A new study from the great white north of Canada suggests that P2P file sharing actually increases the sales of legitimate CDs. It’s a pretty wordy, dense bit of academia, but the most basic gist is more or less boiled down by the following passage:

“When assessing the P2P downloading population, there was “a strong
positive relationship between P2P file sharing and CD purchasing.
That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file sharing
increases CD purchases.”

The study estimates that one additional P2P download per month increases music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year. I’m assuming they mean one additional song downloaded through P2P networks results in the purchase of (presumably) 44% more CDs than the downloader would have otherwise bought, which paints illegal piracy in the most flattering light possible - users download one song, enjoy it, and purchase the entire album 44% of the time. Like a wine tasting, sort of.
Then again, if this is the truth, why all the doomsday predictions about the current and future state of the music industry?Could this theory be unique to a democratic society that promotes healthcare for everyone and good-natured, neighborly behavior?

After all, music sales here in America are still in the shitter and we can’t blame it all on Britney’s VMA performance. I ask you, gentle readers…WTF gives?

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