Study: File downloads don't affect sales of CDs

[papau]

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/03/31/study_file_downloads_dont_affect_sales_of_cds/

Study: File downloads don't affect sales of CDs
Industry effort to halt sharing is challenged
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 3/31/2004

Will consumers buy the latest music recordings when they can download them for free from the Internet? A Harvard Business School associate professor says yes, in a new study that challenges the wisdom of the recording industry's worldwide campaign to halt illegal file downloading.

"When we first saw the results, we said, 'No, no, no, no, no. We must be doing something wrong,'"said Felix Oberholzer-Gee, who prepared the study with Koleman Strumpf of the University of North Carolina.

But after rechecking the figures time and again, Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf found that downloading music had no impact on sales of compact disks.

The new study also suggests that the recording industry tactic of suing Americans who make files available for downloading will have only a limited effect. They found that more than half of all downloads came from outside the United States.<snip>

[redqueen]

1. Can we say duh?

Didn't we go through this same exact thing when cassette tapes were first introduced?

When will we ever learn?