Yet Another (Yes, Another) Study Shows File Sharers Buy More
from the how-many-more-do-we-need? dept
Pretty much every single non-industry-backed study has shown this same thing, but just for the record, here's yet another study showing that those who engage in unauthorized file sharing end up buying more media. The study, looking at the UK (home of the new proposal to kick people off the internet), wasn't even close. Those who engaged in unauthorized file sharing tended to spend £77 on media per year, while those who did not spent about £44. And yet file sharers are the enemy? And the industry wants to kick them offline so they discover less new content? How will that help?
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Filed Under: file sharing, purchases, studies
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Certainly true for me.
Sorry, I refuse to just accept the industry marketing to decide what I listen to. They don't know (or, most of the time even offer) what I want.
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Re: not news?
We have to be vigilant in showing people that there is fact behind the counterclaims, where there is nothing to back of the industry claims themselves.
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Re:
I wonder when it will START to be news. See last night's Sixty Minutes.
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Good thing 60 minutes checked the facts
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Only 10% admit to being downloaders. Sort of low, isn't it? The Canadian study showed over 20%.
The other part is the study does nothing to seperate out "non-buyers" and "not interested in buying music" from the survey. So what happens is that if a signicant number say they don't download, but also don't buy, it tilts the numbers dramatically.
It doesn't take much to see these numbers as pretty much crap non-science.
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Basically, they got the answer they wanted, not really the truth.
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But it wasn't a study at all it was just a Poll, a very different thing with much less credibility ... but hey just declare a Masnick fact and everything is OK.
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All of the music is for singers or bands that I discovered online, on occasion through dubious means. Several of them are not available in the High Street shops in the UK (I checked before downloading the albums as I wanted the cover art). Could probably have got an import copy but that would cost much more then I was willing to pay.
I've bought a few TV boxsets, several of these were of shows I originally watched online because they were not available to me on my current TV package.
Films, saw the films in the cinema and then bought the DVDs when they came out. Though for several of these I would not have known they even existed without various websites alerting me to them, some certainly with unlicensed trailers.
Of course it is also true that I've bought no media generated by British creators at all this year. I think it is rubbish so refuse to spend my money on it. One could argue that I only think its rubbish because I've found media I prefer elsewhere and without the Internet I would not have developed such a taste for it. That'll be their next comment - "Globalisation has made people realise what we produce is crap. We should put a tax on imported media to protect our homegrown industry."
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Re:
But we all know that there is an effect. People find out what they like before they pay for it so the money (while no more or less) gets shifted from what the industry wants you to pay for to what you want to pay for.
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I'm Typical (i think)
Movies I will go see in the theater if I (or my friends) buy into the hype or they have good reviews (rotton tomatoes). I will buy disks for movies that I've seen and really liked.
I tend to buy books 2-5 at at time every 2 months or so and I'm contemplating buying an ebook reader because it is getting ridiculous to have so many books lying around gathering dust.
I figure I spend far more than my fair share on media and yet I download songs, TV shows, movies, and books. Sometimes to discover, sometimes because what I want to watch/read/listen just isn't worth the price and I'd rather save my money for a more meaningful purchase. More often when i download it is because it is impractical or impossible for me to get what i want otherwise.
I think I'm fairly typical of a gainfully employed, tech savvy individual who doesn't have loads of money and who these people make most of their money from. If they want to have more people like me spending money then they should really consider how they treat the currently unemployed, the students, and the otherwise less fortunate who want to enjoy their product. Many of them won't always be unable to pay.
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WHY???
Why would you ever support a lobby group where every dollar you spend goes toward robbing the citizens of this planet of their civil liberties ???!!!???
stop buying music from any label associated with the RIAA... Come on people!!
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Re: WHY???
Don't download their music ether. Don't give them the free advertising. This is why I don't know of any new music in the past three years.
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Re: I'm Typical (i think)
I personally have taken the approach that if I don't pick up a book after reading it the first time, I donate the book to my local library, they are usually more than happy to take any kind of book, paperback, hardcover, sci-fi, classic lit, non-fiction. Of course there are series I haven't read again and will never give up :)
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Re: Re: WHY???
The way to get them isn't to stop buying music. If the entire industry fails, including independents, then they will still seem to have a valid case. If only their part of the recording industry fails, while everyone else prospers, then all but the most hardened shills will see opposing POVs eventually.
Continue buying music - there's a lot of great stuff out there. Just don't buy music associated with the RIAA.
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Re: WHY???
(and yes, that means I don't purchase or illegally acquire RIAA music)
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Re:
There are plenty of correlations that could be presumed for why file shares spend more on music than everyone else, but does that mean it suddenly makes sense to fine and punish your biggest spenders?
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Re:
They got what they wanted: The truth.
