Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?

Phonographic Memory writes "A new study has come out that purports to show a link between file-sharing and decreased CD purchases. Covering the period of 1995-2003, the study looked for a link between owning a computer and decreased CD purchases. The researcher found that 'some US music consumers could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.' In its coverage of the study, Ars Technica notes that the scholarly consensus on the possibility of a link between file sharing and music purchases is missing: 'the dominant impression gained from reading these studies is that finding accurate correlations between file-sharing and loss of revenue for the music industry is tremendously difficult.'"

Ofcourse it does

Ok RIAA, I said what you told me to. Will you now drop the case?

Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?

I think the music industry hurts itself. When CD's were release they promised that they would cost around $5 in a few years as the costs of R&D were covered and mass production set in. The only CD's that sell for $5 are either crappy or used. They want to maintain their monopoly status and are unwilling to change. Those are the reasons I no longer buy CD's.

As for DRM protected content for $1 a song, the protection limits my ability to move to a new ipod every year without loosing music. The price point is too high, who has $10,000 to shell out on music to fill their iPod nano?

It's not file share that is there problem, they are their own problem. Their business model is horrible and I can't wait until they collapse over the next 10-15 years. Once the music conglomerates go broke or more artists move to independent labels that don't overcharge I will start buying CD's again. They claim its in the advertising and number of artists that they have to sign that cause prices to remain high. If they quite charging such a premium and actually went to a few shows put on my burgeoning artists they could cut those "costs" in 1/4.

RIAA FAQ point-by-point

Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal File Sharing

This is so good it just had to be answered... heh.

Is illegal file sharing really such a problem?

For the past four years, sales and shipments of recorded music have been plummeting--and the downward trend shows no sign of abating. (Unit shipments have fallen 26%, from 1.16 billion units in 1999 to 860 million units last year, while revenues are off by 14%, from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $12.6 billion last year.). At the same time, sales of blank CD-R disks (the kind you copy music onto) have been soaring, and that dovetailed with the widespread use of file-sharing. So, yes, it really is a problem.

A friend of mine calls this "lying with your teeth in your face." I call it stupid. First off, the RIAA members are public corporations, and the big boys are all growing. In fact, they have been growing for quite some time. You have public records to demonstrate this on any finance site you want to visit. What's changing is the business model. Now, in specific, that "unit shipments have fallen" figure fails to account for online sales and other alternate media formats. This is just bad statistics.

Who says that sharing music through peer-to-peer networks is illegal?

Federal law and a string of court decisions. Federal copyright statutes (specifically, Sections 501 and 506 of Title 17 of the United States Code) and the "No Electronic Theft" (NET) Act provide penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, rental or digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. Moreover, an unbroken series of court decisions--most recently, in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc., et al. v. Grokster, Ltd., et al., and in RIAA v. Verizon Internet Services Inc.--has affirmed that "sharing" copyrighted music files over peer-to-peer networks without the copyright holder's permission constitutes "direct infringement."

Which clearly demonstrates that music sharing is not illegal. Sharing copyrighted music to which you do not have a valid license or ownership of the copyright is illegal. This is a fine point that the RIAA would appreciate if you simply forgot.

Didn't the courts just rule that peer-to-peer networks are perfectly legal?

In the Grokster case, a district court did rule that the Grokster and StreamCast networks couldn't necessarily be held liable for the illegal activities of their users. That ruling is now being considered by a Court of Appeals. In any case, the court also made it abundantly clear that whether or not a network itself can be held responsible, the users of that network can clearly be guilty of copyright infringement.

In other words, you are responsible for your own actions. Yes, thank you. Now would you please stop trying to sue ISPs, dead people and little kids?

Aren't most downloaders merely sampling music that they later wind up buying?

If this were true, music sales would be soaring, given the astronomical increases in peer-to-peer file sharing. Music consumption has never been higher, but unfortunately, an increasing segment of the population is stealing instead of paying for it.

Music sales are soaring. There, that was easy.

Isn't the real problem that consumers don't like the music you're putting out?

