P2P studies say that it's not hurting music

By Cory Doctorow at 3:12 pm Monday, Mar 28

Copyfight's Alan Wexelblat has a doozy of an editorial on the pseudoscience behind claims that P2P is costing the music industry money:

...[E]very study that has been done since Napster has shown that music sharing has no negative effects on music sales (CD or downloaded). In fact, some show a positive effect. If that message got into the public consciousness the Cartel would be much worse off. Therefore, they've done all they can to frame the debate in terms of their scares, not science. So we have the scene - surely worthy of Beckett - in which a certified class of 27,000 songwriters and music publishers will argue against Grokster, as Tony Mauro put it on law.com "casting it as a life-or-death struggle over theft of their means of livelihood."

There's just one eensy weensy problem here - NOBODY's livelihood is being stolen. It's just not happening. There were no WMD in Iraq, there was no cocaine on that boat (*), and music sharing does not cost artists money.

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