Quote:
Originally Posted by Belfaborac
As far as I'm aware (which admittedly might not be that far), all independent research on music piracy carried out to date has concluded that piracy either has no discernible effect on music sales, or does in fact have a positive effect.
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A 2009 study funded by Virgin Media again found that pirates buy more music than non-pirates, echoing a similar study from the same year by the BI Norwegian School of Management which found that pirates bought up to ten times the amount of music compared to people who never used file sharing, torrent services or similar. |
The fact that people who pirate also spend more than average doesn't in any way support the assertion that piracy does not have a negative effect on sales. Maybe they are only buying what they can't easily download, in which case reducing available downloads would increase sales.