If people don't like today's music, why are they illegally downloading literally billions of new songs each month?

Wouldn't people buy more CDs if they didn't cost so much?

If you're going to compare the price of CDs to that of stolen music--which is free--of course they're going to seem expensive. But if you take inflation into account, music CDs are actually cheaper today than they were 20 years ago. (In 1983, when CDs were first i

Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?

I bought a DVD the other day for $5. Yet a band from the 70's still cost $11-15. I can't find a good CD for $5. If the movie industry can do it, then the music industry can. I hear that tape sales are way down due to downloads and piracy as well. Why wasn't that ever mentioned in the article?

Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?

you are a lying troll. you can use as many ipods as you want. and you can use music you didn't buy from the itunes store. you can make as many backups as you want, and you can play on 5 computers simulataneously.

your friends are idiots or are lying to you because they hate you and don't want you to enjoy ipods like they do.

Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?

I will not spend $1 for a song that sucks.... But you have accused me of being a thief when I actually have only legal MP3s without DRM.

According to the RIAA, that makes you a thief. You're a thief if you buy used music. You're a thief if you buy music on sale. You're a thief if you buy any recordable media other than Music CD-Rs, and you're a thief if you use them for music. And even with DRM, you're a thief if you bought it from iTunes and a thief if you bought a CD (you bought music; you must like to steal it too, so here's a free rootkit so we can keep an eye on you). You're a thief if you listen to the radio, you're a thief if you hum or whistle, you're a thief if you can sing, play an instrument, or keep a beat, until they sign you to a label(*) and they can start stealing back from you.

And you're a thief if you don't buy enough new music every 10 minutes.

Basically, everyone's a thief. You've stolen profits they could have had if you'd just bought more.

You haven't lined their pockets enough.

(*) I'm only kidding on that point. They don't sign people who can sing, play instruments, or keep a beat; they have machines to fix that now. It's easier to keep a perfomer if all their talent actually comes from the label's hardware. (They're still working on supplanting physical beauty; lip-syncing stand-ins aren't working well enough.)

Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?

you can make as many backups as you want, and you can play on 5 computers simulataneously.

You are correct, but it makes a crappy backup.

Lossy AAC to CD audio and back to lossy MP3 is quite a degredation in sound quality.

That and you use your ID tags.

Personally, I use an iPod but I rip my CDs I purchase from the store to 256kps MP3s for quality and compatibility of all my players (Audiotron, CD mp3, and iPod and VBR is problematic on the CD and audio tron)

I'm tempted to start doing high quality MP4 because I'm an audio freak like that. Too bad iPods don't support FLAC or OGG, but I still like my nano.

Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz?

In other news the RIAA has sued Microsoft for stealing thier business as computer owners spent more money on microsoft products than non computer owners... and this obviously means they have less money to spend on CDs and must pirate instead! It's all Microsofts fault!

On a more serious note, how could they seriously not realize that owning a computer opens up new entertainment mediums to people? 1 computer game is 2-5 CDs... it's not like people have a limitless supply of entertainment money.

Gotta love bad studies...

Re:There has also been no new malls built since 20

I've got a computer. I haven't purchased a CD in about 6 months, however, I know that Amazon will still deliver them to me for free, so the cost of driving to the mall has nothing to do with it.

I just don't want their damned music. I don't want their damned music badly enough that I haven't downloaded any of it either.

That CD I bought 6 months ago? It was made on a computer. In the home of the artist. I bought it from her at one of her appearances at a local coffeehouse. It's got a CC license. It doesn't even show up on the sales statistics.

Ya think that might have something to do with the official sales numbers?

". . . finding accurate correlations between file-sharing and loss of revenue for the music industry is tremendously difficult.'"

Yeah, I have the same problem counting the number of pixies living under my bed.

KFG

Re:There has also been no new malls built since 20

I just don't want their damned music. I don't want their damned music badly enough that I haven't downloaded any of it either.

There you have it. Their product is bad, overhyped, bubblegummy teenage nonsense.

