Auburn Annie
04-01-2004, 12:34 PM
The latest study making the rounds on this (see all 52 pages at http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf )is by Felix Oberholzer of the Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf of UNC Chapel Hill.
As Glenn Reynolds writes "Their conclusion: "Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero." Or again, "even in the most pessimistic specification, five thousand downloads are needed to displace a single album sale."
This economic study confirms what many have suspected for a long time. The effects of p2p sharing on the demand for a product are many. Some are negative. Free content can cannibalize proprietary content. Some are positive. Free content can spur demand for that, or related content...."
As Glenn Reynolds writes "Their conclusion: "Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero." Or again, "even in the most pessimistic specification, five thousand downloads are needed to displace a single album sale."
This economic study confirms what many have suspected for a long time. The effects of p2p sharing on the demand for a product are many. Some are negative. Free content can cannibalize proprietary content. Some are positive. Free content can spur demand for that, or related content...."