MUSIC INDUSTRY BODY DISAGREES

A report published by the European Commission Joint Research Committee claims that music web piracy does not harm legitimate sales. The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies examined the online habits of 16,000 Europeans. They also found that freely streamed music provided a small boost to sales figures. The study, Digital Music Consumption on the Internet: Evidence from Clickstream Data, analysed data over the course of one year. But the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has described the research as “flawed and misleading”, and “disconnected from commercial reality”.

According to the researchers, the majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals in the sample group would not have been purchased if illegal downloading websites were not available to them. “Although there is trespassing of private property rights (copyrights), there is unlikely to be much harm done on digital music revenues,” they said. They added that a 10% increase in clicks on illegal streaming websites led to up to a 0.7% increase in clicks on legal digital purchases websites.

For more:
http://www.234globe.com/story/245/Music+Sales+Not+Affected+By+Web+Piracy.html

Good to know . . .