

Study finds pirates 10 times more likely to buy music - quoderat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music

======
Dilpil
Study finds hardcore music fans 10 times more likely to pirate music.

~~~
mkyc
I get the feeling that Thomas Bayes would disagree with you. Sorry that I
can't be more precise.

------
rjurney
I haven't bit torrented any music or movies in a long time. Last week I really
wanted to see the sequel to a documentary I had just viewed on Youtube. Its
not available on Youtube, so I went to find it for purchase online. Its not on
iTunes or anywhere else for purchase.

Bit torrent really is often the most convenient way to get music/movies. I
want to pay to download this movie, but I can't.

~~~
tracy
No you don't want to pay. You say you do, but if you walked by a street and
two guys stood there, one guy offering you a DVD for free and not saying a
word, and the other guy yelling at you to buy the very same DVD from him,
you'd take the free one.

You don't want to pay for the movie, and if you really think that, you're
lying to yourself.

~~~
kingnothing
I don't think that it's fair for you to make that assumption. I believe many
people have the desire to support people who make great things in order to
reward them for what they have accomplished and to help inspire them to
continue to do so by showing them that their passion is of value to others.

------
tptacek
The original article, an autotranslation, was actually more informative than
this, and included the gem of a detail that the survey used deliberately
avoided wording that suggested "illegal" downloading.

In other words, this survey uncovered the shocking fact that people who had
downloaded music were 10x more likely to pay to download music than people who
never downloaded at all.

~~~
soldarnal
It's not as bad as you make it sound. There is no way for your "shocking fact"
to be true, since definitionally people who have never downloaded anything
have never paid to download anything either (people that pay for a download
and for some reason never complete it notwithstanding). The ratio, therefore,
would really be undefined, rather than 10:1.

The real inference, given what you say about the original article, is that
people who obtain music online, whether by means of purchase or not, are ten
times more likely to obtain music by means of purchase than those who never
obtain music online. Certainly not as perhaps interesting a finding as the
title, but neither as vapid as your summary.

~~~
tptacek
You think maybe you could track down and read the original before making
inferences based on my vapid summary? I'm interested in whether you still
think I'm off base here.

~~~
soldarnal
I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to refer to your summary as vapid; and I
certainly see now how you read it that way. I would ammend my post to add
"makes it to be" to the end of the last sentence. I meant that your summary
represents the "finding" as completely vapid.

I do trust that the detail from the article you point out, that "the survey
used deliberately avoided wording that suggested 'illegal' downloading", is
true. (Though, I'd still be grateful if you wanted to provide a link to the
original.) What I find to be off base is the logic of your interpretation ("In
other words..."), which makes their finding out to be a mere tautology. If
what you say in the first paragraph is true (which I believe it to be), I
don't think what you said in the second paragraph follows from that for the
reason I gave above.

------
trickjarrett
This isn't really news. There have been reports like this since Napster. The
Recording Industry ignores them and the media soon forgets.

~~~
quoderat
I thought it was news because every time someone posts about The Pirate Bay,
etc, and someone says, "Piracy increases sales of most media," someone always
comes back (it happened with the last major TPB thread on HN) with, "But no
study has ever shown that!"

Even though there are quite a few of them, and this recent one.

~~~
jimbokun
I didn't say "But no study has ever shown that!" but did ask "Has any study
ever shown that? I would like to know the answer (and am too lazy to Google
it)."

I appreciate you posting this to Hacker News, answering the question (even if
not specifically for my benefit). Thanks!

~~~
quoderat
Sorry for the exaggeration, but it wasn't just aimed at your comment. The idea
that piracy can in many circumstances increases sales is opposed religiously
by some (and not just those in the content industry), so those type of
comments pop up over and over again that I was parodying. Wasn't trying to
single you out. :-) I want to know the real evidence and answers as well, at
least to the best ability we humans have to gather them.

------
ShabbyDoo
How is causation shown? Isn't it most likely that those most into music both
download more music and buy more of it on physical media?

~~~
ShabbyDoo
Ummm...downmodded for what? If the study doesn't claim the relationship to be
causal (downloading causes buying), then its uninteresting as it doesn't
support anyone's position.

There was no indication that the study controlled for an individual's interest
level in music (overall amount consumed). So, if we presume the study to
simply examine the correlation of two binary variables (downloaded_at_least_1x
and bought_at_least_1x), the results could be explained if most of those
polled did not download or buy music or did both. Am I thinking about this
correctly?

~~~
ShabbyDoo
Sorry, this was at 0 when I replied to myself.

------
tvon
> Researchers found that those who downloaded "free" music – whether from
> lawful or seedy sources – were also 10 times more likely to pay for music.

So if you download the iTunes free track of the week, you're 10 times more
likely to pay for music.

------
tvon
Note: better coverage of the same (I think) study on Ars:

[http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-
buy-...](http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-
more-music-than-average-folks.ars)

------
ghostz00
Of course your 10 times more likely to buy music, because your looking for it.
But I find it hard to believe that if you pirate music you are more likely to
buy the album. I understand the "try before you buy" thought. But there are
easier ways to preview music than just pirating it. There is Itunes, Amazon,
and a ton of other music services you could use.

------
Pistos2
> Researchers found that those who downloaded "free" music – whether from
> lawful or seedy sources – were also 10 times more likely to pay for music.

10 times more likely to pay for music they've acquired, or 10 times more
likely to buy music, period? More explicit data is needed. Example: The
pirates acquire 10000 songs; pay for 100 of them (1%). The non-pirates acquire
10 songs, pay for 10 (100%). "The pirates have paid for ten times as many as
the non pirates."

But the results can swing the other way: Example: The pirates acquire 100
songs, pay for 1 of them (same 1%). Non-pirates acquire 10, pay for 10 (same
100%). Suddenly: "The non-pirates have paid for ten times as many as the
pirates."

So, simply by getting more pirate respondents to participate in your study,
you can manipulate the result increasingly in favour of piracy.

We need to see the data to be able to determine whether they really
corroborate the conclusion.

------
christofd
Damn, I thought they were talking about 'real pirates'. Arrrr, matey...

~~~
masomenos
likewise.

Now that actual crime-on-the-seas piracy is a going concern, there's even more
reason to stop using the term for filesharing.

------
dexen
Study finds `most people who are likely to buy music want to download it
quickly, too' or perhaps `people who don't know how to download music aren't
likely to do anything with the music at all'

The set of people buying music often, and people downloading are too much
overlapped just because of the vast popularity of both buying and downloading
to find any meaningful correlation between the sets. IMnsHO.

------
burke
> Wisely, the study did not rely on music pirates' honesty. Researchers asked
> music buyers to prove that they had proof of purchase.

I haven't read exactly how this study was conducted, but it might be worth
noting that some pirates would feel they have something to prove, and be more
likely to comply with the request for proof.

------
weegee
they're also 10 times more likely to say "shiver me timbers" when prompted.

actually I have downloaded music a lot in the past, from allofmp3.com and
mp3sparks.com, and if I like it enough I do buy the actual CD because I want
the complete package. Some music I purchased online through the Apple iTunes
music store was so bad I wished I could return it. But no returns. Every CD
store I know of will at least give you store credit.

