Study: File-Sharing No Threat to Music Sales
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Whatever other arguments there are on either side of the music piracy debate, I was always suspicious of those who claimed that online file-sharing would be a threat to sales. There are reasonable arguments that it might, but there are reasonable arguments on the other side as well–as the article mentions, it is quite possible that file-sharing exposes people to new music they would not have heard before, motivating them to buy the album.
Either way, couldn’t we all just come to some happy compromise? The Yahoo/Launch music service offers customizable online radio stations, the free version being ad-based. I’d be quite happy if someone offered something like an online jukebox where you actually got to pick which songs to play when. Artists could be paid for how often their songs were played, and the whole setup could be supported by advertising.
But enough silly idealizing — you can just download Kazaa Lite and set all of your [legal, of course] downloads to do not share;)
Hey Amanda, glad to see you posting here. When are is someone going to get you hooked up with your own hosted website? Methinks you’ve outgrown Blogspot.
I’ve always been skeptical of those who claim that online filesharing has had a big impact on music sales. To be honest, the allure of free music leads one to download music that never in a thousand years would have been legitimately purchased. You do it because you can. That’s not to say that people don’t pirate music that they would have bought, had the “free” option not been available to them… but it is misleading to treat each illegal download as a lost sale. In fact… when it comes to obscure music… illegal downloads could even help those artists! Exposure has happened that would not have been possible otherwise, and that person may go on to buy their CDs, their t-shirts, concert tickets, etc. I think that by writing it off as a bad thing (as they have mostly done, even with ventures such as iTunes), they are losing a chance to take advantage of the benefits.