Study: P2P Users Buy More Music

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A new study by the American Assembly Research Center at Columbia University claims that P2P users buy more music even though most of their collection isn't paid for.

Many in the music industry paint peer-to-peer file-sharers as devil’s spawn who suck the life blood out of artists. Some P2P proponents have countered that file-sharing has helped encourage the growth of many bands who would have gone unknown in the CD and cassette age. Now comes a new study that each side could point to as support.
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I'm shocked! The people who spend time listening to more music happen to be more interested and buy more music! How shocking! :D
 
I don't really buy much music these days, but I haven't "shared" any music since 2003ish.
 
Radio plays what they want you to hear. Radio is dead and swallows hard. Pandora has gotten meh to download i mean back up my cd collection soooooooooooooooo much and so much music is never played or heard. FCC needs to back off and WE need more OPENESS and freedom and a wider choices and variety of Music. Mine just happens to be Punk Rock. check these guys out. There older stuff really jamz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUbX8OXo74c
 
no surprise there. I personally only listen to the radio and that's only in the car and at the gym. So I have no need to download or buy music.
However p2p and other file sharing has been actually shown to be very beneficial to the bottom 50% of the market because it increases their exposure. There was also several artists who were upset after the closure of demonoid, because it was their main method of distribution, and they put their own content on there, simply to be discovered.
Not to say there aren't negatives about file sharing, but people that say there are no positives need to reconsider.
 
A lot of the music I've purchased over the last 10 years I wouldn't have ever even known existed to purchase if I hadn't first downloaded them in sets while looking for other music.
 
"I will not let facts get in the way of my goals of jailing/severely financially punishing anyone doing anything that I decide is bad" RIAA, MPAA
 
Most the stuff I find is self produced and uploaded for free.

That and the small guys who tour with the big dudes, Rob Zombie likes to bring in some rather unique cats to open up for him.
 
DeathPrincess said:
I'm shocked! The people who spend time listening to more music happen to be more interested and buy more music! How shocking! :D
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Another way to think of it is

I'm shocked, the people who spend more time listening to music have to be more interested in downloading it more.

Kind of like saying those who download porn are also more likely to buy porn. If you have no interest in porn (you're a weird guy, a chick, or what not) you're not downloading it or buying it.
 
A problem with the music industry has always been that you can't legally listen to the music without buying it, and you can't return it if it sucks. If I could legally sample music before buying I would absolutely buy more of it. But since I can't and I don't want to risk spending my money on bad music I only buy things from bands I am familiar with. So I will give the music industry its wish and I won't buy anything I can't listen to.
 
Steve said:
A new study by the American Assembly Research Center at Columbia University claims that P2P users buy more music even though most of their collection isn't paid for.
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Maybe there was a link that broke this down by age groups (and I don't mean just those under 30) and how much they buy, but based on what I read, you can draw almost any conclusion you want. Those that are pro downloading, will claim "see, downloading doesn't hurt." People buy more music when they're younger (anyone over 40 has tons of friends who use to buy music and now are happy to bask in the glory days when music was great (when that was depends on how old they are).

The latter certainly is true for most people, but that doesn't mean that downloaders aren't buying a lot of music, but music sales still suck. IMO, there's little doubt that sales have been in decline for a long time (a general trend that started prior to Napster, though sales were going up when Napster first came online), but P2P surely accelerated the decline.
 
With Spotify, Pandora and other services around I'm honestly blown away by people still buying CDs. Especially considering how much "music discovery" is shifting to these services. With movies, I get the hold that physical media has -- you can't get true HD quality digitally. But music? There's plenty of 320 biters services if you want it and casual listening (in the car) at 190 is fine.
 
Best business plan ever, sue your customers. Those guys have a serious screw loose. I guess it's nothing to be too surprised about, they've been screwing their artists, retailers, and distribution channels for a long time too.
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
A problem with the music industry has always been that you can't legally listen to the music without buying it, and you can't return it if it sucks. If I could legally sample music before buying I would absolutely buy more of it. But since I can't and I don't want to risk spending my money on bad music I only buy things from bands I am familiar with. So I will give the music industry its wish and I won't buy anything I can't listen to.
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When you say "sample" I'm assuming you mean "listen to the whole song". Most online music sites let you preview at least 30 seconds. iTunes will let you do a 90 second preview on a lot of their music.
 
adrift02 said:
With movies, I get the hold that physical media has -- you can't get true HD quality digitally. But music? There's plenty of 320 biters services if you want it and casual listening (in the car) at 190 is fine.
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Yep and CDs were never a truly high fidelity format anyway. Digital downloads could actually be good for sound quality in the long run, potentially allowing labels/studios to release in exactly the quality they record in (rather than 44.1k 16bit). A few already do. We were never going to move beyond CDs without downloads, so we have nothing to lose really.
 
