This is the graph the record industry doesn’t want you to see.
I don't honestly think they care.
A revelation that other products are selling well doesn't diminish the legality of their argument whatsoever. And doubt regarding the morality of their argument (let alone their methods) hasn't found one bit of leverage over the years.
All the chart really does, is serve as a statistical reminder that the potential end of a business model has no necessary effect on the underlying product or service.
But the only industry arguments that data refutes, are the hyperbolic arm-waving PR nonsense that everyone had long since tuned out.
It diminishes the weight of their argument for legislative action, when the default is to take no action. The fact that illegal activity is occurring is not, on its own, sufficient justification to put extra time, money or legislation into fighting it. Here in the UK, where it's illegal to rip CDs onto an iPod, millions of people do anyway [[citation needed]], but not even the music industry cares.
When all the labels were doing was filing private copyright infringement suits against individuals, they didn't need any justification besides being legally in the right. But now they're lobbying for legislative support in enforcing their copyright. They're arguing that a) the prevalence of file-sharing is harming artists, and b) harming artists harms society, and therefore c) state-backed enforcement for their infringement claims will benefit society.
b) is the part of the argument that copyright reform proponents like to attack, but a) is just as important to the argument. The figures in TFA seem to show that music industry revenues grew over the last four years, and that artist revenues grew even more. If so, that puts a serious dent in the claim that file-sharing harms artists, and therefore in the argument for state action.
Yes. I wouldn't have bought nearly the amount of music that I have bought if it weren't for illegal file sharing I did when i was younger. I discovered most of my favorite artists through illegal downloading, and since then I've spent hundreds that I wouldn't otherwise have spent going to shows and buying music.
Historically in the record business (as in, since the birth of the record business up until about 2000) artists had almost no hope of ever making any money. Playing live gigs or putting out an album usually involved going into massive debt with a record company just to play a few shows or have a small demo release. The artists you ever saw in a record store, on the Billboard TopN, or playing big live shows are the vast, vast minority.
Countless artists just as talented never got that break, which was decided at the whim of record execs. A certain number of artists would be propped up for a period of time, and if some fell out of favor, they would be cut away and replaced from the endless supply of new ones doing anything they can to break in. There was a maximum number of acts that a record company would support at once, since that was the optimum number they had calculated for making profits; there was so much money being spent on things like marketing, advertisement campaigns, award ceremonies, etc and it you could generate more money by selectively picking just a few dozen artists to be "allowed" to be famous and marketing them like crazy.
The music industry is hugely, hugely better for actual artists today. You don't have to sign your house, car and life away to release music to people.
I don't honestly think they care.
A revelation that other products are selling well doesn't diminish the legality of their argument whatsoever. And doubt regarding the morality of their argument (let alone their methods) hasn't found one bit of leverage over the years.
All the chart really does, is serve as a statistical reminder that the potential end of a business model has no necessary effect on the underlying product or service.
But the only industry arguments that data refutes, are the hyperbolic arm-waving PR nonsense that everyone had long since tuned out.