When I find good music I buy it, and in the last 15 years or so the good music is coming out on smaller, independent labels.

That CD I bought 6 months ago? It was made on a computer. In the home of the artist. I bought it from her at one of her appearances at a local coffeehouse.

Amen.

I buy CDs at shows all the time. The artist gets the money, I get the music, a major label record company gets nothing - everyone wins.

What about : increased suckage ==decreased sales?

1) I have never downloaded a song for which I don't own a CD already
2) I have bought maybe 2 CDs in the last year, vs. 20 a year in the early 90's

This is mainly due to the high level of suckage by today's "musicians". Has anyone done a study that includes that correlation? Also I've built my collection the point where I have almost everything I want already. How does that figure in?

Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale

This is mainly due to the high level of suckage by today's "musicians". Has anyone done a study that includes that correlation

And how exactly to you propose to objectively measure the "level of suckage"?

Seriously, what you say is not true. What sucks is the music that's played on the radio, not modern music. This is mostly a result of the deregulation of radio that occurred in the 90s, paving the way for a few giants to own just about everything.
The effects were somewhat delayed by the "grunge" boom; every major label was so desperate to find "the next Nirvana" that they took chances with all sorts of interesting bands that wouldn't have otherwise gotten major label deals. They have since realized that they'll make more money sticking to the formula, so they push nothing but garbage on the radio and MTV nowadays.

Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale

I don't listen to radio, but one objective example of suckage is the decreased dynamic range of modern mastering techniques. Nearly all music from the last 10 years is so overcompressed as to be unlistenable (and even old music is not safe - "remastered" rerelease versions replace the old versions with much inferior versions).

Perhaps it is a demographics shift too

I have also hardly bought any CDs of late because I can't find anything I'm motivated to buy and for me suckage has increased. I don't download illegal stuff at all.

Sure, suckage is very subjective. Another possible cause is a shift in demographics. For us people who used to buy CDs, but now don't because of perceived suckage, we have stopped buying. Period. We have not started downloading (well typically anyway). The higher volumes of new releases are now more biased away from people like me to those who like rap or whatever. Perhaps the rap-buying demographic has never been strong in CD purchases, so perhaps that explains a lot, perhaps not.

Analogy alert: if you replace a French resturant into a MacD,then expect your patrons to change and expect your sales numbers to change too. The wine bar next door should also expect changes since your average MacD eater is probably less likely to fit the wine bar profile.

Not demographics - Not Enough Cow Bell

I doubt it. I'm in my 40's and I've noticed a distinct lack of cow bell in today's music.

But forcing Blu-Ray on me won't get me to buy the White Album again - I already burned it onto MP3.

Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale

I agree. My buying habits have changed. I still listen to a wide variety of radio stations; but my desire to buy what I hear is zero. So I go to extremes to buy stuff that doesn't suck. I noticed I starting buying more from Amazon 'cause HMV,A&B,BestBuy,etc/etc were all selling the same "promoted" crap. Now I see more indy record companies pushing their own and bypassing traditional distributors (for example, I heard Dervish on FolkAlley.com and could not find them except through their associated on-line store.)

One thing that truly freaks me out is the blatent theft of riffs and complete lack of originality by many of the leading "Pop" artists. Hey... isn't that Madonna butchering ABBA? Rihanna pilfering SoftCell? Gwen and Fergie ripping off children's songs - or each other.

Re:Nonsense!

But seriously, does this shock anyone? If I'm getting the milk for free how is the cow gonna get paid?

yeah! it's just like when the casette tape killed the recording industry and the video tape put all the movie theatres out of business and the radio wiped out record sales. we've know this connection for years! ever since the public library put all the publishers out of business.

seriously. people buy cd's (and books and movies) as much for owning an artefact than for the actual content. people want to have personal libraries and large music collections and so they will buy books and movies. history proves it.

Decreased CD purchases...

But of course, increased online digital music sales couldn't possibly have anything to do with *that* could they?

Lots of things have changed in the last 10 years. P2P fileswapping is one of them. iTunes is another.