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Not to mention other media...
Anyway, people are simply tired of jumping through the artificial hoops required to buy everything nowadays. Especially actual movie fans - i.e. the people spending lots of cash on movies, not just those wandering to watch the latest blockbuster once a season. People who care about movies will spend more money, but will also have more reason to download.
A few examples from the top of my head:
I'd like to pay to watch the much-awaited Miyazaki film Ponyo after waiting a long time for a translation (Japanese cinema release - July 2008. US cinema release - August 2009.), but I'm not allowed to do so until the UK cinema release (February 2010). I want to buy the DVD, but the Japanese version has no English and region coding "protection" won't let me buy a US copy to play on my legally purchased equipment.
The Last Starfighter, The Monster Squad and Night Of The Creeps are among childhood favourites of mine that are available on region 1 DVD. However, there's no indication that these will *ever* be released on region 2 DVD, and I cannot (to my knowledge) change the region on my primary player.
I'd like to buy a copy of Watchmen - Director's Cut on DVD, but it's only being released on Blu-Ray in the UK. I don't want a Blu-Ray player. It will be released in the US on DVD, but again I have region issues to deal with. I'd like to buy the full versions of Grindhouse and Kill Bill on DVD, but the only way to do this (to my knowledge) is to import DVDs that were only produced in limited quantities in Japan.
I do, however, have P2P downloaded copies of all of the above (apart from the Watchmen DC, which I will download when I can). My money is here waiting, but the regional restrictions and windowing of releases are preventing me from paying for them. Apart from Ponyo (which I will buy on DVD to complete my Miyazaki collection), I have no idea if any of these movies will be *ever* be available in a format I can play.
Meanwhile, I buy at least 10 DVDs per month, as well as a high number of albums, games and books, making me a cash cow for the entertainment industry.
Preventing me from downloading via P2P will result in no further revenue for the entertainment industry. Blocking me from the internet because I downloaded the above will result in *less* revenue for them because I buy at least 80% of DVDs and games and 100% of music and concert tickets via internet sales.
The way forward for them to make more money from me would be to start offering a service that meets my requirements. Lifting regional restrictions on all entertainment, offering a Netflix-style streaming service and/or reasonably-priced downloads would be a good start (no, iTunes, I won't pay £10.99 for a movie I can get on a 2 DVD set for £5).
Music is a little better served in the UK, but only because it's considered more of a "priority" market, whereas it comes in 2nd or lower for movies an at least a poor 3rd for games. We're tired of waiting, and the pirates are more than willing to serve the gaps in the market. I constantly get told I'm in the "wrong" country by legitimate retailers. pirates? Not so much.
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Science of causality
Having said that, the reasoning used in this post is flawed. This phenomenon might have been observed because of on of these many reasons:
1. People pirating buy more stuff
2. People buying more stuff are pirating
3. Some people have higher information needs and they are pirating and buying more stuff.
It is possible to design a better experiment to determine validity of any of these hypothesis.
Just because proponents of copyright use false reasoning doesnt mean you should be doing the same.
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Re:
I do know one thing with a high level of confidence, though -- if this had been a recording industry study showing that infringers never buy any music, you'd be trumpeting it a absolute fact regardless of whether it was a good study or not, and the fact that the study was commission by a biased entity wouldn't trouble you at all.
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Re: Re: WHY???
There is plenty of top-notch music available directly from artists who have nothing to do with RIAA.
Please, buy their stuff. You don't have to go without -- and you'll find the quality and variety of the music to be far superior.
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I've started doing this with comedy shows and live concerts even. I sneak into such shows at my college (they ramp up the cost of student tickets, and my scholarships already pay them enough already), and just mail (or in one recent case) hand the comedian my cash.
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Me, I download tracks offered by the artists for that purpose (i.e., completely legal), then buy music from them if I like what I hear.
I just don't do it with artists that are connected to RIAA in any way.
I've been doing it this way for over ten years now, and have spent more money on music in that time than I have in my combined twenty-odd music-buying years before that.
I know that you're trying to be sarcastic, but you're assuming that the choice is between pirating and purchasing mainstream music. There are other options. There's so much more (and better) in the world that the restricted little RIAA/MPAA/**AA version of it.
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RIAA is its own worst enemy
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Re: Re:
If 50% of the non downloaders are also not music fans (don't buy ever), then the remaining 50% actually spend 66 pun on music, not 33. Suddenly there isn't much of a gap.
The reasons that may spend more might include the fact that they do like music more than others.
Don't tell that to Mike - he has pretty much categorically denied that the top music fans are also the top buyers. Plus, we have no clue how much they would spend if they didn't have so much free music to start with. Perhaps they would spend half, or maybe spend double. We don't know.
