Hard Evidence: MP3s Do Not Hurt Sales

Just a microscope. They actually don't have enough money to get enough beakers to do this study.

so when, say, the chair of the econ dept at harvard gives an interview and talks candidly about marx, etc, the next issue has outraged letters: "why don't they have physicists teach abt phlogiston! or teach med students abt the 4 humors!"

Main Entry: 1ev·i·dence
Pronunciation: 'e-v&-d&n(t)s, -v&-"den(t)s
Function: noun
1 a : an outward sign : INDICATION b : something that furnishes proof : TESTIMONY; specifically : something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter

"an outward sign : INDICATION b : something that furnishes proof"

are all entirely subjective.

For the 13443243153165th time, what Dan said.

Well, some people are really into owning the product itself — the packaging, etc. I actually prefer it, too.

But I find it hard to believe the same can be said for the majority of the buying public, especially as iPods and so forth get increasingly popular.

the hard evidence that's missing is any scientific proof of cause and effect between the downloads and the sales.

it's quite possible, for example, that downloads and cd sales for a given album rise in the same week because the artist or the song is in the news that week. so an extra 10,000 people download the song and an extra 20,000 buy the album. that doesn't provide even a shred of scientific proof that downloads aren't hurting sales. that's merely scientific proof that a given artist was really popular that week.

both of barry's possible conclusions make sense. and they're opposite conclusions. which is the basic problem here. it's an interesting, worthwhile study that proves nothing.

the only thing i really disagree with in barry's last post is this...

the industry would have us all believe that downloading makes people not want to buy music, but their data contradicts that quite strongly.

...for the reasons i mentioned earlier. i don't see anything being contradicted.

small bands are getting sorta screwed when they used to feed off of the "exploratory" purchase model. "who's this? oh, they're on that label or they're so and so's other band so i'm gonna have to buy that and check it out."

now it's, "i'm gonna have to download that."

it pretty much killed several small indie labels. and hey, maybe that's that, but mp3s do hurt those bands. somebody paid a couple thousand bucks to run off 500 or 1000 copies of a cd and was just hoping to make their money back more than pay the bills.

some of those people have gotten screwed. and i'm sure that HURT.

in the future, they'll just offer shit via website or p2p and indie bands may not have much merch. perhaps a small run while on tour or something. i dunno.

nothing justifies entitlement.
m.

This is a hilariously capitalistic adaptation of Robin Hood. Robin Hood gave to the poor--he didn't buy things from them.

you're OTM with that, barry, but you could say the same thing about the downloading community, couldn't you?

i'm pretty much in favor of unlimited downloading, period, on the grounds that the technology is there, it's only going to get better, and consumers have made clear they like it. it's GOOD technology. i think it will probably help the music world in general in the long run, but i think the jury's very much out on what it's doing to the music business right now. and if the pros and cons have any interest in talking, it would probably help if both of them admitted that they just might be a little bit wrong and their enemy might be at least a little bit right.

But unlike the smaller labels, where there is at least some varying opinion, the majors unamimously stick to their party line that downloading is bad, full stop.

now it's, "i'm gonna have to download that."

This may be true; in fact, I generally download a few tracks before making a purchase. However, if I don't like a band's music, I don't feel that they are entitled to my 'exploratory' purchase dollars. Since the advent of P2P, I now purchase far more records or cds that I like and waste less on bands that end up being mediocre or worse.

if the movies have no value, why are you downloading them?

obviously, regardless of the suckiness of the industry, there's evidentally enough value in there to spend your time searching for all the parts, burning the dvd, and watching it.

same with music. i know it happens and happens all the time, but who sneaks into a show? who used to steal cds from stores?

you wouldn't sneak in or steal physical shit if you didn't somehow care about the reward. (aside from cleptomania or something.)

despite this folks download all day and never seem to see the connection. they instantly devalue the product in their minds despite the fact that they're gonna have a good time from the effort of others.

why can't the downloading populace wake up to how their using the musicians they value so highly?

i'm definitely down with unlimited downloads, but in a situation like compulsory licensing... a lot like radio, where $5 a month goes to some organization, that's actually accountable unlike riaa or bmi tend to be, ... and it could be rolled up into our monthly dsl or cable bill or part of a college kid's dorm bill or whatever infrastructure that needs to collect the dough. $60 a year over say 60 million people is more than enough to cover the "damages" to the industry over illegal downloading. that's a goldmine and half in fact... we all pay $5, which i think we can all agree is dirt cheap, and the organization gets in my example above $3.6B (or $300M a month) to spread amongst the artists. with the existing marketing research framework, they could count downloads/files at several points during a month and say "ok, jay z at the top gets around ten million this month, but lightning bolt gets eleven thousand."

that's the best middle of the road solution i've seen so far but everybody seems to have their own ass in interest, not everybody's.

i wish somebody important would start touting this sort of idea because it's a lot kinder to the public than anything the powers that be are gonna push down our throats sooner than later.
m.

that's definitely a good point. i do this too in different ways through the bands website, college radio, swapping mix tapes (how really different from p2p is that?), listening stations, etc. after i wrote the "exploratory" purchase post i was thinking about how flawed that was. essentially i was arguing that crappy indie labels benefited from our ignorance back in the day. and it's true, they partly did! which, it's stupid to protect that sort of profit isn't it?

(of course, let's not start talking about corporate welfare... )
m.

A flat monthly fee to download as much as one wanted would be ideal if the selection was sufficiently large and varied; however, I think your point about the music being devalued would still apply as those who downloaded the most would be reducing their cost per song significantly. I don't really see an easy solution besides personal ethics, the Pandora's box is already open.

People who download, but say "if the industry made any good music/films, then I'd buy them!" are clearly asswipes who are spewing lines they read from a two-paragraph news summary about file sharing in some entertainment mag. The value of the downloadable product is clear, the problem is how to make money from it.