The music sucks

Said it before, say it again. It's not the Internet, it's the product. Music today sucks compared to years ago. I just have no desire to pay $18 for a CD when I could buy the DVD with full video for the same price.

The same applies to movies. Torrents aren't killing your ticket sales.. Your crappy movies are killing ticket sales.

"Honey, do these jeans make my butt look fat?"
"No, your fat butt makes your butt look fat."

See the concept?

Re:The music sucks

Not to go against the Borg known as Slashdotters... but here you go..

Music today is no better nor worse than yesterday. You remember the good stuff and forget the crap, the same way I remember the good 90s music and not the crap.. That is how things work. You remember the good and discard the crap.

As you get older you learn about music and what's good and bad.. You learn yourself and your tastes, I'm sure you can understand that.. but when you're 15 you're still a young guy who will follow groups a bit more.. learn a bit more and such..

Music didn't change my friend, YOU changed.

Re:The music sucks

DITTO. Remember what our parents/adults said about the music we listened to back then.

Re:The music sucks

Music today is no better nor worse than yesterday.

I think I'll be the one to decide that when it comes to spending my money since this is a highly subjective matter.

I don't buy CDs nearly as much as I used to. Radio stations play the same music they've played for about 5 or 6 years now. I find myself turning the channel to talk radio more often than not because I'm tired of hearing the same music over and over and over again.

Those are facts. We can argue the cause of the facts if you want.

Not buying CDs

1) I'll admit that music isn't as big in my life now as it was say in college. So perhaps age has something to do with it.

2) I'm older and wiser and whenever I even think about buying a CD (which isn't often) I think of better ways to spend my money.

3) Perhaps I'm falling out of touch with whatever is the fad of the day. (See #2)

Same music over and over

1) Perhaps there really aren't that many good new songs being released. (i.e. today's music really IS worse)

2) Maybe whomever is in charge of the music at the stations in my area are lazy.

3) What if (wait for it . . .) the music industry decision makers have lost touch with what's good and let great talent sit unnoticed?

While I'm thinking about it (since #3 in the second group got me on this train of thought), I'll go ahead and say what I'll wager has crossed the mind of anyone who has more than three brain cells holding hands and singing "kum ba ya". File sharing kills off bands that suck. It just does. If you download and sample the other songs from a band besides the hit playing constantly on the radio and find out that they are a one hit wonder, are you going to fork out the full price of a CD for that one song? I wouldn't.

Artists are (or should be) afraid of file sharing because it exposes their weakness at making a tight album. Music execs hate it because (among other things) it allows people to easily sample before they buy. I say easily because it seems to me that if someone takes the time to go to the music store, they would be more likely to buy something than if they didn't.

In conclusion, I'll say that file sharing won't kill music or bankrupt talented artists. If the music industry is smart, it won't even hurt their bottom line that much. But I'll tell you what it will kill--the album as we know it.

Don't get too upset about it. I suspect that the overall quality of the average song will actually improve since bands will quit messing around with songs that nobody likes.

Just $0.02.

Re:Here is why you are wong.

Music today is no better nor worse than yesterday. You remember the good stuff and forget the crap, the same way I remember the good 90s music and not the crap.. That is how things work. You remember the good and discard the crap.

Every generation has had its share of good and bad music and the manufactured pop idols, but one thing is different today than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago.

Clear Channel owns all the radios and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.

This means artists are chosen by the media cartels payola system rather than a voting system by the populace.

As a kid I remember every year, there would a video that would play at midnight and then it would get popular and play at 10pm and then later it would be playing nonstop at primetime for an entire month.

Now, a band is just manufactured and *BAM* they are on the prime time whether you like it or not.

Mabye all those old bands were manufactured as well, but these days it isn't even remotley democratic.

Do you remember the days when any local band had a chance of getting their demo played on the radio and then making it big?

These days there is no such thing as a local radio station. They play the same lists on the East Coast as they do the West coast. Hell many of the shows are getting the same audio stream.