Some download services are starting to offer 24 bit downloads, and FLAC has internal checksums; on the quality side they can beat CDs.
Still when I pay for something I like to have something physical. My ideal is CD + immediate digital download included.
 
travbrad said:
Yep and CDs were never a truly high fidelity format anyway. Digital downloads could actually be good for sound quality in the long run, potentially allowing labels/studios to release in exactly the quality they record in (rather than 44.1k 16bit). A few already do. We were never going to move beyond CDs without downloads, so we have nothing to lose really.
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If you can tell a difference between 16-bit 44KHz PCM, and 96KHz 24-bit PCM in a double-blind test, I'll eat my fucking shoes.
 
I'm a huge down loader of music I won't lie, but at the same time I've come across so many "haven't made it big bands" that are awesome and i pick up their CD or any big name band, if your CD is good I'll buy it, if it sucks guess what it sucks and I'm not wasting $15-$20 bucks on over priced, lame, crappy music... period...

If the recording industry would allow people to return CD's because listeners didn't like the CD then I could see people just going out and buying it because hey if it sucks you can take it back. But you can't. They are potentially selling you crap and don't care.

Fact of the matter is I'd go broke buying 20 CD's to find out that all 20 Cd's sucked and threw them away. Hell if you want to go further that's keeping 20 Cd's out of the land fills even! P2P is saving the environment! lol!

Just my two pennies though.
 
25 years ago, for the albums that I really like, I always bought both the CD and the vinyl.

Now, I always buy my music in vinyl format. When no download coupon is included with it, I simply download it. I then can listen it on my old analog rig or with my media center.

The last album bought on CD was Down IV: The purple EP because it's not available on vinyl.

I also buy vinyls that are pressed in limited quantities. For example, the new Voïvod album, Target Earth, was pressed in black vinyl (unlimited), red vinyl (200 copies) and blue vinyl (200 copies). Paid a total of 160$ for 3 red and 3 blue. Will keep one of each and resell the 4 other at least 50$ each. I will have 2 "free" vinyls that will always go up in value.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Another way to think of it is

I'm shocked, the people who spend more time listening to music have to be more interested in downloading it more.

Kind of like saying those who download porn are also more likely to buy porn. If you have no interest in porn (you're a weird guy, a chick, or what not) you're not downloading it or buying it.
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HardUp4HardWare said:
After 40 you wont I can guarantee that!
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Exactly, although this truth wont get much support from those here who look for every opportunity to justify their actions.
 
i like to have the physical CD, vs. just a digital download.

with a CD, you can always rip it to whatever bitrate/format you want, at any time, without any DRM bullshit, so you can play it on as many devices as you want.

plus, if some of your collection gets lost/corrupted, whatever, just rip it again....much faster than re-dowloading it...at least on my connection. i don't have the luxury of 25+ mbit/sec downloading where i live, i have to live right now with a paltry 7 mbit/sec.

i always go to the local music store (Hasting's Entertainment) and sift through their used and/or bargain bins...i've bought countless numbers of albums that way, for anywhere from $1 to $6 - $8 per album. much, much better than paying $12 - $20 for the standard off-the-shelf albums that most stores charge.

it's actually gotten to the point where i have an online music collection that i can access from my phone so i can see whether or not i already have the album....before doing that, i actually bought several albums that i had already....but oh well, i always check my collection before opening it so i can return it if need be.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Kind of like saying those who download porn are also more likely to buy porn. If you have no interest in porn (you're a weird guy, a chick, or what not) you're not downloading it or buying it.
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I know womens who probably watch about 150x the porn you do! :D I only know 1 who I (assume) doesn't (though I don't exactly discuss it with people over dinner) Weird guys watch porn too, though it might be weird guy porn (though "normal" people watch that too), and mods like to watch...weirdmod porn! :eek:

But yes!

