was nowhere else to conveniently buy it, it would eventually move. Nowadays, in order to keep prices down and competition high, most stores just don't keep as large of an inventory at one time.
Of course, this will all likely end up as every other study on the issue does - buried ten feet deep on some desk somewhere whilst the execs keep spouting off about lost revenue. However, at least there is an empirical study now to back up the claim everyone has been saying for years - the people who pirate either weren't going to buy it anyway, or go and buy it afterwards to have a legit copy.
Got a thought on the findings? Tell us about it in our forums.
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Comments (23)
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Its all a case of "Lies, damned lies and statistics" again. :)
Good to see something saying the opposite to the RIAA.
Only trouble is, some of my fave artists have actually moved over to sony, i think Lamb of God's sacrement did. But **** the 14.99 at HMV price, got it at iTunes price, and then regretted not buying from an mp3 site in russia ;) But still, since i only buy CD's from artists i like and would see live.. I should get their album for free as a thank you from the band for moshing like a mutha****a
In all seriousness though, the band probably see about a quid from every legit CD (i remember reading it from a breakdown of how much a band (as a whole) earns per CD sale/Gig etc.) I'd rather knock on the bands door and buy it off them personally for a 5er/10er so they see the whole amount, so they can afford to pay for more recording :D
And, every illegal download i've had, i have either bought the CD, or thought "what a pile of wank, i'll download a few more to be sure"
I think it really is true that if someone really likes it, they will buy the real deal, but if they don't, they won't download from that artist again.
"Discuss " link needs fixingEdit: fixed ;)This is not the first study to conclude this
Link I have yet to fully read: http://www.cippic.ca/en/faqs-resources/file-sharing/#faq_affect-nusic-industry
and hey, everyone knew this.
Microsoft for example. If you don't believe me try the following:
Open notepad in Windows.
Select open and goto your Windows Directory (usually C:\Windows\).
Open the "Help" sub-directory.
Open the "Tours" sub-directory.
Open the "WindowsMediaPlayer" sub-directory.
Open the "Audio" sub-directory.
Open the "Wav" sub-directory.
Select any one of those files.
Instead of playing them in MediaPlayer or any other audio software, open the file in Notepad. Now scroll all the way to the bottom.
See those strings "SoundForge 4.5" and "Deepz0ne"? Yep, this means that the file was created with a cracked version of Soundforge, cracked by a cracker called Deepz0ne. Good show Microsoft! Always knew we could rely on you guys for ethical business practices!
(credit goes to someone else for this)
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As for music sales, to be honest these day's people are demanding more quality for there money. Consumers generally are holding onto there money much tigher than before. We can take a number of factors into consideration. Income, substitute products ect ect. For the RIAA to blame piracy is totally ridiculas.
- Vaz
Piracy is bad.
But filesharing=sales.
the best stuff is live recordings. off the radio or whatever. not the best quality in terms of sound, but easily the best in terms of performance and dynamics.
In my case I tend to pirate x, y and z and probably most of the rest of the alphabet, copying stuff I don't like, don't yet know that I like, and so forth. But I still spend £x on music because I like having the CDs... I'm just more picky now, as I find a lot of music I never knew existed.
All my music anymore (aside from what I buy at shows) comes from a certain site in Russia and I don't feel the least bit guilty about it.
Haha! I find it interesting to compare Greenpeace and the RIAA
Its all a case of "Lies, damned lies and statistics" again. :)
I'm so sick of "demo's" where they only offer you like 10 minutes of play or something, most of the time that's just not enough to determine whether you like it
I'm not going "hey there's a big company, i can pirate because their big" Ive downloaded games of small companies too, i don't feel any differently about either, i will only buy a game if its good
I don't do music that much, but that's a similar principle, however there have been some tracks that i have liked, and never even heard if i hadn't downloaded them
On another note, music companies don't keep making old music, so if you want to hear something that's a few years old, you may be plain out of luck if you actually want to buy it
RIAA: "Act like a poor man on the frontdoor long enough and someday everybody believes you actually are poor. In the mean time get all the fundings inside through the backdoor..."
So? Microsoft didn't even make the sound file! It was from another company who made it and sold it to Microsoft.
Get the fact rights.
Simon Cowell is destroying the music industry with his churned out **** not the pirates. that is why sales are down (if at all)
Maybe you should direct you're comments towards this German magazine rather than me:
http://www.pcwelt.de/know-how/sicherheit/104830/index.html
It says that in the article though
This act covers a wide range of intellectual property such as music, literature and software.
Provisions of the act make it illegal to:
- Copy software
- Run pirated software
- Transmit software over a telecommunications line, thereby creating a copy.
By purchashing sound forge you are not only buying the software but also a licence which enables any music that's generated to be "yours". This musical individual did not buy the rights off sound forge. So, it got transfered a few times onto microsoft who made millions of copies.
The intellectual property still belongs to sound forge. Microsoft can still be held liable under the Copyright, Design and patents act of 1988. (Great Britain)