Study: Piracy Doesn't Harm Digital Media Sales 173
r5r5 writes "European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies has published a study which concludes that the impact of piracy on the legal sale of music is virtually nonexistent or even slightly positive. The study's results suggest that Internet users do not view illegal downloading as a substitute for legal digital music and that a 10% increase in clicks on illegal downloading websites leads to a 0.2% increase in clicks on legal purchase websites. Online music streaming services are found to have a somewhat larger (but still small) effect on the purchases of digital sound recordings, suggesting a complementary relationship between these two modes of music consumption. According to the results, a 10% increase in clicks on legal streaming websites leads to up to a 0.7% increase in clicks on legal digital purchase websites."
It's worth noting that this study only measured the effect of piracy on online purchases, not on revenue from physical formats.
Only when file sharing is illegal. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not defending MAFIAA in any way, but just want to point out, that the study was conducted under circumstances when file sharing is illegal.
If it becomes legal, it may very well impact the sales in a negative way. Bottom line: interesting study, no practical applications.
How Does "Piracy" Help Digital Sales? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see "piracy" helping CD sales. Basically, it becomes a "try, before you buy" situation and someone wanting the information stored in a nicer way.
I don't see how it helps legal digital sales. If someone pirated X, they already have X, so why would they buy it?
Is it the case that once having pirated X, they buy X+1, not being able to find X+1 on the pirate sites?