Slashdot Mirror
Sharing Increases Music Purchases?
darnellmc writes "See this News.com article which cites a study that shows file swapping increases music purchases. I guess it all depends on who is paid to do the study and how they carry it out, but this report would counter the study performed by an RIAA backed group, which noted that file swapping lowered music purchases. You would have to be one cheap individual to want to download all the music in your life for free and this study proves that. Because most people are obviously using file sharing to find new music to purchase. A concept the RIAA can not comprehend. If future major music releases are copy protected, it will be interesting how the RIAA will respond if they sell less." Well, if they sell less, it will be due to pirates, of course. A few weeks ago we mentioned Wilco, who released their album on their website for free. The strategy appears to have paid off.
For me it is simpler; when I was using Napster, or on those odd times I'm using Gnutella these days and its working well, I find simply want to go out and buy more CDs.
I've never analyzed why I behave this way, but I think it's related to the same impulse that makes me google the artist and the song title to find out who else recorded it. Music is just getting a bigger share of my attention span.
When I get interested in an artist or a genre of music, the cost of a reasonably priced CD is simply no barrier to my wanting to acquire the complete original recording in its full quality. "Reasonably" is a fuzzy line,for me ten bucks is on one side and twenty being on the other. I wouldn't pause enough to blink when shelling out a ten dollars for a CD but if it's over twenty I will think longer and harder about it than the decision deserves.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that the record companies couldn't sell CDs with free filesharing, but the way they sell them would very likely change. There's lots of people who spend over five hundred bucks a year at Starbucks, because the individual cups of coffee are priced below the level where they think about it. Right now, CDs are priced at the "have to think about it" level. This isn't to say they are too pricey, just that the average person isn't going to spend five hundred dollars a year on music. It's not practical to drop the price of CDs to the "don't think about it" level, because the CDs are priced for optimal revenue now. However, if they value of the music on the CDs could be increased, the price drops wouldn't have to be very much to reach the sweet spot where individual CD purchases fly under the consumer's cost consciousness.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A couple of points...
:-)=
- It is possible to both like NIN and like more traditional industrial. Trent's a great musician.
- A good fraction of what Metropolis puts out these days is just re-licensed from Bloodline and a couple other European labels... which isn't to say that it isn't good, but they're not doing as much at advancing the scene as the labels that are really discovering the bands.
Anyway, if people are interested in good industrial and goth, a few other recommendations (in addition to the many good bands Phexro mentions):
- Nitzer Ebb
- The Crüxshadows
- Rosetta Stone
- Endanger
- Covenant
- Recoil
- OMNIbOX
- And One
- Einstürzende Neubauten
- Collide
- Flesh Field
- Battery
- Seabound
Could go on for a while more, but that should give you a good start.
[TMB]
I really do think we need to ensure that it is at least inconvenient.
Oh man. This is my central complaint with the anti-sharing party line; the fact that they crow about "you can just GO ONLINE and download ANY song INSTANTLY!!1"
Okay. I'm going to hit the gnutella network right *now*, when there are 1.4M users online (that I'm connecting to), and try to download the newest Sheryl Crowe album. Not because I want it, but because it has a single in the billboard top 5. Got it? Ready? Okay, here we go.
First, trying a search for audio files containing "Sheryl Crowe cmon," a word from the title of the single. Minutes pass...
No, really, it's still searching...
Nope, no result. Must've misspelled "cmon." We'll try "come on" and "c'mon." And I'll even cheat and go get an album description from cdnow.com so I can be sure to get all the songs. Alright! Here we go, guess it was important to put that apostrophe in there. Now, with my max hits set to 50, I find... 14 copies of "soak up the sun" and one of "It's only love."
Whee! 10 minutes have passed and I'm well on my way to beginning to pirate 2 songs. The transfer rate is really crappy on the one; the other will probably finish within 5 minutes or so. Now to find the other dozen songs on the album, I have to do a similarly laborious title search for each. At least one of which can't be found on the network at all thus far in my searching.
Granted, this is "just an anecdote," but it's meant as an illustration of the larger issue. Everyone who's really tried to download a whole album will be nodding in recognition by now: it's hard. Especially if you're searching for something that's NOT a billboard top hit. Maybe I put less effort into it than the average hax0r, but I've never gotten more than 70% of any given album off the network. To do so would require at least an hour of my active, dedicated attention, and then several more hours of letting it sit and download. I could spend that time doing work for my employer, and have enough money for 2-3 copies of the damn thing.
So, yeah, maybe it's "systematic," but it's sure not convenient. If anything it gives you a fuller tease of an album you might want, and encourages you to go pick it up for those last 5 or 6 tracks.