Die, Substitution Studies, Die II: Well, OK, Maybe Some Should Live

Let’s return to the arcane but, for IP debates, important subject of substitution studies, which try to clarify the extent to which piracy substitutes for or displaces legal sales.  We’ve argued that the media ecology has become so complicated that nobody has a handle on what substitutes for what.  Does a pirated MP3 file substitute for a $1 purchased file, a $12 CD, some number of listens on YouTube or Spotify or radio? Does Spotify substitute for MP3 purchases?  Or YouTube listens? Should we take stagnant discretionary income into account, and rising costs for other media services, like cable TV, Internet access, and data plans.  Do national differences matter–including major differences in digital markets and services (In Germany, CD sales represent over 80% of the market; in the UK and US, under 50%).  What about differences in law (in much of Europe, private copying is legal)?  Which of these factors get priority?  How do we model their interaction? Continue reading “Die, Substitution Studies, Die II: Well, OK, Maybe Some Should Live” →

NPD Confidential II: Die, Substitution Studies, Die

Following up our piece on music collections and the apparently surprising result that P2P users buy a lot of digital music, and also our piece discussing some pushback from NPD–the survey firm used by the RIAA–we offer a response to comments by the record industry association IFPI.  Here’s what they said:

While previous studies have shown that some unlicensed P2P network users also pay for music, and a few are serious fans who pay a lot, they are far outnumbered by the bulk of unlicensed P2P network users who pay little or nothing for music. Research by The NPD Group during 2010 in the US found that just 35 per cent of P2P users also paid for music downloads. P2P users spent US$42 per year on music on average, compared with US$76 among those who paid to download and US$126 among those that paid to subscribe to a music service. The overall impact of P2P use on music purchasing is negative, despite a small proportion of P2P users spending a lot on music. That finding was corroborated by a study in Europe by Jupiter Research in 2009. Continue reading “NPD Confidential II: Die, Substitution Studies, Die” →

NPD Confidential

Well, the Music Collections post certainly got around. Among other places, NBC News’ tech blog picked up the bit about P2P users being the biggest buyers of music and sought comment from the RIAA. The RIAA sent the reporter to NPD, the firm that handles their survey work. At NPD, Russ Crupnick offered the following response:

“We hear this argument all the time and it makes no sense,” Russ Crupnick, NPD’s senior vice president, industry analysis, said in a phone interview. Continue reading “NPD Confidential” →

Same Old Song

The current SOPA/Protect IP debate has many antecedents and will probably have many sequels.  The underlying positions haven’t changed much, and probably won’t in the future.  To illustrate, let’s play a game with this mystery quote:

Several of these analyses of alleged harm to the recording industry… were presented and debated during hearings on copyright…  At each hearing, X  presented the results of the most recent analysis done for the recording industry by his firm… [As] in his earlier testimonies, he stated that continued [copying] had grave implications for the viability of the recording industry. Noting that recording-industry releases were down by almost half since ****, and that industry employment had declined…  X stated that further growth in [copying] would cause further decline in these industry indicators.

So who is X and what is the timeframe? Continue reading “Same Old Song” →