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Latest Music Piracy Study Overstates Effect of P2P
Blackbeard writes "A new study from pro-business think tank Institute for Policy Innovation claims that music piracy accounts for $12.5 billion in lost output to the US economy. That includes 71,060 lost jobs and $422 million in lost tax revenues... if the figures are accurate. Ars Technica's write-up points out a number of flaws in the IPI's reasoning. 'The study makes for some alarming reading, but it suffers from a few significant flaws. First and foremost, it appears to fall into the "illicit downloads = lost sales" fallacy, the view that each song obtained over a P2P network is a lost purchase.' There's more: 'The IPI study also assesses the increased demand for music if piracy didn't exist and assumes the market would remain as "intensely competitive" as it is today. The problem is that music fans are largely disenchanted with the market. By and large, music fans think that music is too expensive, and that much of what is available isn't very good.'"
>>There must be some effect here. I know plenty of people who don't buy any music at all, but
.02
>>certainly would if they couldn't download it for nothing. Obviously the 1 to 1 correspondence
>>between downloading and lost sales isn't useful, but does anybody know of any reasonable estimates
>>of what the loss actually is? Or even how you'd calculate it?
I'm not sure that is possible. I have purchased hundreds and hundreds of music CD's over the years. I have quit. After hearing what the RIAA was doing, I could no longer support such a company. How can you quantify that affect? I do admit that I've purchased some un-signed (indy?) artists CD's. I have a co-worker that in un-signed and I have his. I have one from a group in NYC and another from a signed but non RIAA member. In the last 3 years..
But I've quit buying music like I previously did. And no, I don't download it from P2P networks either. What I've done is switched to XM Radio. I have two subscriptions. I now understand the RIAA gets a cut of my subscription. I don't like that as I mostly listen to Fox News, XM Comedy, and other stations like that.