While we
have seen plenty of studies that show file sharing has either a negligible or positive
effect on Album CDs, another recent study actually shows downloading albums does indeed reduce album CD sales. The US National Bureau of Economic Research studied the download and purchase habits of 412 students.
This
study reveals that for every five albums downloaded results in one less sale,
contradicting a previous study that estimate 15% of P2P music downloader's spend
more on music. The IFPI found that for every three former CD buyers who
start sampling music from P2P networks, two will either discontinue or cut back
on purchasing music. Another interesting part of the study indicates that
those who do purchase
CDs value their music more than those who download music.
The students who took part in the study obtained 1,209 albums of which 617 where purchased and the other 592 where downloaded. But if the ability to download was not available, the students would still have purchased those 617 albums, along with purchasing a further 154 albums that they would have downloaded otherwise. Quakester2000 submitted the following news via our news submit:
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It said the US music industry lost one fifth of a sale for each album downloaded from the internet. The study contradicts a previous report, conducted in 2002, which said swapping songs online had no negative effect on music sales.
Other research quoted by the IFPI global music industry body has estimated some 15% of users who download music illegally go on to spend more on music. But the IFPI added that for every one person who uses file-sharing networks to sample music, a further two will cut back on their purchasing, or stop buying music altogether. |
If the student's buying habits were studied after they already have obtained their albums (likely the case in this study), then surely then surely they would say those albums they sampled to purchase would still be the ones they would have purchased had downloading not be available.
A better way to study student's habits would be to find out what albums the students are and maybe interested in at the beginning of the study. If a student is unsure of an album, then they are less likely to purchase it. However, if the student was asked at the end of the study if they would have purchased this same album if downloading was not available, then the answer would have more likely been yes this time since the student had already sampled the music by this stage.
The likely reason students say they would have purchased
more CDs at the end of the survey is that they may have not realised that those
albums they would have purchased are not as good as they had thought. I
heard of many people saying how nice an artist's song is on the radio only to
find out when they purchased the album that they did not like the other
tracks! In this case, these people would have been put off purchasing the
album had the sampled the same artist's tracks and heard how bad they
sound.
Source: BBC News - Music
