Criticism of Cdn pro-P2P study was sponsored by recording industry

A reader writes, "In the aftermath of the Canadian government's study that found a positive correlation between file sharing and music sales, George Barker, an Australian professor, posted an alternate explanation on multiple sites including CBC's Search Engine and Michael Geist's blog Yet Barker neglects in those postings to mention that his response was actually sponsored by the Canadian Recording Industry Association, a fact he buries in a footnote midway through his paper. The revelation comes as the study's author publishes a response to some of the criticism." Link

See also: P2P users buy more music -- Canadian govt study

[#1 posted by Audiosqueegee , November 20, 2007 8:06 PM]

The criticism he makes is the one that occurred to me immediately upon reading the study: the researchers found that people who were downloading a lot of music were also buying a lot of it. But this probably just means that people who like music are more likely to obtain it--by whatever means--than those who don't. It isn't evidence that making free music available to someone is likely to increase the amount of music they buy. I think the conclusions of the Canadian study have been accepted very uncritically on a lot of blogs because they fit a pro-internet, pro-P2P ideology and they support what we wish were true--that the music industry's attempts to stop downloading aren't just bad for us, they're bad for the music industry as well. But making an ad hominem attack on Professor Barker, whether or not he is a shill for the music industry, doesn't change the truth of his simple criticism.