The content industry has been actively hunting down file-sharing websites, with the most notable example being that of MegaUpload. It has been argued in the past that file-sharing promotes the overall music sales. And now a comprehensive study about the file-sharing trends in the U.S. and Germany establishes that file-sharers buy up to 30% more music compared to those who don’t indulge in P2P sharing.

Naturally, the findings of this study are not new although it is probably one of the most comprehensive studies on this subject and establishes the verdict through a pile of concrete evidence. Until now, file sharers have argued that they bring free advertisement to a given piece of music which, in turn, triggers sales of that music.

In other words, if that music wasn’t shared for free by millions of users, it wouldn’t end up with a sizeable chunk of those sharers also buying it.

This new study by American Assembly, a public policy forum linked to Columbia University, goes on to shows that file-sharers in U.S. buy 30% more music online compared to their peers who don’t use file-sharing.

According to the study, the difference between file-sharers and non-P2P users may be explained by the download of pirated content by the former but that is not the complete explanation, “Some of it also comes from significantly higher legal purchases of digital music than their non-P2P using peers–around 30% higher among US P2P users. Our data is quite clear on this point and lines up with numerous other studies: The biggest music pirates are also the biggest spenders on recorded music.”

The statistics for German users are even more shocking. In Germany, users of P2P networks buy up to three times more music-related content compared to non-P2P users. In other words, if the file-sharing is essentially eliminated, as the content industry would have us do, it would result in billions of dollars in lost revenue to the very same industry, whether or not it acknowledges it. So it was time it faced the writing on the wall and stopped looking away from facts.

Source: American Assembly

Courtesy: Torrent Freak

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