Ares: File Sharing Can Help CD Sales
Ares – and p2p file sharing software in general – has long been blamed for the apparent slump in music sales. Blamed, that is, by those experiencing the slump. The truth isn’t so easy to discern, however, and recent studies have shown that some popular albums have actually increased sales as a direct result of being shared on p2p networks. This news is bound to confuse and disappoint those who would see Ares banned forever, as it removes the most potent of their arguments against file sharing.
Incorrect Figures
Ares has always been the subject of erroneous figures and statistics released by aggrieved parties. Statistics about file sharing are incredibly difficult to prove, and yet some groups insist that they can measure – to the granularity of a single download – the ‘lost revenue’ on their wares.
Ares has few friends in the music and movie industries, and one of the more powerful groups who are vehemently against it and file sharing in general is the MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA are one of the groups that uses statistics of dubious integrity as though they were proven fact. As an example, they claimed to have lost $2.3 billion to Internet ‘piracy’ in 2005. This huge figure was later discovered to be based on the assumption that one download was equivalent to a lost sale, which is clearly a flawed assumption. The MPAA and similar groups argue that there is no other reliable way to calculate the loss; in fact as this method is so fundamentally flawed, there is no reliable way at all to calculate the alleged loss. And that’s just the point: no one really knows.
Increase In Sales
A study (Felix Olberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf, “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis” Journal of Political Economy, 2007) which inspected the logs of downloads on p2p networks has concluded that file sharing has no negative effect on CD sales. In fact the study went further: some of the most popular albums would actually be improved due to the increased exposure to their target markets.
Sea Change In Business Model
Ares and other p2p file sharing applications are quickly gaining in popularity. This trend is something that has been noticed by some of the more progressive minds in the music industry, and they are slowly coming to the conclusion that Ares and its stable mates will never be beaten.
File sharing is now so ingrained on the minds of computer users – the younger generations especially – that it is becoming, has become, a fact of life. The only way to address this issue, these progressive thinkers reason, is to turn the situation to their advantage. Ventures like Spotify and We7 signal a move by big business (Sony is one very notable example) to embrace file sharing and free music; those who continue to resist are in danger of falling so far behind the curve that a recover seems unlikely.