Piracy is Killing them!

[Jagr]

"And when MP3 players came out... ?

The noble behavior of the few posting in this thread is greatly outweighed by the typical behavior of everyone else in the world."

Which is completely contradicted by the sales figures despite the RIAA's attempts to hide the facts when they were making their case that it was going to drive their sales into the trash..

[Mini D]

No it's not.

You absolutely cannot quantify an increase in sales occuring because of increased piracy. It is intangeable and purely speculative. You CAN quantify a loss in revenue based on tracking the amount of illegal file traffic occuring in a very tangeable method.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Mini D
No it's not.

You absolutely cannot quantify an increase in sales occuring because of increased piracy. It is intangeable and purely speculative. You CAN quantify a loss in revenue based on tracking the amount of illegal file traffic occuring in a very tangeable method.

Just because somone downloads a song does not mean they are going to buy the CD.  I myself DID buy MORE music when I could download it.

Don't quote me here as defending piracy cause I'm not.  I think people should (and for the most part do) buy music and media the right way.

I just don't buy into all this propiganda from the RIAA that they are hurting because of it.  I would even venture a guess to say that their efforts to sue people have resulted in more revenue loss than piracy.

[Gunslinger]

Study: File-Sharing No Threat to Music Sales

By David McGuire
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, March 29, 2004; 8:06 PM


Internet music piracy has no negative effect on legitimate music sales, according to a study released today by two university researchers that contradicts the music industry's assertion that the illegal downloading of music online is taking a big bite out of its bottom line.

Songs that were heavily downloaded showed no measurable drop in sales, the researchers found after tracking sales of 680 albums over the course of 17 weeks in the second half of 2002. Matching that data with activity on the OpenNap file-sharing network, they concluded that file sharing actually increases CD sales for hot albums that sell more than 600,000 copies. For every 150 downloads of a song from those albums, sales increase by a copy, the researchers found.

"Consumption of music increases dramatically with the introduction of file sharing, but not everybody who likes to listen to music was a music customer before, so it's very important to separate the two," said Felix Oberholzer-Gee, an associate professor at Harvard Business School and one of the authors of the study.

Oberholzer-Gee and his colleague, University of North Carolina's Koleman Strumpf, also said that their "most pessimistic" statistical model showed that illegal file sharing would have accounted for only 2 million fewer compact discs sales in 2002, whereas CD sales declined by 139 million units between 2000 and 2002.

"From a statistical point of view, what this means is that there is no effect between downloading and sales," said Oberholzer-Gee.

For albums that fail to sell well, the Internet may contribute to declining sales. Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf found that albums that sell to niche audiences suffer a "small negative effect" from Internet piracy.

The study stands in opposition to the recording industry's long-held assertion that the rise of illegal file sharing is a major cause of declining music sales over the past few years. In making its case, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) points to data showing that CD sales fell from a high of more than $13.2 billion in 2000 to $11.2 billion in 2003 -- a period that matches the growth of various online music piracy services.

The RIAA has fought illegal music swapping by filing a raft of lawsuits against hundreds of individuals suspected of engaging in music piracy, as well as suits targeting companies like Kazaa and Grokster that make software or run Internet downloading services.

Wayne Rosso, president of the Madrid-based file-sharing company Optisoft, said he hoped the study would spur the RIAA to abandon litigation and look for ways to commercialize file sharing. "There's no question that there is a market there that could easily be commercialized and we have been trying for years to talk sense to these people and make them see that," he said. Rosso formerly ran the Grokster file-sharing service.

Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, an Atlanta company that tracks file-sharing activity, said the findings match what his company has observed about the effect of file sharing on music sales. Although the practice cannibalizes some sales, it may promote others by serving as a marketing tool, Garland said.

The RIAA questioned the conclusions reached by Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf.

"Countless well respected groups and analysts, including Edison Research, Forrester, the University of Texas, among others, have all determined that illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs," RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said.

Weiss cited a survey conducted by Houston-based Voter Consumer Research that found those who illegally download more music from the Internet buy less from legitimate outlets. Of respondents ages 18-24 who download, 33 percent said they bought less music than in the past year while 21 percent bought more. Of those ages 25-34, the survey found 25 percent bought less and 17 percent bought more, Weiss said.

Larry Rosin, the president of Somerville, N.J.-based Edison Media Research, said it was absurd to suggest that the Internet and file sharing have not had a profound effect on the music industry.

"Anybody who says that the Internet has not affected sales is just not paying attention to what is going on out there," he said. "It's had an effect on everything else in life, why wouldn't it have an effect on this?"

Edison Media Research has done a series of surveys for a music industry trade publication to track the effect of online file sharing on music sales. Rosin said while file-sharing networks can generate advertising value for some CDs, the net effect of file sharing on music sales has been negative.

The Harvard-UNC study is not the first to take aim at the assertion that online music piracy is the leading factor hurting music sales. In two studies conducted in 1999 and 2002, Jupiter Research analyst Aram Sinnreich found that persons who downloaded music illegally from the Internet were also active purchasers of music from legitimate sources.

"While some people seemed to buy less after file sharing, more people seemed to buy more," Sinnreich said. "It was more likely to increase somebody's purchasing habits."

The 2002 Jupiter study showed that people who traded files for more than six months were 75 percent more likely than average online music fans to spend more money on music.

Sinnreich, no longer with Jupiter, has appeared in court as an expert witness on behalf of Grokster, a popular music downloading site that was sued by the recording industry for facilitating music piracy. In that case, a judge ruled that Grokster and several other services that distribute peer-to-peer software could not be shut down just because the software was used to violate intellectual property rights.