Joseph F said:
If you can tell a difference between 16-bit 44KHz PCM, and 96KHz 24-bit PCM in a double-blind test, I'll eat my fucking shoes.
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You can. Though it depends on the hardware TBH. Over what most people listen to music on (crappy earbuds) it would be probably very very difficult. But on a nice pair of studio monitors/decent monitor headphones or decent headphones 16bit sounds way more "muffled". Above 96khz is kind of pointless though, like 192khz kind of makes it sound a little too "airy", and not really natural, and there's no noticable difference at 32 float.
 
HenryBravo said:
When you say "sample" I'm assuming you mean "listen to the whole song". Most online music sites let you preview at least 30 seconds. iTunes will let you do a 90 second preview on a lot of their music.
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Those 30 second clips are usually the worst 30 seconds. Hard to tell from those. I say let someone hear the whole thing one time, buy it if it's good, or forget it exists if not.
 
Joseph F said:
If you can tell a difference between 16-bit 44KHz PCM, and 96KHz 24-bit PCM in a double-blind test, I'll eat my fucking shoes.
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depending on the converters and the listening environment, it can be a big difference. for example, some ADAs sound BETTER at the lower rate then the higher one because they use cheap parts. Go figure :/
 
I don't know if the study mentions what songs were shared vs. which were purchased, but I'm betting the one's that were downloaded were the ones produced by the big record companies because they are popular and easy to come by and the ones bought were more "indie" songs that aren't represented by the big record companies. So, even though they may buy more songs, their money isn't going to the record companies.

I don't really listen to music. I mostly just listen to the radio and stuff when I'm in the car. If there wasn't a "free" way to listen to music then I probably just wouldn't listen to it. It's the same for a lot of things. I can't imagine paying for something that I could get for free and I'd be surprised if that wasn't true for most people.
 
fightingfi said:
Radio plays what they want you to hear. Radio is dead and swallows hard. Pandora has gotten meh to download i mean back up my cd collection soooooooooooooooo much and so much music is never played or heard. FCC needs to back off and WE need more OPENESS and freedom and a wider choices and variety of Music. Mine just happens to be Punk Rock. check these guys out. There older stuff really jamz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUbX8OXo74c
Click to expand...

I may or may not have downloaded songs before but either way your link reminded me they had a new album that I don't have. I went ahead and bought it, so there you go.
 
Mayson said:
I don't know if the study mentions what songs were shared vs. which were purchased, but I'm betting the one's that were downloaded were the ones produced by the big record companies because they are popular and easy to come by and the ones bought were more "indie" songs that aren't represented by the big record companies. So, even though they may buy more songs, their money isn't going to the record companies.
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From talking to industry veteran types, they always say the same thing:

"The record industry is making more money than ever, but it's being made by many more people than ever"

So the pie is much larger, but it's split 10000x more ways. :D
 
Yes, they buy more music, but they only buy it once, and then listen to it however they want on what ever device they want. They don't buy it again and aghain for every device and format like they are supposed to. :rolleyes:

Which is why research like this is meaningless to the studios and publishers. Without total control, they lose their minds, and the ability to force business models that no longer work as well as they once did.
 
I used to buy a lot of music when Napster was around. Not so much if ever anymore. Pandora and Spotify seem fine to me.

I support the bands I like by going to their concert and buying a poster or something like that.
 
Someday I hope people will learn that the stuff the media pushes at us is not really ever founded in solid logic. Media would say: "Music sales are hit by online piracy." Seems like a valid claim until you actually talk to music pirates, find out how they behave, what they share, why they share, and then run through the logic in a broad scale (some would call that a study). Glad someone out there has the time and resources to counter the panic the media instigates, hopefully it is a valid study and hopefully it reaches the ears that need it.
 
To those who still think you can tell a difference, I am not an average Joe when it comes to audio gear. I have owned a nice pair of Sennheisers, and currently use a mid-fi pair of IEMs. After having read the results of a double-blind study, where ~300 (IIRC) people were asked to tell the difference between an SACD and the same recording downsampled to CD-quality (using pro-quality hardware), and couldn't tell a difference between the two in statistically significant numbers, I cannot say that there is a perceivable difference between CD, and anything higher. Personally, I can't tell the difference between LAME V0 MP3, and 44.1KHz 16-bit PCM.
 
