17,000 Downloads Does Not Equal 17,000 Lost Sales

Andrew_Rens writes "Ars Technica has a story on a ruling by a US District Judge who rejects claims by the RIAA that the number of infringing downloads amounts to proof of the same number of lost sales. The judge ruled that 'although it is true that someone who copies a digital version of a sound recording has little incentive to purchase the recording through legitimate means, it does not necessarily follow that the downloader would have made a legitimate purchase if the recording had not been available for free.' The ruling concerns the use of the criminal courts to recover alleged losses for downloading through a process known as restitution. The judgement does not directly change how damages are calculated in civil cases."

Comments

Common sense prevails!

[cashman73]

I'm with the Judge on this one! Even when I first started downloading music on Napster, I often wanted to get a better perspective of a particular musician or group before purchasing CDs or going to a concert. There are a lot of artists out there whose music I enjoy that I would not have if I had not downloaded their music. Much in the same way as listening to the radio -- except that, thanks to major corporations buying out all the radio stations in the country, that media is now dead. Sadly, the music industry neither has accepted this, nor have they embraced the new media (internet). Hopefully, they'll eventually realize that you can't sustain an entire industry based on income from lawsuits alone, and get with the times. If they don't get this, then I say, let 'em die!

Living proof

[Rinisari]

There's one band in particular whose entire discography I downloaded. I couldn't find anyone who has the CDs and the previews on Amazon were insufficient. Within a month, I liked it so much that I wanted to have higher-quality, lossless rips and to support the band, so I bought every album the band, and have bought every one since.

I know I'm certainly in the minority in my desire to support the band for its efforts, but there are more people out there like me.

Re:Exactly right!

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

See, I think you are part of the problem in this. On one hand, you say the RIAA doesn't deserve money from you. On the other, you illegally download their creations, sending a clear message that you have some demand for what they offer. If you want the RIAA to go away, just ignore them, and everything they create. While people download their stuff, they can justifiably whine about people ripping them off (because even though 17,000 downloads != 17,000 lost sales, it's also true that 17,000 downloads != 0 lost sales).

Re:Exactly right!

[mcgrew]

You'll never get a large enough group of people to boycott

Then how do you explain their abysmal sales? Piracy? No, the years-long established boycott is working, but they're not blaming me and our boycott, they're blaming you and your piracy.

Stop downloading that crap. Download their competetion, the indies, instead. Most indies WANT you to download.

Re:Exactly right!

[mcgrew]

From Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture (I've abridged the quote drastically)

File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different kinds into four types.

There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing content.

There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it.

There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the transaction costs off the Net are too high.

Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.

From the perspective of the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful.

Type B (try before you buy) can do nothing but increase sales, and every study not financed by the recording industry has concluded that "pirates" spend far mor of their money on music than non-pirates.

Lessig's book is available online under a GPL license, as well as in bookstores. Oddly, being able to legally "pirate" it hasn't kept it out of the bookstores, despite the atti-pirates' bleating that if you can get it for free you won't pay for it.

Only thieves have the mindset "if I can get it for free I won't buy it". Most people have scruples. Unfortunately the people in the RIAA labels don't.

Re:Exactly right!

[hobbit]

I thought I had spelled it out enough for you, but evidently not.

When you are a slave, no matter what you do, you cannot gain your freedom.
When you face potential damages for downloading copyrighted songs that you don't want to pay for, you have the choice of not downloading them.

Do you understand the difference between the two situations? Then you understand that your forefathers would be horrified at your cheapening their experience by likening it to your own position.

The straw man is yours: I never said that you said anything about your black brothers being inferior. You said that the position you would find yourself in if you downloaded music illegally (facing damages) is like slavery (i.e., unavoidable). The implication is clear: you have no choice but to download music without the permission of the copyright holder. The law says that this is stealing, so you imply that you have no choice but to steal.