Since the appearance of MP3, we have downloaded our favorite music for free or small fees.
We have conducted illegal activities because those MP3 files sharing ignore permission from copyright owner.
According to the music industry, those illegal MP3 file sharing are root cause of declining of CD sales. However, some study shows that “Internet music piracy is not responsible for declining CD sales; at most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of decline of sales.”
According to Felix Oberholzer-Gee at Harvard Business School in Massachusetts and Koleman Strumpf at the University of North Carolina, data based on the most actively downloaded songs show there is no correlation between sales of those CD and number of downloaded songs. Surprisingly, “albums that sold more than 600,000 copies during this period appeared to sell better when downloaded more heavily.” In addition, people who conduct illegal music file sharing tend to spend more money on purchasing music because they are interested in music.
In my opinion, although those MP3 file sharing may decrease sales of CD, there are many benefits for music industry. For instance, although music file sharing is harmful to big music company like Sony Music, we can’t ignore increasing number sales of audio devises. Customers tend to buy more audio device such as mp3 players when it is easy and cheap to download music. In contrast, if the cost of music is expensive, sales of music devices will decline. Therefore, there is tradeoff between sales of CD and sales of music devices.
In addition, as time goes by, a copyright law must be modified.
I think that a copyright law should not be applied to music file sharing because those activities are too common. People don’t consider piracy as a theft even though almost everyone has heard that piracy is illegal. Now, music file sharing is common norm.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4831-net-music-piracy-does-not-harm-record-sales.html