So I wouldn't say the quality of music has gone down hill, but rather the industry itself and its promotions methods. RIAA and crew are no longer satisfied with taking chances with people possibly making it big. If they sign you then they force it down everyone's throats even if they aren't liked.

Which is of course why we see more one hit wonders these days of people who real job was making jingles for commercials or have a pretty face.

It isn't the internet or piracy nor iTunes killing the industry, but the industry itself.

The only way to fix it would be to break up the RIAA monopoly and force Clear Channel to sell its stations.

Re:The music sucks

"Amen, it looks like the top 2 albums this week will be Justin Timberlake's solo production and Clay Aiken...'nuff said"

Here some of the top tracks of the year:

• 1999: "Believe" by Cher
• 1996: That fucking Macarena song
• 1991: "Everything I Do, I Do For You" by Bryan Adams (Messrs. Bush and McCain are currently disputing whether this song is an acceptable means of torture.)
• 1986: "That's What Friends are For" by Dionne Warwick
• 1982: "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John (#2 was "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor.)
• 1979: "My Sharona" by The Knack
• 1978: "Shadow Dancing" by Andy Gibb
• 1973: "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree" by Tony Orlando and Dawn
• 1966: "The Ballad of the Green Berets" by Staff Sargeant Barry Sadler (for those of you who remember this song: I am very, very sorry if this is stuck in your head for the rest of the day.)

I hope this helps clear things up, and that you're a little closer to understanding why people chuckle when younger people think that "today's music sucks" is some sort of unique epiphany.

Re:The music sucks

If the music sucks. Why do you feel the need to download it without its creators permission?

Re:The music sucks

We're not. They're just assuming we are when their sales suck. Sure, in some cases we download to sample it but wouldn't have bought the CD anyways (or decide we like it and actually DO buy the CD), but only those among us with the most bandwidth and the biggest hard drives download pure crap solely because it was available.

Re:The music sucks

"Said it before, say it again. It's not the Internet, it's the product. Music today sucks compared to years ago."

This is a constant. People approaching middle age in the 1950s claimed that modern music sucked compared to music of previous decades. As did people in the 1920s and 1870s.

People who believe in the quality of music of past generations vs. today's music are often quite certain that they are correct in an objective sense, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Nonetheless, this phenomenon is so common that there is a word to describe it: nostalgia [wikipedia.org].

I'm aware that this provides a quandary for P2P fans: if "today's music sucks" is a constant over T, then it's not a significant contributor to declining music sales. Another sticky issue is that the top pirated tracks [bigchampagne.com] match up with the top sold tracks pretty closely. "Today's music sucks" is not driving P2P fans to download old stuff in lieu of new stuff. The demand for the new stuff is strong; P2P simply provides another channel.

i think it helps cd sales

i wrote an albeit sloppy paper on this a few years ago. i found that there were several spikes in cd sales. one was during the heyday of napster. after napster was shut down, cd sales started to slow down. they picked up again as iTunes was gaining in popularity.

personally, i know for a fact that i wouldnt have a huge chunk of my (legally puchased) music collection had it not been for file sharing, simply because i would have never heard the bands before.

WTF?

During 2002 computer owners' CD sales decreased by $4.79 a year, and by $5.55 in 2003. Those without computers only decreased by $0.80 and $0.22, respectively.

And even an inexpensive CD (been out a few years, on a discount site, etc) is about $7.99 today.

That's less than 1 cheap CD a year. That's barely 1 brand new ($15.99) CD every 3 years.

WTF?

And the 80 cent decrease? That's 1 less CD purchased every 10 years.

The answer always depends upon the question

Right. We download a song from an album that we *think* we want, then we say "Man, this sucks. I'm glad I didn't buy this shit."

End of story. So, yes, you could answer that music downloads hurt music sales, but that only identifies the symptom and ignores the actual problem.

Not really.

I don't think it does purely for the story I'm about to tell.

