This press release from The Leading Question, a 'consumer research resource for the digital music industry', could be (perhaps will be) a textbook case of questionable inferences. Indeed, it's almost fascinating to see how many logically dubious claims they can pack into a two-page Word document.
"Those pirates who regularly download or share unlicensed music and spend less as a result on CDs also spend an average of £5.52 per month on legal digital music. The average music fan spends just £1.27 on digital tracks." Right, and the average music fan is also, presumably, going out and buying CDs. So what is the net effect of each type of consumer on the music industry, all spending taken into account? Surely all the above demonstrates is that, when pirates do make legitimate purchases, they have a slightly higher-than-average preference for one type of legal format over another - a format which at the moment is not a particularly important generator of income. That hardly offsets the costs incurred by illegal downloading overall.
And as the BPI points out, that average figure The Leading Question is toting around obscure more than it reveals. "The consensus among independent research is that a third of illegal file-sharers may buy more music and around two thirds buy less. That two-thirds tends to include people who were the heaviest buyers." How are those ratios changing over time? Are the average expenditures per downloader increasing or decreasing? And in comparison with what? Without information like that, TLQ's figures mean nothing.
“The 2005 Speakerbox research clearly shows that music fans who break piracy laws are highly valuable customers." Let me see. If you were caught in Best Buy with a case of iPods tucked into your coat, would it be a plausible defence to claim that you had in your trolley legitimately purchsed goods worth almost four-and-a-half times as much as those of an average person, and so you were not in fact a thief but a highly valuable customer whose patronage ought to be encouraged?
"It also points out that they are eager to adopt legitimate music services in the future." No, surely the most it points out is that there's a limit to the illegal options of even the most furious peer-to-peer downloader, and that there are certain items that they have no choice but to spend money on. A serial thief who also makes a certain amount of legitimate purchases is not signalling that he's eager to reform himself, only that not everything one needs can be stolen.
"So far, the music industry has tried to get these pirates on-side by taking them to court, but there need to be plenty of carrots alongside the sticks. Legal actions are making something of an impact but unlicensed file sharing will never be eradicated. The smart response is to capitalise on the power of the p2p networks themselves to entice consumers into more attractive legal alternatives." Surely the attractiveness of illegal peer-to-peer sharing is its unbeatable pricing - the fact that it costs nothing but yet produces exactly the same goods and services. How do you compete with that? How is a pay service going to challenge its illegal rivals other than by the threat of prosecution?
"There’s a myth that all illegal downloaders are mercenaries hell-bent on breaking the law in pursuit of free music. In reality, they are often hardcore fans who are extremely enthusiastic about adopting paid-for services as long as they are suitably compelling." Fine. Prove it. Demonstrate that this enthusiasm is a causal factor in their behavior. Explain how you can make a pay service more compelling than a free service offering an identical product. Show, don't tell.
Posted by Alan Allport at July 27, 2005 03:26 AMEven the sorts of paid file sharing type services available now are far more convenient and offer far more features than any P2P system ever can, and at least some of them are very reasonably priced and appear to be very popular.
I use P2P networks and bittorrents occasionally, mainly for finding things that are unavailable otherwise and not licensed for sale in the US. They take a bit of doing and let's just say my mom won't be downloading a bittorrent client anytime soon.
Getting data this way, there's a pretty good chance you will get a poor copy of the product or corrupted data. Especially if you're looking for video the quality is rarely good. It's often hard to find exactly what you want and it all takes time. The people who are now, and will continue to be, big time p2p file sharers are in my experience geeky and very compulsive collectors. You know, the sort of person who just has to have every anime ever made or every episode of Dukes of Hazzard ever produced. My guess is that they also tend to be very young. I think most other people will come around to good paid services.
Moralizing and simplifying analogies aside, I think what the music industry needs to understand is that for some reason their customers are mutinying in large numbers. It would be better for them to look for ways to capitalize on this new technology rather than aiming massive lawsuits and teenagers.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at July 27, 2005 09:09 AM...and I guess the way they do that (me, you understand, being no expert in these things), is by thinking more in terms of providing services rather than products.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at July 27, 2005 09:11 AMThe music and film industries failed (and continue to fail) their customers in many ways.
There is only one decent radio station in Philadelphia and I only enjoy about half the music they play. I've tried internet radio (crashes way too often) and the little bits of songs on Amazon (too brief), but short of schleping down to the local Tower and planting myself at a listening station for hours I have to download "free" music to find out if a CD is even worth purchasing.
We don't get cable because it would cost $80 a month to get the handful of channels we would actually watch. Most of the shows we want to see are aired in the UK first and are available on BitTorrent. If the cable companies and networks would let me buy ala carte I wouldn't be forced to use P2P. Prior to P2P, my parents taped stuff for us to watch. That was against the rules too.
Now lets talk about out of print DVDs and films that have never been available. I want Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance which is out of print. I could by it from a dealer who is charging almost $300 dollars for it but instead I will download it for free. Technically the dealer is breaking the law buy reselling it (at a unreasonable profit I might add). If the distibution companies would get their act together and make obscure and out of print films available for purchased download, I would buy it instead of using a P2P. The company would make some money on films in their catalog without the packaging, marketing and distribution costs.
Until I can hear the music I want to hear over the airways, pay for the channels I want, and can find legal copies of films and televsion programs at normal prices, I will use P2P.
P.S. 75% of the material I've downloaded is not available on paid service sites.