Rabid music fans are Mike's Unicorn. He claims they don't exist. It's a Masnick law, I guess.
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More relevant omissions
And the keyword in there is of course, "claim". Rationalization is a powerful thing. Not very many people are content to be seen as the "bad guy".
I'm also surprised (sarcasm) that Mike neglected to mention the 19% of admitted pirates who reported they bought LESS as a result of their piracy.
Here's some other conclusions that apparently weren't important enough to mention...
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But there is still a gap, of 15% if I have my rough numbers correct. That's still enough to counter the RIAA's regular claims that *every* download is a lost sale and that pirates and their customers are 2 distinct groups.
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Re: Re: Re:
So here you make the completely fallacious assumption that every person who didn't admit to downloading is also not buying anything. You offer no proof to back up that claim, you just assume it to be the case. Yet the data that is available goes against that claim.
If 50% of the non downloaders are also not music fans (don't buy ever), then the remaining 50% actually spend 66 pun on music, not 33. Suddenly there isn't much of a gap.
Again, you completely make up an idea, assume it to be fact, then show how your "facts" affect the data. Very poor logic.
Don't tell that to Mike - he has pretty much categorically denied that the top music fans are also the top buyers. Plus, we have no clue how much they would spend if they didn't have so much free music to start with. Perhaps they would spend half, or maybe spend double. We don't know.
Rabid music fans are Mike's Unicorn. He claims they don't exist. It's a Masnick law, I guess.
And here you show your inability to comprehend what you read. Mike has stated, numerous times, that he thinks people who download lots of music (top fans) also spend lots on music. He has never categorically denied that, in fact he has stated it over and over again.
Also, if you say that you don't know how much those rabid fans would spend if there weren't so much free music available, then how do you justify the numbers that RIAA is always putting out claiming every song downloaded is a "lost sale".
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Re: More relevant omissions
All that those quotes show is that people feel that their needs are not being met by legitimate sources, but that they're aware that there are moral and legal issues with filesharing instead.
Doesn't that simply strengthen the argument that the RIAA's own business model is at fault for many of their woes, just as Mike's highlighted conclusions weaken the argument that pirates never buy music?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hey, Mike isn't the only one that can read things into a study that the study doesn't say.
The study fails because it is set out to get the desired answer. If the study had broken the people into 3 groups rather than two (downloaders, non-downloaders who busy music, non-downloaders who don't), you might see very different numbers. Heck, it would even be interesting to see what percentage of admitted downloaders would also admit to buying little or nothing.
See something like this:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_Feb_26/ai_n24324810/
Higher percentages of Teens are not buying any music at all. Now, if they didn't admit to being downloaders, but said they didn't buy music, they weighted the other side of the balance doubly.
Basically, without proper groupings, the answer will always be the same, and always be misleading. There is no indication what non-downloading music fans are buying, just the most "rabid" music fans versus the rest of the population, music buyers or not.
And here you show your inability to comprehend what you read. Mike has stated, numerous times, that he thinks people who download lots of music (top fans) also spend lots on music. He has never categorically denied that, in fact he has stated it over and over again.
His most recent comments: I had no idea there was an official amount. Please, do tell, us, what do the ruling overlords say is the official amount that rabid fans should buy?
He's pretty dismissive of the idea, attempting to run it down with a pretty strong flame.
how do you justify the numbers that RIAA is always putting out claiming every song downloaded is a "lost sale".
Do you think that the downloaders buy everything they download? Do you think they spend as much on music today (percentage) as people might have done 20 years ago? Do people have ipods and such crowded with music they never paid for?
Every song download is a POTENTIAL sale lost.
(nice redirection by the way... too bad it isn't relevant to the discussion)
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Re: More relevant omissions
Heh, that's funny. The kind of idiots that claim "moral objections" are the same kind that think you can get "viruses" from MP3 files.
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Wait a tick
A) Younger generations typically buy/listen to more music. (i.e. early rock and roll (50's) hippie generation (60's and 70's), Madonna pop rock era (80's) This is also why MTV and every major label idealizes pop rock and teenie boppers
B) Younger generations know more about technology (i.e. the classic example of the 7 year old whizzing around on Windows XP much to his 60 year old grandfather's amazement Therefore, younger generations download more music and buy it more, since A)they want it and B) can get it given their technical skillset.
Again, I don't see how this study proves anything more than kids like music and also like to download it.
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Re: Re:
Nope, sorry. In fact, if a study did come out like that, Mike would rake it over the coals so hard the embers would likely start wild fires in the next state. It would be comical.
For me, it's a group potentially with an agenda, who asked a fairly incomplete question of a potentially non-representitive group. The "answer" given works only if you take a really long sip on the koolaid and wait 10 minutes before looking at it. Just seeing the "10%" number is enough to send up the red flag, that number is very low indeed. If they missed that number by 100% (real number more like 20%) pretty much everything else is a waste.
