Music Piracy and Illegal Filesharing: Criminals or Honest People with Small Pockets?

Is the music industry overreacting to illegal file sharing? Research on the matter concludes that music piracy may be more positive than you may think.

For the past few years, the music industry has taken extensive measures to track down file-sharers and prosecute them. They claim online music pirating is to blame for decreasing music sales and a loss of billions of dollars. While what they say is easily conceivable, there are many other contributing factors. The music industry should allow free music downloading, and they should treat file-sharers as potential customers, not thieving criminals.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) complains that illegal music downloads are to blame for their drastic decreases in sales. This appears to be a completely logical accusation. For example, if a person is downloading music then they have stopped buying it, but research done by Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberhozer-Gee and his co-author, Koleman Strumpf, of the University of North Carolina have produced findings that illegal music downloads do not hurt the sale of CDs. In fact, in some cases it may increase the sale of certain genres of music. This idea is believed to be because most file sharing is done over peer-to-peer networks by teens and college students, groups that have lots of time but little money, meaning it is unlikely they would ever buy what they pirated. The two researchers also believe there is another group. They call this group the samplers. Samplers download one or two songs; if they like what they hear they go out and purchase the music legally. ("Music Downloads: Pirates-or Customers?." Working Knowledge. .) If this theory is correct, the RIAA should use peer-to-peer networks as a way of advertising and promoting artists.

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