RSS feedA recent study getting a lot of press The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales An Empirical Analysis (PDF) attempts to show that p2p music downloads do not have a statistically demonstrable effect on sales. Conclusions include downloaders aren’t downloading the top ten albums, and it would…
take 5000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy.
…both of which could perhaps be explained by demographics, culture and the principles and traffic patterns of OpenNap users, amongst others.
While not perfect, at least studies are starting to appear which try to cut through the mainstream scaremongering, and at least some organisations on the p2p side of the issue can see the flaws before pinning their hopes on them.
At the same time, a Canadian federal court has found that file sharing is legal (duh), which is also quite timely as the U.S. Senate introduced a new bill (see the second page) to effectively outlaw file sharing. Memories of prohibition anyone?
The war against 50 years of record company conglomerates sucking us for all we’re worth, at the expense of artists, is about to kick into top gear, and the copyright and intellectual property playing field is about to shift dramatically. It is an exciting time to be alive.