That was my theory since 1997 glad to see someone backing it up. free downloads FTW!

Hmmmm... weird results. Somehow I'm just not buying it though. As a pirate myself, if I download it, I won't later buy it. (Or rent.) The only exception is Doom 3, but that's only cuz I have such a huge amount of respect for Steam. I wanted to show my support.

That's some really interesting info. Thanks, eric.

this study is utter bollocks.
CD sales are down, filesharing is up, I haven't bought a CD since 2001 or something. But most of the files I download are independent music or friends, not major label chart releases, so I couldn't buy this stuff on CD even if I wanted to.

World is changing. CDs are dead. One bunch of academics doing one study is not going to convince me otherwise.

what next? "A recent study shows that after watching comedy central clips on youtube people go out and buy a TV" lol

"A recent study shows that after a journey on a train people demand more horseriding" pffff

I'm actually more prone to purchasing a product if I am exposed enough to become a fan. i.e. The Office, Until I saw a few clips on VideoSift I never saw a single episode, now I watch it religiously. I'm the same with artist's of music. I hear it an if I like enough of their stuff I'll get a CD.

if you're over 20, you're history.

oh, and you say you sample stuff for free and then maybe buy... well... in the old system, you couldn't sample stuff for free so easily. Radioplay generates revenue. P2P does not. The ideal future would be a system where everyone can share as much as they like and somehow some kind of tagging sends a tiny fraction of a dollar (or preferably euro!) back to the artist every time an ISP detects the transfer. But i don't think they have quite worked this out yet, and i don't know how to track iPod to iPod transfers, and the lawyers will keep arguing about 100 year old laws as long as they are paid $500 an hour for their hot air.

*discard

Discarding this post - discard requested by original submitter eric3579.