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Harvard University researchers find music downloading bolsters CD sales
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by cy Waite
Friday, April 2, 2004
Harvard University researchers find music downloading bolsters CD sales
by Stacy Waite
College Editor
Downloading and sharing music over the Internet has no effect on the sales of popular CDs, a recent study by researchers at leading universities found Monday.
The study is revolutionary, due to the way it was conducted. Instead of relying on survey participants to answer questions about file sharing truthfully, the survey directly monitored 1.75 million downloads for 17 weeks in autumn 2002.
This data allowed the researchers, Felix Oberholzer-Gee from the Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, to test relations among file sharing, frequencies of downloads, and CD sales in the most reliable way.
According to a release from Harvard University, the study found than even in the worst-case scenario, it would take 5,000 downloads to cancel out a single copy of a popular CD sold.
The Recording Industry Association of America’s Senior Vice President of Communications Amy Weiss issued a rebuttal to the survey Tuesday, stating that this study conflicts with other research conducted around the college world.
“Certainly, the results are inconsistent with virtually every other study done by academics and research analysts about the impact of illegal file sharing,” Weiss said. She pointed out that the survey does not consider online sales of CDs.
“The impact of illegal downloading has been felt in both (physical and online) marketplaces,” she said.
Strumpf said he was astonished that no convincing studies are available that show file sharing leads to lower record sales, as the RIAA claimed in the release. Strumpf also said an important point the RIAA has ignored is the source of many of the files shared on the Internet.
“Lots of kids don’t realize how expansive file sharing is,” Strumpf said. “A lot of kids are not downloading from America.”
Both Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf added that more than 50 percent of files American file sharers download come from outside of the United States, but American file sharers download more than 30 percent of the world’s digital music.
“The music industry gives up a really nice marketing tool by not making clever use of [the Internet], and that’s too bad,” Oberholzer-Gee said. He explained that file sharing works in a similar fashion to a radio station, in the sense that file sharing allows users to discover music and download files — rarely the entire CD. Then, Oberholzer-Gee said, if users enjoy the tracks they have downloaded, they could purchase the CD.
“If the recording industry manages to get people to stop sharing files by suing them, that probably won’t change anything,” Strumpf said. “It doesn’t really matter because Americans already get over half of what they download from overseas.”
Oberholzer-Gee said the survey could have varying effects on the outcome of the RIAA’s lawsuits, along with the organization’s overall strategy.
“It all depends on the legal strategy and what it’s supposed to do,” Oberholzer-Gee said. “If they think people will be scared and will not share their files with others (after the lawsuits), then their strategy is hopeless.”
Oberholzer-Gee said he was unsure if the RIAA would change its strategy based on the results of the survey.
“The more interesting question is whether it actually makes sense (for the RIAA to file lawsuits against downloaders),” Oberholzer-Gee said. “Everything depends on if [the RIAA] reads the study and believes it, and then changes their minds.”