Three days ago I had no intrest in Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon, but a friend had the rom so I went "WTF, I'll give it a try".. I found out it played just like nethack, some minor changes, but in my head it became "Pokemon Nethack". I played it for a couple of hours and decided that this was a game I'd want to play on my DS rather than on the PC. So today I ordered the game and it should be here in a few days.

Did I hurt the game industry by using a rom before I bought the full copy or buy a game I didn't have an intrest before I played it? Roms and P2P music has become the new demos, people will buy games they think are worth the money or they'll download games they didn't think were worth the money. You could even argument because of the rom I've now told Slashdot that they can get a Nethack like game on the DS now and may have even sold more GBA/DS consoles/games, but that maybe going too far.

Quality will always sell.

Percent Confidence & Uncontrolled Variables

Aside from this being just a generally difficult type of study to execute, but what is their confidence level that a 13% drop is related to file-sharing?

Though the methodology is complex, the results are straightforward: some US music consumers "could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing."

Oh, there it is, the word 'could.' So on a level from one to a hundred, where does 'could' lie? I mean, if this was a rigorous statistical procedure -- no matter how complex, they should be able to give a percent confidence. You can measure deviation from your model and give it to me that way but I'm concerned that there might have been uncontrolled variables affecting the sale of CDs.

And I believe that iTunes Music Service has been out since 2001, is that accounted for? It doesn't seem to be if you search the below linked document. I mean, I assume this study is targeting illegal downloads. iTunes is legal to my knowledge yet it would still decrease CD purchases.

If you'd like to read the paper, it can be found here [bepress.com] (PDF alert).

While this study does take into acocunt some variables, I'm just afraid there are too many for it to be conclusive. I would recommend that the article ignore Family Size and find out how many of their users used a legal music download service.

Also, is 2,000 samples per year enough to be accurate? Possibly, but then again, they are talking about an economy of 250 million consumers.

Actually, File Sharing HELPED the music business

Here's a few little goodies that the RIAA forgot to include with their pet study...

1. Nicholls State University is in Thibodaux, Louisana which isn't exactly a hotbed of business research
2. His study doesn't state where the funding to conduct the study was obtained from.
3. The data came from the Consume Expenditure Survey, which is notoriously inaccurate
4. RIAA has cut back on advertising and promotion for music across the board
5. Their sales were actually better while Napster was in operation, without any additional expenditure on their part.

Just my 2 cents,

QueenB

Let's talk about plastic discs holding 12 songs

Before we talk about filesharing, we should talk about the more basic issue: transmissable digital file formats vs. plastic media discs
stored in poorly designed (easily breakable) jewel cases.

Let's face it: CD's suck. And I'm not talking about the music. I'm talking about the medium.

CD's have to be swapped out of the cd player. They hold too little music. They're easily damaged. And the jewel case is one of the worst atrocities
of industrial design to be inflicted upon humanity in the last 20 years. (I'd say 30% of mine are broken).

MP3's by comparison are instantly accessible, contain meta data, are sortable, and can be shuffled into infinite playlists. Not to mention, they're
not breakable.

When the recording industry pushes CD's, they are pushing a sub-par product on us.

The music industry was slow to adopt a commercial alternative, and when they did they gave us DRM infected, vastly overpriced, low bitrate shite because they were
still convinced that if given no other alternative we would continue to buy the sub par plastic discs.

But there was an alternative: An infinitely better, cheaper, higher quality and more accessible alternative. The recording industry attmpted to
control the market at the expense of the consumer. They gambled and they lost.

When businesses offer subpar products they fail.

The message to the recording industry is simple: Sell me non-DRM infected tracks at .12 each and I'm interested. That's the same amount of money you're getting from your CD's anyway. Push for more, and give me less? You lose.

maybe habits have changed and quality has declined

When I was younger I would buy a cd every couple weeks, in the past year I have purchased two. I have a huge cd collection but it stopped growing, there just isnt enough compelling music out there. In the past year I picked up a Santana cd and The Wreckers debut album. I havent gone on strike against the record labels, though I do not buy on impulse anymore, and wont just buy a disk for one or two songs. My tastes havent really changed, I just have lost interest. I have a few independant disks that I picked up at shows and have purchased a couple dozen tunes on itunes. My wife has picked up a few disks, but to me most of the bands she is into sound the same. Maybe im just old and cranky but it just seems like the stuff being pushed these days is just so formula that owning one of the bands songs is like owning them all.

