Napster equals More Music Sales?

I was reading about how the demise of Napster only means less vulnerable (to litigation) versions of file-sharing software will take its place. There was an interesting aside about Hotline, the precursor to Napster, which was software used by the underground warez crowd to swap cracked software and MP3s. And then, there was a link to another article on Salon about the music industry's declining sales this year, which corresponds with a decline in the use of Napster. There are plenty of Napster fans that argue the file sharing service actually boosts sales because songs get more exposure and music lovers are willing to pay for something they enjoy. The one time I used Napster, I did end up buying what I downloaded, but I still think this is the exception to the rule.

Or, perhaps people are listening to A LOT more music because of Napster, therefore there's a corresponding small increase in sales.

People with tons of MP3s....

Were not even cd buyers anyway. People with tens and hundred gigs of MP3s never really contributed to the record industry anyway, they just like to rack up as many MP3s as they like, especially stuff that they don't listen to to begin with, they just want it because it's free.

I was just talking about this with my friends the other day. I totally believe that real music fans will still buy CDs and that mp3s is just kind of an accessory.

I admit that I have a ton of mp3s...and I just bought 4 albums in the last week!

That's a good point

There was also the argument that the five zillion pirated videogames in Asia don't really affect sales that much since the people who pirated the games wouldn't have bought all of them (non-pirated) anyway.

The piracy still does affect sales a little since the kid who has every pirated game out there would probably have bought at least a couple "original" versions if the fake ones weren't available.

So MP3s are like warez? A collectable?

Yah but

I agree with Danny's conjecture. If it was impossible to pirate, lots more people would by software in HK. No, they wouldn't buy has much software as they pirate but that the moment they pirate like 99% (or is it 100%).

Sony computes piracy based on the number of playstations in a certain area vs the number of games sold in an area where piracy is low. In other words if a game sells to 5% of the playstation population in one country but only to 1% in another they assume that piracy is 80%. I'm sure their calculation is not quite that simple but it makes some sense.

While I agree that MP3s *might* help sales in the short term, in the long term, once they are actually useful (ie, you've got an MP3 player in every stereo and in your car and walkman and media for them is cheap) at that point sales of CDs will be next to zero and owning CDs will be analogous to what owning Laser Discs was like. Only audiophiles will buy CDs. That's probably 10 year away though.