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New research claims file sharing has little effect on CD sales

Internet Business News, April 1, 2004

Researchers from the Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina have completed a study and claimed that online music piracy is not responsible for reducing CD sales.

The survey monitored the number of online downloads for 680 albums over a 17-week period and compared this data to changes in album sales over the same period. The researchers found that the most heavily downloaded songs showed no decrease in CD sales as a result of an increased level of downloading. Also, albums that sold more than 600,000 copies during the period appeared to sell better when they were downloaded by more people.

A spokesperson for the study said that at most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of the observed decline in CD sales.

A spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America stated that many groups and analysts have all determined that illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs.

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