The Economics of File Sharing

Howzer writes "A great Salon article popped up today, and it appears Stan Liebowitz at the Cato Institute is having second thoughts about his paper that was published on May 15. It seems the facts simply don't support his earlier assertion (& the well-known position of all the major recording labels) that downloading hurts music sales. It's good to see this argued from another angle, especially by a guy like Liebowitz."

Comments

Re:Okay let's get the facts straight...

[Dephex Twin]

but there is a different type of evidence: in 1999, Music sales were up 10% in the us, and there wasn't WIDESPREAD piracy. In 2001, for the first time ever, CD sales were down, (by 5%) and the reduction in growth rate only dates to 2000, as pirating began to gain popularity.
...
Of course, in reality, piracy increases music sales, industry is good for the environment, and smoking is good for your health, so this is all irrelevant.

Of course, everything is black and white and nothing is complicated. So when the music sales went down in 2001, of course the first recession in years after a long economic boom and a drop in the quality of music, as well as people getting increasingly pissed at the music industry couldn't have had anything to do with any of this. It's obvious what was the real cause. No reason to even consider the possibility of anything else.

mark

Pseudo-Libertarian

[freeBill]

I'm glad you said "mostly" Libertarian because the Cato Institute is the classic example of what I call pseudo-Libertarian.

True Libertarians are opposed to all threats to our liberty, whether they come from other people, from corporations, or from government. Pseudo-Libertarians are willing to accept any amount of threat to their liberties just so long as they don't come from government. In fact, they are willing to support threats to our liberty from corporations and from wealthy individuals if they can imagine that the government action which would protect us from a real threat to our liberties from business could somehow be construed as a government threat.