nusratt's Journal: Study shows P2P might be *helping* CD sales

[story submitted to slashdot editors 2004-07-23 12:25 UTC, and AGAIN at 2004-07-24 06:55 UTC] The Guardian reports on a study of file-sharing performed by two professors at UNC and Harvard Business School. The effect of file-sharing is 'statistically indistinguishable from zero' -- and in some cases may actually help sales. Their analysis is based on correlating three months' of weekly sales reports with corresponding data from two P2P servers. One of the researchers says of the Napster trial in 2000, 'The studies that were used during the trial were really horrible. They don't imply that downloading is the root cause of college students and teenagers buying less. If we got rid of file sharing tomorrow, it doesn't necessarily mean these kids would be buying any more music.'

One possible explanation for prior declines in CD sales: 'people were spending on DVDs instead of CDs'. During a multi-year period when CD prices rose ten percent and sales fell, 'DVD prices fell by 25% and the price of players fell in the US from over $1,000 to almost nothing'. Furthermore, recent RIAA claims of damaged sales may very well be disingenuous, based on 'a creative redefinition of the word "sale": during the past nine months, actual CD sales in America have increased by 7%, despite continued growth in file sharing'.

This is the first empirical study based on actual file-sharing behavior -- and perhaps the last: 'I imagine it's going to be difficult for us to get sales data in the future because of the views of the record industry towards us', says the researcher.