A Copyfighter’s Musings

Stan Liebowitz has produced yet another article on file-sharing’s impact on record sales.  This time, he approaches the issue first from a theoretical basis, criticizing the argument that sampling via P2P will increase record sales.  He then questions the results of Eric Boorstein as well as Professors Oberholzer and Strumpf, which suggested that file-sharing might not hurt record sales and thus went against Liebowitz’s own analysis.

I do not know enough about the economics here to say whether Liebowitz’s criticisms are right or wrong.  However, as I’ve said before, I generally agree with Liebowitz’s point that the industry’s declining sales along with the economic theoretical basis creates a stronger presumption that file-sharing will (at least in the long run) harm record sales.  The alternative explanations aren’t necessarily wrong, but they have to provide a very strong case to overcome economic theory’s expectations and recent trends in record sales and file-sharing.

Filed by Derek Slater at 8:49 pm under General news
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