Suw Charman has written an excellent article for the Guardian on my pal Koleman Strumpf's empirical, quantitative research on the effect of downloading on record sales (he concluded that it doesn't really have one), and the music industry's content-free bluster in reply.
"We consider it a very flawed study," says Matt Phillips, a BPI spokesperson. Both the BPI and the International Federation for the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) have criticised the study for including the Christmas period when people are buying CDs as gifts.
"It's very straightforward to address these kinds of criticisms," says Strumpf. "We got rid of the Christmas season and just looked at the first half of our data. We still find the same effect."…
"Over the period 1999 to 2003, DVD prices fell by 25% and the price of players fell in the US from over $1,000 to almost nothing," says Strumpf. "At the same time, CD prices went up by 10%. Combined DVD and VHS tape sales went up by 500m, while CD sales fell by 200m, so a possible explanation is that people were spending on DVDs instead of CDs."
(Thanks, Suw!)
