A lot of my friends are music fans (Shameless plug - that's why I built http://beathound.com), and across the board the ones with large libraries are the ones who both pirate and buy the most.
For example, in the last couple weeks Mother Mother released a new album - the friends who get all their music legitimately were saying "Oh, Mother Mother has a new album out - I'm going to check it out soon", but the pirating friends were saying "Mother Mother put out a new album; did you buy it yet?".
In my experience - the friends who pirate the most are the ones who are the most excited about their music, and they do whatever is easiest when it comes to getting it. If that's buying it - they do that (or at least, that's how it seems based on my limited sample size).
Correlation != causation. If the numbers show that file-sharers buy more music than people who do not file-share, this does not prove at all that file-sharing leads to people buying more music. Maybe sharing of music files and buying music have a common cause: a passion for music.
It's just what you want to read in these numbers. People who download a lot of music (as in not buy it) unsurprisingly tend to believe in this causation without question.
Correlation is not causation. But this _is_ hard data about the habits of file-sharers vs. the average music listener, and it seems to directly contradict the RIAA's claims. And how would you otherwise attack this? Is there any other methodology you think would be suitable for proving or disproving RIAA's claim that file-sharers alone are a net negative for the recording industry?
That's a straw-man argument. The question isn't whether file-sharers are net positive or negative. The question is whether if file-sharing were reduced, would the industry be better or worse off. It's entirely possible that if file-sharing was more risky or less accessible, the people who file-share would spend a lot more on music.
I'm pretty sure that the RIAA has never stated that file-sharers are bad for the music industry, just that file-sharing is bad. Those are two different things.
I'm pretty sure that the RIAA has never stated that file-sharers are bad for the music industry, just that file-sharing is bad. Those are two different things.
This style of argument has been used extensively by the various media industry associations. There's Valenti's famous Boston strangler analogy, the Home Taping is Killing Music from the BPI, etc. I don't recall any specific references in regards to file sharing, but I'm certain they've been made.
The question isn't "if file-sharing were reduced, would the industry be beter or worse off". The question is "if the industry employs specific tactics to reduce file-sharing, will the industry be better or worse off".
Given that the industry's chosen tactics involve frustrating, harassing and suing some of their more enthusiastic customers, you have to wonder...
"I'm pretty sure that the RIAA has never stated that file-sharers are bad for the music industry"
I'm pretty sure it has. It also sues them as individuals for large sums of money, so if it didn't state exactly that then it would have a very hard time making an argument in court.
So filesharers aren't, on average, I'm-not-giving-them-a-penny sorts. But that's not the really key question, is it? If filesharing wasn't so easy, would they pay more for services like Spotify as alternate music discovery mechanisms? Or maybe just buy more directly? Or, to account for all options, maybe they'd buy less?
i don't know without being re-born in an alternate universe, but i think there's a reasonable argument that i would simply give up on music - or just stick to a relatively small collection of classical and jazz standards. finding the good stuff is quite time-consuming; i wouldn't buy enough to do it and i'm not impressed with pandora (not that i can listen to it any more); radio doesn't cut it (except for radio 6 - i guess that would get even more middle age male listeners, but then that's free anyway ;o). in other words, as i think others have said: downloading is the new radio.
[updated: i'm not convinced this is a good-faith conversation, but if you're really curious, and not just wanting to say how you would do things - after asking what downloaders do, and saying you are not one, then dismissing my response - then i work like this: get a recommendation; grab an album; add it to random shuffle ("radio"); eventually notice certain tracks; become fans of those bands.]
Interesting—personally, I find filesharing to be a really crappy discovery mechanism these days. It's ok as a "this was recommended to me by a friend, do I actually like it" vetting mechanism, but Youtube has surpassed it for that for me. Someone can drop a youtube link on a page or in a forum post, and I can click it and get the music streaming to me right away. Filesharing was the new radio thirteen years ago, when the alternative was MIDI downloads or nothing, but I'd say Youtube serves that role today for the majority of listeners.
(Well, actually, if we're talking the population as a whole, radio is still radio—it and traditional TV are both still doing far, far better than internet pundits predicted five or ten years ago.)
That's where private trackers like What.cd shine. Discovery is incredible. I can see what's new and popular from the last 24 hours, I can see all the similar artists for a specific artist, or I can download a curated starter 'collage' (as they call them) of a specific genre.
I've got to agree with this. I had a small collection of classical and jazz CDs until I arrived at college in the mid '90s where I encountered physical and later digital music sharing. My musical horizons expanded dramatically then, and then again in the last decade as even more obscure and more interesting music has become more browsable.
Services that try to tell me what my Facebook "friends" like or what is "popular" are deeply uninteresting to me. I would never pay money for them.
At this point, I mostly avoid commercial music except for a few artists that I know well (mostly early '90s "electronica"). The risks around file trading are too great. Instead, I stick to music that I've found on Soundcloud, youtube or in the various music production forums I hang out in.
