Record companies and industry groups will not ever admit that piracy doesn't harm sales. They can't! That would be bad for them, as such an admission would encourage people to stop buying music.

I AM glad that research supports the idea that piracy doesn't harm sales, though. It shows that people who can and want to buy music, DO buy, those who can't or don't want to, don't - they either get it illegally or they just don't buy it. They ain't ever gonna buy it, piracy available or no.

Wow, only took about 15 years but finally some researchers have had the balls to admit this. The reason the music industry has been in the toilet sales-wise for over a decade now is because 1) the overall quality of the music that has been released during that time (total garbage, cookie cutter, industry manufactured pop artists), and 2) the fact that many consumers do not see the value in spending $15 or more on CDs in brick and mortar stores when they're only interested in one or two songs from the artist.

You'll notice however that during this decline in music sales over the past decade, concert attendance has either held steady or increased in some years over the previous decade, because thanks to the internet it's much easier for consumers to get information on all concerts in their area, purchase tickets, and sample and discover new artists.

BTW, this study is also generally the case for movies, videogames and software... the vast majority of people who illegally download these types of media on a regular basis do it just because they can, and have almost zero interest in actually purchasing any of this media if file sharing did not exist. Although I will admit that both the movie industry is somewhat impacted by filesharing and streaming websites, as total box office attendance has been down in recent years despite the increasing sales due to ever increasing ticket prices. People would rather stream or download a movie at home then spend over $10 a pop (without food and drinks) for 2 hours at the movies.

It's the same thing with movies, file sharing doesn't hurt them.  Just like the VCR didn't end home video sales.

Of course. I think everyone knew this already. I work at a radio station and we get weekly music sales, and they are horrible. The movie industry is in bad shape as well. While all of us on this site are complaining about video game sales even though they aren't that bad.

Of course it's not piracy! It's the second hand market! Used music/movies/games are the root of all evil!

Yay my 90% of pirated music isn't affecting them, I have no shame now!

I remember telling you that a while back, but you didn't listen.

No, people do not buy compact discs because they don't see the value in spending $15 on something that costs about 10 cents to manufacture that contains just one song out of a dozen that they like.

Notice that once the music industry started embracing the iTunes sales model and streaming sites like Spotify and IHeartRadio, music sales have actually had modest increases over the past few years.

It seems plausible that most people that download things illegally would not have them otherwise, but there would still be a small boost in sales and revenue should that option be removed.