Filesharing still doesn’t hurt music sales
I’m reminded, by Jill/Txt, of a March 2004 report (360kb PDF), which concludes that filesharing does not have a statistically significant effect on music sales, and could possibly actually help increase sales of some albums. This Guardian article, however, mentions that CD sales in the United States have actually risen by 7%, while filesharing continues to grow in popularity. I’m curious how the RIAA will respond to that. “They may be rising, but they’re not rising enough!”
July 23rd, 2004 at 10:39 am
The RIAA position was always stupid, a case of shutting the doors to the barn after the horses had already left. The real reason CD sales have increased less slowly than desired is because the current music sucks and CD prices are too high considering the poor quality. It’s that simple.
Since I started my CD in ‘97, the overwheliming majority of my CD purchases have been of older acts, from the 60s, 70s and 80s and early 90s. Very few current albums.