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cleveland124 on 08 August 2008
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Lord N said:

 

That's a load of nonsense.

By using common sense, anyone can clearly see that the effects of P2P on the music industry are barely discernible from zero. Every single independent study on the matter thus far has also arrived at a similar conclusion.

I have yet to find one article where a company is praising piracy for their profits.  But feel free to post some.  30 billion illegal downloads.  How many would have purchased the song?  I don't know.  You don't know either.  I know they lost money and I'm not really going to argue how much sense it is nearly impossible to prove.  I guess I could just call your explanation nonsense, act superior, and move on?  No, that would be too easy.

The industry had its highest sales when Napster was at its peak in year 2000, when everyone was going platinum.

Entertainment for the most part has experienced large growth from the 90's.  You do know Napster shortly went legit (i.e. paid downloads) after 2000 and their are several other free websites out there?  Comparing one web site to an industry isn't the best comparison.  You act like growth in an industry is proof that piracy does not affect it.  And Napster went down the tube due to the lawsuit.  It's not a pirate tool anymore. 

Their sales began to decline thereafter because people got tired of paying $20 for a CD with two or three good songs and ten filler tracks. In short, their sales declined because their product sucked and their business model sucked. It also didn't help that they started condemning their fanbase as "thieves" and "pirates", and it really didn't help when they started with the legal threats.

True to an extent.  Their business model could have been better.  But they didn't call their fanbase "thieves" and "pirates".  That's what they called the pirates.  And their message was clear, buy our music.  CD's were expensive but they now have a downloadable music model which is much better for the consumer and revenues are still going down.  But hey all music should be free right?

People turned to P2P not because they were thieving ingrates who wanted to get everything for free, but because the industry wouldn't give them what they wanted, so they found a way to get it, even if it meant that they weren't paying for it.

I think this is the exact defination of stealing.

[quote]If P2P were such a threat, then Itunes should have tanked a long time ago, because who would pay to download music that's already available for free?[\quote]

Maybe because some people are ethical?  I've been away from the illegal downloads of music for quite some time, but I know you can download any song for free.  You just have to find it.  So why does the music industry exist?