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File Sharing and CD Sales, Again
Andrew Leonard writes "Stan Liebowitz, an economist studying the effects of file-trading on the music industry, says in an article in Salon that new numbers have convinced him that the decline in CD sales may be partially attributable to MP3 downloading. But he also argues that the decline does not justify draconian new laws."
The problem is not copying, the problem is paying the creators for their work.
Historically, some companies have tried to solve this problem using various techniques (publishing, advances, royalty payments, advertising-supported broadcasting, pledge drives). All of these are predicated on economies of scale for large runs, and high costs of entry for competitors.
When a new technology comes along that changes these economics, it is time to look for a new model to solve the underlying problem, not construct a technical and legislative framework to restore the old barriers.
I'm like you in this regard. My CD purchases have gone way up since MP3s became popular. There are several artists I'd never heard previously and now I own every CD they've released.
The quality of most of the MP3s on the file sharing networks is not adequate for anyone that really cares about the music. I look at them as samplers, nothing more.
All those MP3s being swapped may well be violations of copyright, but I'd be surprised if even 10% of them represented lost sales. Most of the people downloading these files weren't going to buy the CD anyway. And there are at least some people who are buying more as a result of the file swapping.