As soon as you sign with a major label, I don't want to hear from you. If your idea of customer service is suing your actual and potential customers, then you can go fuck yourself.
If you are thinking about starting a music discover startup that tries to shove the same crap down my throat, I also don't want to hear from you. There are plenty of people who apparently do, but I don't.
To address your update, since it's after the edit window for my initial response:
Downloading used to me what I'd do to check out new music after getting recommendations (because I don't have the patience to listen to the radio, where there are a bunch of commercials plus songs I don't like). Sometime in the last few years I stopped because I noticed I could find stuff from almost all the artists I was being recommended on Youtube and the like, and it was a quicker way to do on-demand listening of them than downloading a whole album. The difference in our workflows is that I want to evaluate new stuff more immediately. I'm fairly impatient, and I'm also personally not a big fan of cross-artist radio-style random shuffle.
As for private trackers, I just don't care enough about music these days to go seek those out or worry about an upload ratio (I got kicked off of one about seven years ago for that reason, since I downloaded a bunch after joining as was catching up too slowly for their tastes...).
The truth is that personally, if I could pay say 20$/month and consume any media I want and download what I want I would. But the fact is the music is too god damn expensive, and purchasing a song is too hard. A song - 5megabytes mp3 file - is much easier to download from literally anywhere on the web.
Now you don't even need a program to do it, just use a website like mp3skull.com and you can get any song instantly.
"Ripping CDs and sharing files with friends account for a higher percentage of people’s music collection than P2P file-sharing across all age groups."
I wonder how much of that is broken down between "ripping CDs" and "sharing files with friends". I can't remember the last time I, or anyone I know, "ripped" a CD.
In my spare time over a few weeks I once ripped my entire CD collection. But I haven't bought a new CD in ages... Lately I have been ripping DVDs and Blu-rays though.
ETA: In case anyone was wondering: rips (not re-encoded) of about 50 DVDs, 17 Blurays and even 7 HD-DVDs is ~1.3 TB.
The few times I've attempted to rip one of my DVDs, I was discourage by the 2 Hour + wait (using Handbrake on reasonably beefy Windows 7 Box) - I've been tempted (though, never actually followed through) to just repurchase some of my more popular DVDs on iTunes just to avoid having to go through that pain.
How long did it take you to rip those 74 shiny discs?
It does take a while. I have a fairly fast drive but it still takes 2 hours for some BDs. I definitely wouldn't recommend doing it right when you want to watch the movie :) Generally I put it in right when I'm about to go somewhere else, so it's done or close to done when I get back. For the 7-disc Ghost in the Shell series, I just did it over 2 days, swapping out discs whenever I happened to remember.
Of course I also installed Win95 on floppy discs back in the day, so maybe I'm just crazy :)
In my case, I keep finding discs with flaws in them that fail during ripping but not during playback. (And no, not intentional defects introduced for copy protection; unintentional defects introduced by playing them way too often. Should have ripped them when new.)
I've got a retina macbook pro. (with the external dvd drive) I can rip DVDs with handbrake in anywhere from 9 minutes to 45 minutes. I'm not sure why some DVDs of the same relative length require more time than others.
Every time I think about doing that, I find I can download a copy of the movie I already own in less time than it takes me to think about ripping my own copy.
i tend to buy cds + t-shirts: i don't have itunes (linux); many on-line places don't sell abroad (http://www.portaldisc.cl is a big exception and i do buy a lot of local music there); and if you're getting the t-shirt delivered anyway... and when the cd arrives, i rip it. this is for bands i want to support (because they are awesome - currently waiting for a big parcel from the necks - or deserving - waiting for a smaller parcel from glorie). i've even bought cds when the download is free if it's a local band i want to support; then ripping can get better quality than the mp3 (bonus: you get to hang out at a random metro station until a scruffy youth wanders up and asks if you're the gringo wanting to buy his cd ;o).
[related: everyone here aware that logitech killed squeeze last month?!]
My guess at a contributing factor is that Person A shares a song illegally with person B. Person B likes that song, finds more from that artist/album and then makes a purchase.
The interesting thing here is that musicians don't actually make any significant money from radio airplay or streaming services like spotify or pandora. If completely unregulated file sharing results in an equivalent or greater amount of financial benefit to the artists then that's a rather interesting data point, I'd think.
Probably equivalent (or very slightly less), but then again the artists aren't the ones that are taking enormous amounts of money from the streaming cervices.
For example, in the last couple weeks Mother Mother released a new album - the friends who get all their music legitimately were saying "Oh, Mother Mother has a new album out - I'm going to check it out soon", but the pirating friends were saying "Mother Mother put out a new album; did you buy it yet?".
In my experience - the friends who pirate the most are the ones who are the most excited about their music, and they do whatever is easiest when it comes to getting it. If that's buying it - they do that (or at least, that's how it seems based on my limited sample size).