And in related news...

'some US music consumers could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.'

In related news, some Congressman might now be accepting 80% more bribes, 50% of people might be below average, and 100% of statistics prefaced with "some" and "could have" are sensational bullshit. If you've got real statistics, you don't say "some might have."

Rock vs Pop

As a musician, let me explain something. In the rock or underground world, you get paid next to nothing for your CD sales. The record company knows bands are hit-or-miss, so keep all the dough to themselves, letting the band make their money from live shows *if they are widely accepted. This is in contrast to the pop industry, who knows that the pop groups are close to one-hit-wonders, and the "artist" gets paid for their CD and tour as a lump sum. The record company rakes in the profits from the CDs and shows. In most cases, the pop groups are built by the industry for this very rea$on, vs rock groups who create themselves.

File Sharing DOES hurt the music biz...

File sharing DOES hurt the current model of the music biz... one that is based on the disposable mega-pop-star. It is hard to sell 10 million albums for a musician with one hit song when someone can just download the single they like so easily. For a pop-phenomena, it is very easy to hit the critical mass of people online to share something.

On the other hand, there is a lot of music that is very hard to find on file sharing networks. Whole genres of music are pretty much unaccounted for on file sharing networks. If you can't listen to it on an FM radio station, good luck finding it. There might be a successful business model in selling fewer records of more artists, than selling more records of a handful of artists.

Regardless, it is not the role of the government to be propping up outdated business models. I think it is pretty clear that the automobile was pretty disastrous to the blacksmithing and livery industries... but it created even more profitable industries in the long run. Think of the mess we would be in if we tried to save the blacksmithing and livery industries as large scale parts of our economy. True, file-sharing IS stealing and immoral, I don't deny that: but so is taking my tax money against my will, in order to fund a government agency to preemptively go after file sharing, or to legally harass potentially innocent people, or to legally restrict new technologies because they *MAY* potentially be used for file sharing. The immorality of file-sharing (extremely minor evil, if it is evil at all) is far outweighed by the immorality of the draconian methods required for enforcement.

And specific to the music industry... WE WILL NEVER HAVE A SHORTAGE OF MUSIC!!! Music is one of those things people enjoy doing without payment... and one of those things that garners a lot of non-financial rewards (attention, respect, adoration). Look at all the garage bands, amateur musicians, people making demo CDs, people posting their music free on websites, and tell me that we would not have lots and lots of music, even if the entire industry collapsed. Making music is not like building airplanes, in that it takes vast amounts of capital and can be dangerous if done by people who don't know what they are doing.

Real World example..

Before i graduated high school, I bought very little music. I was a full time student and a single record was a little more than my weekly allowance.

Fast forward a few years. I'm in the Navy and just bought a killer sound system. I live in the housing with no expenses. I find music I like down the hall. I buy a few LP's. I get a car. I get an LP badly scratched so it skips. I buy a case of good Maxell tapes. Make a set of tapes for the car (Can't play LP's in the car) and another set to play to preserve the original LP quality. I get a few tapes tangled in a friends car tape player. No problem, recreated a replacement. Also traded a few tapes (before lawsuits start, the Statute of Limitations ended about 25 years ago) so yes I pirated music in my youth. It also happened to be my peak music buying years. For the music that I really liked, it was worth buying a pristine copy. I bought the Mobile Sound Fidelity Labs copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at a premimum price. It has been played less than 15 times in the years I have owned it. Each time was to cut a tape from it to preserve the original.

If I didn't have a tape deck and a good way to expand my library by sharing, I would probably have just stuck with radio and not have ever heard of Pink Floyd. File sharing is a marketing tool. Learn to embrace it.