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Re: Science of causality
The study (and the ones that preceded this) points out two things:
1) Buying music and pirating are not mutually exclusive.
2) Pirates are also very often in the upper sales demographic for music. Or, conversely, those in the upper sales demographic also pirate.
Does that say that sales would be higher or lower with pirating? Not at all. But it does say one thing: the people the industry target with their legal attacks are also often the most frequent purchasers.
In what industry is it ever a smart move to attack your best customers?
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Re: Wait a tick
The point isn't to say that pirating is fine and dandy (though it may or may not be), it's to show that the people who the industry target with legal attacks are also their best customers.
I mean, let's put it this way. Say you own a very small store, and this kid buys about $100 worth of stuff every week, but shoplifts $1 of stuff at the same time. You are clearly getting a large amount of profit from this one kid despite the theft, and he's probably your very best customer. Is it a smart move to ban him from the store because of his frequent thefts?
That's what the entertainment industry is basically doing right now, taking their best customers and attacking them. Sure, some of them really are just downloading everything and buying nothing, but who in the right mind would think losing real customers for the sake of potential customers is a smart thing?
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I dunno about music industry and shoplifting, but when I shop at one particular small store and buy >$100 of stuff per trip, they always give me a free gift worth $2-$4 (or give me one of the items in my cart without ringing it). So even no shoplifting has to be involved. :D
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Re: Re:
I have to agree 100% with that. For example, some people in the USA think that Europe is somewhere in Florida, while others think that it is next to Asia. So clearly, it must be in the middle, floating in the pacific Ocean.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
He's pretty dismissive of the idea, attempting to run it down with a pretty strong flame."
Your reading comprehension is pretty low. This does not deny that rabid fans exist, or that they spend lots of money, it questions what the RIAA party-line designates as an appropriate per consumer amount... which is then used extensively with per consumer multipliers to provide completely bogus and asinine industry losses due to piracy. I don't think you read well enough to be criticizing other's opinions.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Every song download is a POTENTIAL sale lost. "
Idiot. Not every song download is a potential sale, it is an action that is NOT LINKED directly to sales in any way. People downloading more music than they can afford would not, and could not, have purchased it. This is not lost sales. This single example illustrates the complete fallacy of your argument; you cannot state that every song download is a potential sale when it is clearly not a sale that could have happened... lookup the definition of potential.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Every song downloaded is also a potential sale in the future.
Every song downloaded is also a potential attendant to the next gig of the artist.
Every song downloaded is also a potential advertisement to many more potential fans.
Every song downloaded is also a potential way to make more money if a decent business model is put in place.
Every song downloaded is also a potential......
If you want to talk potential we would be here forever.
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Re: Re: Re:
Again, this is a flat out lie. I've talked about true fans quite a bit. The point I disagreed with you about was simple: you suggested true fans had to spend a certain amount, as if it were required. I said that responsibility was on the act in giving those fans a reason to buy. But I have never said true fans don't exist or that they don't buy more.
Reading comprehension has never been your strong suit, but at least try to make your posts make sense.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
When you look at the people who are suppose to be the "rabid fans" or "true fans" and discover that they really don't spend all that much more (if at all) then you have to wonder what has happened.
There are no set amounts of anything, just the observations of the real world (you know, outside the classroom and away from the whiteboards) where people actual do things without a formula, without a theorem, and without the influence of any "effect".
BTW, calling a poll a "study" is a nice mind space upgrade for later use (with links as you do), but this is still just a simple poll with very little real data to work from.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"There are no set amounts of anything, just the observations of the real world (you know, outside the classroom and away from the whiteboards) where people actual do things without a formula, without a theorem, and without the influence of any "effect"."
Well then, kindly point to some articles that point out these real world observations. Or better yet, make a blog where you can discuss them, just like Mike has.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You said that the amounts spent by rabid fans was "very disappointing." As if there was a specific amount that they had to spend.
You also assumed, automatically, that "biggest downloaders" meant "rabid fans." No one said that was the case. If I'm a rabid fan of a particular band or a particular genre and I download (which I don't), I would probably just download tracks from that group or that genre, not the much wider music offering out there.
So you seem to be comparing apples to oranges (which you often accuse me of doing).
You have presented no evidence that "rabid fans" spend less.
There are no set amounts of anything, just the observations of the real world (you know, outside the classroom and away from the whiteboards) where people actual do things without a formula, without a theorem, and without the influence of any "effect".
In other words, you prefer to base things on your gut feel, and how dare anyone enter any evidence into the discussion that might disprove you.
Yup. That's why we love having you around. You're one of "those" people.
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