 

[Mini D]

You have yet to see them do what gunslinger?

Music is being transfered illegaly. Each time this happens, it is a transfer the RIAA should be receiving money on but isn't. That is a very quantifyable loss of revenue. If you can't see this it is because your eyes are closed.

If you download a bunch of music illegally then go out and buy a CD, you can say it was because of the donloading, but it's simply an oppinion and it's purely subjective.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Mini D
You have yet to see them do what gunslinger?

Music is being transfered illegaly. Each time this happens, it is a transfer the RIAA should be receiving money on but isn't. That is a very quantifyable loss of revenue. If you can't see this it is because your eyes are closed.

If you download a bunch of music illegally then go out and buy a CD, you can say it was because of the donloading, but it's simply an oppinion and it's purely subjective.

How can they say it is a loss when they didn't LOSE anything?  They can't, there was never a possible transaction.  What they failed to realize is that people would have stopped stealing for the most part if there was a legal viable means to do so.

I have yet to see were they posted any quaterly "losses" that are directly related to piracy.  It is that argument that they are using to sue P2P networks and cause intrusive regulations into new product.

I have a big problem when business like this seeks to monoplize and manipulate a market just because they don't approve of the model.  Piracy is wrong I will never try to justify it.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Mini D
Music is being transfered illegaly. Each time this happens, it is a transfer the RIAA should be receiving money on but isn't. That is a very quantifyable loss of revenue. If you can't see this it is because your eyes are closed.

If you download a bunch of music illegally then go out and buy a CD, you can say it was because of the donloading, but it's simply an oppinion and it's purely subjective.

Thats just narrow minded thinking.
Do you really think the people, who download music, would necessarily buy all the songs they download?

Not a chance...  most of them would run out of money after a single album.

[Jagr]

The bottom line is the transfers are illegal..  the RIAA paids huge amounts of cash to lobbyists and pols to argue their case for them in Congress..  they sold congress that the transfers were killing their sales...they provided graphs and charts and all sorts of legaleze..  and it was all a complete farse..and they knew it.

There has not been a SINGLE independant study that showed that file transfers have had any negative effect on CD sales..  not one..

I KNOW that in my case it had a positive effect in that I bought far more than I ever would have...  sincee I have stopped DL'ing ptp I have bought 1 CD in more than a year..

[Jagr]

No one would argue that people would go buy all the songs they ever DL..

[Mini D]

It is a transaction they should have received money for, but they did not. That is a loss by anyone's definition. That is the exact reason why your side of this debate is unsupportable. That is the exact reason why they are being empowered with each and every illegal download.

[Gh0stFT]

dl/copy music as much as you like, but then please dont
listen to it! because the moment you do it you enjoy
something for free, while others pay for it.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Mini D
It is a transaction they should have received money for, but they did not. That is a loss by anyone's definition. That is the exact reason why your side of this debate is unsupportable. That is the exact reason why they are being empowered with each and every illegal download.

Sorry to say, but this phenomen is something which will co-exist with the legal market.
It is not the same theft as shoplifting or such.. lets call it as the "real life" theft, where it's rather hard to steal immaterial property and everything is solid, unclonable without a cost, causing a direct loss to the owner.

A million and one lawsuits aren't going to help for one bit.
On a long run, it will only hurt the music industry's business AND the economy.
I assume that waste majority of people sued by the RIAA are youth, which of most, I assume, are receiving low income.
They get sued and get exagerrated bills to pay. That can't be good for the economy. At least not if the RIAA could have things done their way = more and more lawsuits.
So they're hurting the business they protect and also affect the overall economy by leaving behind alot of youths with huge debts.
Large debts do also create crime by the people with low income and reduce the work output.

Lawsuits simply aren't going to stop it, neither improved copy protection.
The simpliest way to fight against the piracy is to invest into the internet marketing.
It will not make the piracy go away, but it will give back more money in return than the endless lawsuits against the students.

Besides, it is going to happen sooner or later, which is up to the music industry.
I don't understand why they haven't invested more into the internet marketing.
Apparently they don't like to follow the main stream, but prefer to stay in their area which they know the best.
The history repeats itself.

[Gh0stFT]

Originally posted by Fishu
Large debts do also create crime by the people with low income and reduce the work output.

Fishu, if i understand you right, people doing illegal
things is a good for the economy ?
Whereas people who actually pay for the same stuff are
bad for the economy?

and RIAA is to be blamed for crime & low income result. lol
good night marketing

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Mini D
It is a transaction they should have received money for, but they did not. That is a loss by anyone's definition. That is the exact reason why your side of this debate is unsupportable. That is the exact reason why they are being empowered with each and every illegal download.

If I 100 sell knock off imitation leather jackets on a street corner and the company that makes the real ones actually sees an increase in sales for the year they did not take a loss.....nore should they have the right to sue the leather manufacturer that provided the materials for the imitation jackets.  
Nor can I sue the deliver company that deliverd the jackets to me....
nore can I sue the people that manufactured the sewing machines I used to make them....

nor can I sue the company that made the thread......

nor the buttons.....

nor the zippers.....

nor the sharpie I used to make my for sale sign.....

that is my whole point in this thread.  BOOHOO RIAA.  Make a product people want and you might actually make even more money.

[Mini D]

I haven't seen copyrights on leather jackets. But feel free to continue with very stupid non related analogies.

You guys really are ignoring simple facts and attempting to cloud the issue with vagueness. The courts do not have the same problem.