PuNiShErKiLl666
March 30th, 2004, 05:03 AM
RESEARCH APPEARS to back up what teenagers have been saying for years - file sharing is not stuffing the music industry.
A study conducted jointly by researchers from Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has found that in 2002 music sales were unaffected by the increase in file sharing, and the industry may have even benefited from it.
Researchers looked at data from file-sharing services was used and 1.75 million downloads during a 17-week period in 2002.
They said that while there were a large number of downloads during this period most people who shared files appear to be individuals who would not have bought the albums that they downloaded anyway.
In addition the Harvard/North Carolina study found that in a "worse case scenario" it would take more than 5000 downloads to reduce album sales by a single copy.
The authors said: "If this worst-case scenario were true, file sharing would have reduced CD sales by two million copies in 2002. To provide a point of reference, CD sales actually declined by 139 million copies from 2000 to 2002."
Downloads helped flog the most popular CDs - for the top 25 per cent, 150 downloads increased sales by one copy. For the least popular albums (less than 36,000 copies sold) a small negative effect was seen.
The researchers also concluded that only 45 per cent of files downloaded in the US were hosted on computers in the same country.
This suggests that a legal strategy targeting mostly the US is unlikely to have any impact.
If the statistics are correct, the music industry might have to look closer to home for the reasons. Some oldies suggest that most of the popular beat combos peddled these aren't that good and say nothing to teenagers anyroadmap.
Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15040
A study conducted jointly by researchers from Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has found that in 2002 music sales were unaffected by the increase in file sharing, and the industry may have even benefited from it.
Researchers looked at data from file-sharing services was used and 1.75 million downloads during a 17-week period in 2002.
They said that while there were a large number of downloads during this period most people who shared files appear to be individuals who would not have bought the albums that they downloaded anyway.
In addition the Harvard/North Carolina study found that in a "worse case scenario" it would take more than 5000 downloads to reduce album sales by a single copy.
The authors said: "If this worst-case scenario were true, file sharing would have reduced CD sales by two million copies in 2002. To provide a point of reference, CD sales actually declined by 139 million copies from 2000 to 2002."
Downloads helped flog the most popular CDs - for the top 25 per cent, 150 downloads increased sales by one copy. For the least popular albums (less than 36,000 copies sold) a small negative effect was seen.
The researchers also concluded that only 45 per cent of files downloaded in the US were hosted on computers in the same country.
This suggests that a legal strategy targeting mostly the US is unlikely to have any impact.
If the statistics are correct, the music industry might have to look closer to home for the reasons. Some oldies suggest that most of the popular beat combos peddled these aren't that good and say nothing to teenagers anyroadmap.
Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15040