According to research company Ipsos-Reid the record industry should be happy with filesharing instead of trying to shut it down. Their latest research has an intresting results, most people asked for their music buying habits have not changed or that they even buy more records:
After all, the technology has captured the imagination of the public. One out of four Americans over the age of 12 owns a CD burner, and the figures rise to one out of two among people who download music. |
Since U.S. sales have declined as well, a logical conclusion might be that file sharing and CD burning caused the drop here too.
Well, that's not necessarily the case. The Ipsos-Reid study found that 81 percent of music downloaders reported that their CD purchasing either remained the same or increased. That backs up research from Jupiter Media Metrix that concluded that people using file-sharing networks were more likely to spend money on music.
"While the goal of this ... was not to draw a link between file sharing, CD burners and the slump in music sales, we can see that American music enthusiasts are becoming increasingly acquainted with the flexibility that digital music allows," said Matt Kleinschmit, Ipsos-Reid senior research manager, in a written statement. "As a result, (American consumers) may be more apt to venture beyond the traditional channels of music distribution as part of their audio behaviors."
I personally don't know if I should be happy with this information or not, if the downloading doesn't hurt the industry there are still the way too high record prices.
But on the other hand, now I have the choice to pay for music or not, and a good way to find out what I like.
Source: Wired.com