You can tell the difference between pcm and mp3. Flac vs mp3. Especially in music where the highs are higher and the lowers are lower. Mp3 just takes a small chunk of the picture. The higher the bitrate the bigger/more information that is captured. Thats why when you listen to Flac format it sounds bigger and more dynamic/depth. 320kbps in mp3 is good enough though. Anything higher than 256kbps in mp3 is good enough for me.128-192kbps is ok for those small mp3 players though with cheap speakers. If you got cheap speakers it doesn't even matter what quality as long as its above 128kbps. ;)
 
travbrad said:
Yep and CDs were never a truly high fidelity format anyway. Digital downloads could actually be good for sound quality in the long run, potentially allowing labels/studios to release in exactly the quality they record in (rather than 44.1k 16bit). A few already do. We were never going to move beyond CDs without downloads, so we have nothing to lose really.
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To get the fidelity they recorded in (at least in the analog days), you'd have to go the Blu Ray, DVD Audio or SACD. AFAIK, nobody sells lossless high bit rate files. And honestly loss leaders aside, the difference between the price of an album of MP3s and a CD is not that much (generally a buck or 2 and sometimes nothing at all). Once they learned what they were doing, CD's were better than Vinyl, if for no other reason than you didn't have a bunch of pops and clicks after a month.
 
GORANKAR said:
Yes, they buy more music, but they only buy it once, and then listen to it however they want on what ever device they want. They don't buy it again and aghain for every device and format like they are supposed to. :rolleyes:

Which is why research like this is meaningless to the studios and publishers. Without total control, they lose their minds, and the ability to force business models that no longer work as well as they once did.
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Who's rebuying it over and over? Aside from Vinyl or Cassette to CD, or CD to DVD-Audio (or similar) I don't know why anyone would buy music simply for a new format. Even when it was Vinyl, you could just record a copy of to cassette and you were good and until very late in the game, my cassette was higher quality than what labels sold (better tape with lower noise). By the time they used decent tape, i was 100% CD.
 
nilepez said:
Who's rebuying it over and over? Aside from Vinyl or Cassette to CD, or CD to DVD-Audio (or similar) I don't know why anyone would buy music simply for a new format. Even when it was Vinyl, you could just record a copy of to cassette and you were good and until very late in the game, my cassette was higher quality than what labels sold (better tape with lower noise). By the time they used decent tape, i was 100% CD.
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Nobody, that is the point. The publishers want you to buy it on CD, they want you to buy it again on iTunes, they want/get a cut when you listen to it on Pandora or traditional radio. They desire control over, and monetary gain from, every instance of every piece of music played, past present and forever. I was just trying to point out how, even if people that make use of p2p downloads also buy more music, the studios don't care, because it is not what the publishers want.
 
GORANKAR said:
Nobody, that is the point. The publishers want you to buy it on CD, they want you to buy it again on iTunes, they want/get a cut when you listen to it on Pandora or traditional radio. They desire control over, and monetary gain from, every instance of every piece of music played, past present and forever. I was just trying to point out how, even if people that make use of p2p downloads also buy more music, the studios don't care, because it is not what the publishers want.
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I'm not sure what you mean by publishers. Do you mean labels or do you mean music publishers?

Regardless, the reason they've pushed for a piece pandora and spotify spins is because people ARE NOT buying music. You'd have to be blind to miss how bad sales are. The only album to have huge sales in the last 10 years is Adele. 1 Album and it's sales were good, but not exactly unusual until the downloading became mainstream.

The small bit that Pandora and Spotify pay, however is meaningless, unless you're very popular.

Regardless, the statement is empty. So people who download music buy more music than those who don't. Great. Do they buy more music than people their age bought prior to the downloading free for all? How much more music are they buying since they got spotify, or are they buying less and just paying $10.00/month to avoid the annoying commercials)? I bet I spent more money/year on music when I was making $5.00/hour than most spend now (even if you don't adjust for inflation). that goes triple if you adjust for inflation.

And while I may occasionally listen to an album on spotify to see if I want to buy it, it's not how I listen to music. I buy it, I rip it t my server and a stream it wherever the hell I want to listen to it. And I'm not breaking any laws to do it.
 
Conker said:
You can tell the difference between pcm and mp3. Flac vs mp3. Especially in music where the highs are higher and the lowers are lower. Mp3 just takes a small chunk of the picture. The higher the bitrate the bigger/more information that is captured. Thats why when you listen to Flac format it sounds bigger and more dynamic/depth. 320kbps in mp3 is good enough though. Anything higher than 256kbps in mp3 is good enough for me.128-192kbps is ok for those small mp3 players though with cheap speakers. If you got cheap speakers it doesn't even matter what quality as long as its above 128kbps. ;)
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I'm sure that some can tell the difference between MP3, and lossless, but I'm just saying that I cannot.
 
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