Thread: When Will It End?

Originally Posted by Mario92

If all music lovers, or indeed, if only some were to engage in piracy, then the music industry should have witnessed a significant fall in sales.

Uh... correct me if I'm reading you wrong, but are you now arguing that nobody illegally downloads music?

Originally Posted by Mario92

The only explanation other than piracy increases sales is that the music industry has gotten very efficient at spawning many new hardcore music lovers in recent years.

I've seen lots of conflicting data on record industry sales figures, so by this point I've just accepted that the issue has become too politicized to put too much stock in any one source. The music industry insists that sales are tanking while blogging music pirates insist that the industry is doing better than ever. So I'm skeptical to the data presented by either side. But I'll point out that even if sales figures really are higher than ever, there would be many other potential reasons for this than "piracy increases sales" (which, again, assumes an implausible causal link that I'll discuss below). As a couple quick examples, the world population (i.e., music consumer base) does continue to grow and grow, and the Internet has brought one-click music purchasing capabilities to nearly everyone's cell phones, which are themselves becoming increasingly ubiquitous across the globe.

Originally Posted by Mario92

And if Joe the Music Lover spends so much on music but already practices piracy, unless he is like me, (the exception to the rule), why is he not simply pirating all his music?

The reasons are irrelevant. People like Joe Music-Lover exist for whatever reasons (my Dad's spending patterns are more or less like Joe Music-Lover), and they contribute to a net financial loss. More importantly, if the direct causal link between piracy and buying is negligible (which I have suggested is the case and you have implied is not), then even someone who buys 99% of their music and downloads 1% represents a net financial loss.

As I said earlier, it is completely implausible that piracy "causes" buying, in the manner you've suggested, to any financially appreciable agree. In order for this situation to result in a net gain for the industry, it would require that for the average music consumer*, every single album that they download would have to directly cause them to run out to the music store and spend an amount of money that exceeded the cost of the album they just downloaded. Anything other than this ridiculously idealistic scenario would end in net financial loss for the industry. Now, just to be clear, are you suggesting that this scenario is in fact what happens?

*Assuming any symmetrical distribution of music consumption patterns.